abertay.ac.uk Curriculum for Excellence, Higher Education and Citizenship le goes here Jim Moir

abertay.ac.uk CfE and the Citizenship Controversy

abertay.ac.uk CfE and the Citizenship Controversy CfE risks moulding children into obedient ‘do-gooders’. Too much emphasis on apolitical forms of citizenship.

abertay.ac.uk CfE and the Citizenship Controversy

abertay.ac.uk Collaborative ways of working. Citizenship as something “you live”. CfE and the Citizenship Controversy

abertay.ac.uk Not enough to raise money for charity. What about reasons for poverty or political change? CfE and the Citizenship Controversy

abertay.ac.uk What Kind of Citizenship? Biesta (2008, 2013) offers a critique of the “responsible citizen” capacity within CfE. He considers four different aspects of citizenship.

abertay.ac.uk Individualistic more than collective: – knowledge and understanding for decision-making – skills, competencies, and personal qualities – values and dispositions – being an ‘effective citizen’ (creative, active, enterprising) What Kind of Citizenship?

abertay.ac.uk Social more than political – participate in political, economic, social and cultural life. – engaged with the community (voluntary work, engagement in local matters). – respect for others, understand different beliefs and cultures, engage with ethical issues. What Kind of Citizenship?

abertay.ac.uk Active citizenship – experiential learning but tends to be vague. – activity at what level: social or political? What Kind of Citizenship?

abertay.ac.uk Community and plurality – geographical – cultural – political Biesta concludes that the Scottish approach runs the risk of depoliticizing citizenship. What Kind of Citizenship?

abertay.ac.uk CfE and The Process Curriculum CfE explicitly moves away from a centrally prescribed curriculum. This is allied to a modified process curricular model based upon a flexible and open-ended engagement with learning rather than a pre-determined content driven model.

abertay.ac.uk A process curriculum is therefore founded upon: – democratic values – structured learning activities that enable students to develop a sense of inclusion and citizenship. This develops a reflexive stance on learning and the ability to question matters such that enquiry is seen as open-ended. CfE and The Process Curriculum

abertay.ac.uk Bernstein (1971) characterised this kind of curricular reform as a move from a: – ‘collection code’ in which subject boundaries are relatively fixed – towards an ‘integrated code’ where subject boundaries are permeable and less strong and where there is a focus on interdisciplinary study CfE and The Process Curriculum

abertay.ac.uk On the face of it, this can be considered as a shift towards transformative education, where there is less specialisation and more integration of learners and knowledge. – towards organic social integration (Durkheim (1893) where social roles arise through differences between people and their own engagement with education. CfE and The Process Curriculum

abertay.ac.uk CfE is arguably perhaps more in line with the spirit of the ‘democratic intellect’ (Davie, 1961) in maintaining a focus on the development of the citizen. This has the potential to link up well with higher education and the development of ‘quizzicality’ or ‘criticality’ (Limond, 1984) CfE and The Process Curriculum

abertay.ac.uk Curriculum for Excellence and Scottish Higher Education GUNI 2013 report asks: – What kinds of knowledge, knowledge epistemologies and knowledge ecologies are required to transform the world into a place of peace, happiness, justice and equity for all citizens of the world? – What roles, if any, can higher education institutions play in this regard?

abertay.ac.uk Perhaps Scotland’s much admired ET approach can go some way to delivering more transformative learning experience. There is considerable scope here for to reforms dovetail with CfE and its concern with ‘active’ citizenship. Curriculum for Excellence and Scottish Higher Education

abertay.ac.uk As pupils move from the Senior Phase there is an expectation that HE in Scotland will have to meet the needs of these ‘new’ learners through adapting or altering their curricula and course provision. This process has already begun in many institutions, and in some cases pre-dates concerns with CfE. Curriculum for Excellence and Scottish Higher Education

abertay.ac.uk But… The focus is in many was still individualistic through its concern with the development of students’ capacities or attributes. There are questions about the sociological impact on HE and in what ways can the focus on the development of certain attributes can be squared with diversity and plurality. Curriculum for Excellence and Scottish Higher Education

abertay.ac.uk The Authentic/Active Citizen Capacities and attributes have become associated with citizenship and have been applied to various contemporary issues: – national economic development, – environmental sustainability and responsibility, – global trends in information technology.

abertay.ac.uk A central aspect of this focus on the development of citizenship is that of the development of the autonomous authentic self. Anders Petersen (2011) – ‘authentic self-realization’ and the pathology of depression when people fail to maintain a sense of self-development. The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk The flip side of this - the drive to develop capacities and attributes as a discourse that normalizes the focus on citizenship as the achievement of authentic selves. Boltanski and Chiapello (2005) The New Spirit of Capitalism – the emergence of a new ideological commitment to capitalism based on self-realisation. The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk Critique of capitalism has taken two broad forms: social and artistic. – The social critique has involved exposing the exploitative nature of capitalism in terms of such aspects as poverty, social injustice, and rampant individualism. – The artistic critique has focused on the ways in which capitalism reduces people to being cogs in an economic machine and thereby, delivering a technocratic and dehumanized society. The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk The artistic critique is concerned with the oppression of individual creativity, autonomy, spontaneity, and authenticity through the relentless pursuit of standardisation. Capitalism (through neoliberalism) has absorbed this critique by stressing the need for individuals to seek self-realisation through the various inter-connecting spheres of life (in work, through education, at home). The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk This new form of ideology requires that individuals consider themselves as an ongoing ‘projects’ of authentic self-realisation. This is attained through activities that allow this aspect of the self to be developed in the workplace, private life, leisure, and through education. The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk Individuals must learn to develop and deploy a range of attributes that allow them to be – flexible – mobile – enterprising – creative – adaptable – malleable The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk “What is relevant is to be always pursuing some sort of activity, never to be without a project, without ideas, to be always looking forward to, and preparing for, something along with other persons, who are brought together by the same drive for activity.” Chiapello, E. and Fairclough, N. (2002) ‘Understanding the New Management Ideology: A Transdisciplinary Contribution from Critical Discourse Analysis and New Sociology of Capitalism’, Discourse and Society 13(2), p.192. The Authentic/Active Citizen

abertay.ac.uk Does this characterisation of modern subjectivity relate to the common stock of capacities and attributes as an attempt to specify the normative content of authentic self-realisation? Some Questions

abertay.ac.uk Does this represent ‘empowerment’ whilst also normalizing the notion that the student needs to measure up to capacities and attributes in order to acquire the human capital necessary to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world, and with particular reference to ‘the market’? Some Questions

abertay.ac.uk Does the connection between CfE and HE in Scotland pave the way for a focus on citizenship and the democratisation of knowledge? Is there a danger that this may be skewed by a concern with the development of authentic self- realisation as a route towards the acquisition of social capital and employability? Some Questions