Question

Critically discuss the role of education in building national identity and

citizenship.​

Answer 1

Answer:

In examining a complex interplay between nation-building, social identity, and citizenship education globally we need to draw on comparative and international discourses concerning other cultures (Stromquist & Monkman, 2000; Chabbott & Elliott, 2002; Biraimah, 2005; Saha, 2005; Zajda, Majhanovich, & Rust, 2006; Zajda, Davies, & Majhanovich, 2008). One such attempt was the book Understanding Others, Education Ourselves (Chabbott & Elliott, 2002, p. 9), where it is argued that comparative and international discourses surrounding other cultures can often lead us to ‘identify and question beliefs and assumptions that are taken for granted’, by ‘making the familiar strange’ and the ‘strange familiar’, and questioning the ‘universality’ of our beliefs and assumptions. This is a good and pragmatic starting point for our analysis of the nexus between nation-building, identity, and citizenship education. At the core of our discussion is the very notion of national identity and its ongoing social and political transformation in the global culture (Giddens, 1990; Secombe & Zajda, 1999; Saha, 2005; Smolicz, 2006; Zajda, Davies, & Majhanovich, 2008).