Local Citizenship in the Global Arena: Educating for community participation and change(Routledge Research in Education Policy and Politics)

Local Citizenship in the Global Arena proposes a reconsideration of both citizenship and citizenship education, moving away equally from prevailing ‘global citizenship’ and ‘fundamental British values’ approaches towards a curriculum for education that is essentially about creating cosmopolitan, included and inclusive, politically-engaged citizens of communities local, national and global. Viewing education as both problem and solution, Findlow argues that today’s climate of rapid and unpredictable geopolitical and cultural re-scoping requires an approach to citizenship education that both reflects and shapes society, paying attention to relationships between the local and global aspects of political voice, equality and community. Drawing on a range of international examples, she explores the importance and possibilities of a form of education that instead of promoting divisive competition, educates about citizenship in its various forms, and encourages the sorts of open and radical thinking that can help young people cross ideological and physical borders and use their voice in line with their own, and others’, real, long-term interests. Successive chapters develop this argument by critically examining the key elements of citizenship discourses through the interrelated lenses of geopolitical change, nationalism, the competition fetish, critical pedagogy, multiculturalism, protest politics, feminism and ecology, and highlighting ways in which the situationally diverse lived realities of ‘citizenship’ have been mediated by different forms of education. The book draws attention to how we think of education’s place in a world of combined globalisation, localism, anti-state revolt and xenophobia. It will be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, political science, philosophy, sociology, social policy, cultural studies and anthropology.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1. The policy problem: finding a meaningful frame of reference for citizenship education – the UK example 2. Locating citizenship: from the Modernist education project, through regionalism to border-crossing 3. Educating for citizenship as radical democracy 4. Education for community citizenship: equality and critical multiculturalism 5. Education and protest citizenship 6. Feminist citizenship: education and change in gendered societies 7. Ecological stakeholder citizenship: educating for sustainability Final thoughts: the educational mandate for boundary-crossing in an interdependent world

About the Author :
Sally Findlow is Senior Lecturer in Education at Keele University, UK. Prior to coming to Keele she had spent her working life (and some studying life) in Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Review :
‘In this challenging, accessible and important contribution to scholarship, Sally Findlow argues for a reconceptualisation of citizenship education, based on a powerful critique that draws on and synthesises political, feminist, ecological and multicultural perspectives and literatures. She is to be congratulated on bringing together discussions of citizenship education policies across schooling and higher education seeking to derive 'a model of citizenship that involves localism, stakeholding, cosmopolitanism and critical multiculturalism.’ Hugh Starkey, Professor of Citizenship and Human Rights Education, UCL Institute of Education, UK ‘Sally Findlow extends the debate on what education for citizenship and social justice need to look like in our global age, beginning by critiquing citizenship education policy and practice in England, and highlighting tensions in the policies of the UK government, and in the professional and non-governmental organisations set up to support teachers in England. She extends her discussion to encompass a wide-range of international examples and her research on women, equality, and citizenship in various Gulf States. This is an engaging and sometimes provocative text.’ Audrey Osler, Professor Emerita and founder of the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education, University of Leeds, UK