Contextualising Education and the Production of Citizen Identities

Contextualising Education and the Production of Citizen Identities Barbara Crossouard As described in the rationale below, this symposium engages with citizenship discourses used by higher education students in the... [ view full abstract ]

Contextualising Education and the Production of Citizen Identities
Barbara Crossouard

As described in the rationale below, this symposium engages with citizenship discourses used by higher education students in the construction and performance of their identities in four contrasting post-colonial, predominantly Muslim contexts. The research is based on empirical case studies in Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal which explored how their identities were constructed through different discourses of nation, religion, ethnicity and gender.

This opening paper of the symposium will outline the theoretical frameworks which we draw upon to understand the production of citizen identities. Citizenship concerns the relationship between the individual and society which is mediated through education systems, in particular through the relay of their different national curricula. Our focus on higher education students is premised on their sustained and successful engagement with their respective national curricula. The research therefore takes account of the relationship between identities and educational curricula, which we see as being laden with particular values and vocabularies, through which the subjectivities of pupils and students are constituted.

Using these theoretical frameworks, the paper also deconstructs the emergence of the (Western) nation-state in association with modern forms of ‘secular’ democracy and citizenship. In this process, we highlight the gendered construction of the ideal citizen, and the contemporary production of religion (particularly Islam) as antithetical to Western democratic ideals. This paper therefore provides the theoretical framing for the two papers which follow.

Establishing national citizens: distinguishing the nation Naureen Durrani In this paper we draw upon the theoretical understandings of identity outlined in the previous paper to consider how young citizens in higher... [ view full abstract ]

Establishing national citizens: distinguishing the nation
Naureen Durrani

In this paper we draw upon the theoretical understandings of identity outlined in the previous paper to consider how young citizens in higher education describe their national affiliation.

We explore how young citizens construct their sense of national belonging through implicit and explicit discourses of difference from other nations. In the postcolonial contexts of Senegal and Pakistan we trace the ways in which discourses of national affiliation are permeated by those of religion and gender. In these two predominantly Muslim contexts we contrast the different youth constructions of Islam within their articulations of national identity. Importantly, despite the local differences, we highlight how in both contexts these discursive configurations work to consolidate national identity. We discuss how this converges with and diverges from the assumptions embedded within secular modernity. Within this discussion we critique the ways that gender is implicated throughout.

Our interest here is in how educated youth have appropriated discourses of distinction to privilege their own national and religious identities through opposition to external ‘others’. In conclusion we reflect on the work of the curriculum and its implications for production of citizen values.

Fractured states: differentiation and the internal ‘other’ Mairead Dunne In this paper we again explore how educated youth employ discourses of difference. Here, however, we trace how these discourses of difference... [ view full abstract ]

Fractured states: differentiation and the internal ‘other’
Mairead Dunne

In this paper we again explore how educated youth employ discourses of difference. Here, however, we trace how these discourses of difference worked to fracture rather than produce a shared national imaginary.

Our analysis focuses on the intersecting discourses of gender, ethnicity and religion and how these are appropriated by youth to construct internal ‘others’ through distinction within the nation state.

We discuss these processes with specific reference to Lebanon as a multi-sectarian state that includes Christians alongside Shi’a and Sunni Muslims and Nigeria as multi-ethnic state with geo-political divisions between Northern Sunni Muslims and Southern Christians. We reflect on how youth discourses (re-)produce internal differences which define and subordinate minority identities. We discuss how idealized projections of the citizen subject are implicated in the production of the marginalised internal ‘other’ in ways that threaten notions of national unity.

In the case of Lebanon, our analysis focuses on how these exclusions from a shared national imaginary intersect with discourses of religion to produce new forms of cosmopolitan citizenship.

We conclude the paper by drawing out how education provokes internal differentiation and implications for the explicit and implicit values projected through the curriculum.

This symposium draws upon recent research to engage with citizenship discourses used by higher education students in four postcolonial contexts. Our interest is in exploring how the values embedded in the curriculum have been... [ view full abstract ]

This symposium draws upon recent research to engage with citizenship discourses used by higher education students in four postcolonial contexts. Our interest is in exploring how the values embedded in the curriculum have been relayed within youth discourses of citizenship. In particular, we are concerned with how youth draw on discourses of nation, religion, ethnicity and gender in the production of their identities.

Case studies in Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal engaged with educated youth to explore the articulation of their citizen identities. The research focused on higher education students as exemplary products of their respective national curricula.

This research is especially relevant amidst the prevailing concerns about the ‘youth bulge’ in the Global South, associated with fears about youth under-employment and their vulnerabilities to religious fundamentalisms. Our particular interest is in discussing the work of education and the curriculum in producing or reducing inequalities amongst youth in the Global South.