Itʼs 2019. So Why Do 21st-Century Skills Still Matter? | EdSurge News
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Itʼs 2019. So Why Do 21st-Century
Skills Still Matter?
Suzie Boss
When tech giant Amazon announced its search for a second headquarters
site, cities across the country scrambled to produce persuasive pitches. In
Loudoun County, Virginia, fourth-graders from Goshen Post Elementary
School took up the challenge personally. To create compelling video
arguments, student teams interviewed experts in economic development,
researched state history and geography, and even wrote poems to sing the
praises of their region. When Northern Virginia was ultimately picked as a
new HQ site, students were as proud as any civic leaders from their
community.
The story offers a good example of how education is shifting as we wrap up
two decades of the 21st century. Instead of relying on textbooks and
teacher direction, these students had to think critically about unfolding
events, collaborate with peers and adults, and make creative use of digital
tools to communicate their ideas. In the process, they also learned plenty
about social studies and civic engagement. For Loudoun County
Superintendent Eric Williams, what makes such authentic learning
experiences worthwhile is how they prepare students “to make meaningful
contributions to the world.”
4 Cs and More
The call for 21st-century learning dates back more than two decades, when
blue-ribbon committees, policymakers, business leaders, and education
experts began sounding the same alarm: Yesterdayʼs focus on
memorization and rote learning would not prepare students for a fastchanging, increasingly automated, information-saturated world.
Figuring out how schools should respond,
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Although some
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Itʼs 2019. So Why Do 21st-Century Skills Still Matter? | EdSurge News
however, remains an open question for many
communities. In my own work with educators
around the globe, Iʼve watched the emergence
of 21st-century trends such as makerspaces,
flipped learning, genius hour, gamification, and
more. Each has its own champions, teaching
practices, and even hashtags; all have the
potential to disrupt what we think of as
traditional, teacher-centered education by
giving students more voice in how they learn.
8/30/19, 10)16 AM
Although some
educators have
grown weary of the
term “21st century
learning,” the drive to
transform education
“matters more today
—a lot more—than
when we started the
conversation.”
Although some educators have grown weary of Ken Kay, CEO of EdLeader21
the term “21st-century learning,” the drive to
transform education “matters more today—a lot more—than when we
started the conversation,” says Ken Kay, who in 2002 co-founded an
influential consortium called the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (later
rebranded Partnership for 21st Century Learning, or P21.) He currently
serves as CEO of EdLeader21, a national network of Battelle for Kids.
In hindsight, Kay can identify three phases that have been critical in the
21st-century learning movement. “The first was defining,” he says, with
experts generating a laundry list of skills and competencies considered
essential for studentsʼ future success. Next came the communication
phase, when those 20-plus competencies were condensed into a more
memorable set of 4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and
creativity.
These core competencies remain relevant as we get further into the current
century, argues David Ross, global education consultant and former CEO of
P21, “because they seem to be the one constant in a rapidly changing
social and economic environment.”
The third and current phase of the 21st-century learning movement is all
about “empowerment,” says Kay. “People are interested in not just adopting
the 4Cs, but understanding what they can do to customize this framework
at the local level. What can they design that works well for their
community?”
EdLeader21 has developed a toolkit to guide districts and independent
schools in developing their own “portrait of a graduate” as a visioning
exercise. In some communities, global citizenship rises to the top of the
wish list of desired outcomes. Others emphasize entrepreneurship, civic
engagement, or traits like persistence or self-management. Kay estimates
that some 800 school systems across the U.S have developed portraits so
far.
When stakeholders in Loudoun County, Virginia, went through the visioning
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process, they decided to emphasize the 4Cs (along with content mastery),
plus the competency of “contributing.” Explains Superintendent Williams,
“By this we mean contributing to the world through careers in the public
sector, the private sector, and the not-for-profit sector; through civic
engagement; and through community service. When a student is a
contributor,” he adds, “it turbo-charges their ability to employ the other
competencies and their content knowledge.”
The Human Factor
As the 21st-century learning movement
expands internationally, weʼre seeing an
abundance of frameworks, assessments, and
semantic labels as different organizations put
their spin on whatʼs worth knowing.
The unifying theme
of these various
frameworks seems to
be the human factor.
PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment) now compares
the global competence and collaborative problem-solving skills of students
from different countries along with more traditional scores for reading,
math, and science. ISTE Standards for Students highlight digital citizenship
and computational thinking as key skills that will enable students to thrive
as empowered learners. The U.S. Department of Education describes a
globally competent student as one who can investigate the world, weigh
perspectives, communicate effectively with diverse audiences, and take
action.
The unifying theme of these various frameworks seems to be the human
factor. “The core skills of collaboration, communication, and critical thinking
are things that humans do well and machines not so well,” argues Ross.
“Machines are getting better at them,” he adds, “but perform them best in
concert with humans.”
From Mission to Methods
How wide is the gap between lofty aspirations for learning and day-to-day
classroom practice? Itʼs hard to measure, but leaders at the forefront of the
21st-century learning movement tell me they still see too many students
sitting passively while teachers deliver instruction; too much technology is
still used to replace routine tasks rather than turbo-charge the experience
of learning.
Frameworks provide mental models, but “donʼt usually help educators know
what to do differently,” argues technology leadership expert Scott McLeod
in his latest book, Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning. He and coauthor Julie Graber outline deliberate shifts that help teachers redesign
traditional lessons to emphasize goals such as critical thinking, authenticity,
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traditional lessons to emphasize goals such as critical thinking, authenticity,
and conceptual understanding. (See the resource list below for more
suggested readings and teaching tools.)
More examples and practical strategies will help chart the way forward.
Translating from vision to classroom implementation “is the journey weʼre all
on now,” says Ken Kay.
Heather Wolpert-Gawron offers a good role. . . too much
model. She wears a number of hats as middle
technology is still
school teacher, instructional coach, and author
used to replace
(@tweenteacher). In the classroom, she
routine tasks rather
teaches collaboration skills by challenging
than turbo-charging
students to solve mysteries, and then debrief
the experience of
how well they worked together. She fires up
studentsʼ communication skills (along with their learning.
engagement) by having them interview an
astrophysicist about the science of superheroes. She leverages social
media and blogging to reflect on what works and shares her insights with
colleagues.
When coaching other teachers to make similar moves, Wolpert-Gawron
encourages them to “tease apart what it means to collaborate,
communicate, think critically. This is a language that teachers at all grade
levels, in all subjects, are able to embrace.” The more concrete, the better.
For example, if the big goal is student-led inquiry, teachers might
brainstorm “how to see if a kid is curious. What questions are they asking?
Do their answers spark even more questions?” To cultivate healthy curiosity,
teachers can remind students “to hit pause [in their thinking] and take a
mental screenshot. Itʼs empowering for students to realize, ‘Oh, so I do have
ideas!ʼ”
The good news is, thereʼs no shortage of creative ideas for fulfilling the
promise of 21st-century learning. In all kinds of contexts, I see teachers
designing learning experiences that challenge students to not only imagine
the future, but help to shape it. The challenge that remains is making sure
all students have similar opportunities to dream and do.
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Credit: EdSurge. Full sized infographic here.
A 21st-Century Reading List
Looking for more resources to support 21st-century learning? Here are
suggestions from Suzie Boss:
1. Wondering how to teach and assess 21st-century competencies?
The Buck Institute for Education offers a wide range of resources, including
the book, PBL for 21st Century Success: Teaching Critical Thinking,
Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity (Boss, 2013), and
downloadable rubrics for each of the 4Cs.
2. For more strategies about harnessing technology for deeper
learning, listen to the EdSurge podcast featuring edtech expert and author
Scott McLeod.
3. Eager to see 21st-century learning in action? Getting Smart offers
suggestions for using school visits as a springboard for professional
learning, including a list of recommended sites. Bob Pearlman, a leader in
21st century learning, offers more recommendations.
4. Book group discussions can jumpstart conversations among
colleagues. Here are three titles certain to lead to lively discussions about
the future of learning:
Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based
Thinking Change Schools captures the insights of veteran school
leaders from Albemarle County Public Schools, a Virginia district known
for innovation.
What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across
America shares highlights of author Ted Dintersmithʼs 50-state quest
across the country in search of teaching and learning retooled for the
future.
Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need offers a
series of provocations to invite readers to consider how education must
change. Author Chris Lehmann is founding principal of highly regarded
Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia; Zak Chase is a former
SLA teacher.
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Page 5 of 5
Intercultural Education
ISSN: 1467-5986 (Print) 1469-8439 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20
Educating citizens in diverse societies
James A. Banks
To cite this article: James A. Banks (2011) Educating citizens in diverse societies, Intercultural
Education, 22:4, 243-251, DOI: 10.1080/14675986.2011.617417
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2011.617417
Published online: 05 Dec 2011.
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https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ceji20
Intercultural Education
Vol. 22, No. 4, August 2011, 243–251
Educating citizens in diverse societies
James A. Banks*
College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Immigration is increasing racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistics, and religious
diversity in nations around the world, which is challenging existing concepts of
citizenship and citizenship education. In this article, I challenge assimilationist
conceptions of citizenship education and argue that citizenship education should
be transformed so that it will enable students to acquire the knowledge, skills,
and commitments needed to become effective civic participants in their communities, nation-state, and the world.
Keywords: immigration; diversity; citizenship; citizenship
multicultural citizenship; multicultural education; citizen action
education;
Migration within and across nation-states is a worldwide phenomenon. The movement of people across national boundaries is as old as the nation-state itself.
However, never before in the history of the world has the movement of diverse
racial, cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups within and across nationstates been as numerous and rapid or raised such complex and difficult questions
about citizenship, human rights, democracy, and education. Many worldwide
trends and developments are challenging the notion of educating students to function in one nation-state. These trends include the ways in which people are moving back and forth across national borders, the rights of movement permitted by
the European Union, and the rights codified in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
Assimilation, diversity, and global migration
Prior to the ethnic revitalization movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the aim of
schools in most nation-states was to develop citizens who internalized national values, venerated national heroes, and accepted glorified versions of national histories.
These goals of citizenship education are obsolete today because many people have
multiple national commitments, live in more than one nation, and practice ‘flexible
citizenship’ (Ong 1999). However, the development of citizens who have global
and cosmopolitan identities and commitments is contested in nation-states around
the world because nationalism remains strong. Nationalism and globalization coexist
in tension worldwide. The number of United Nations (UN) member states increased
from 51 in 1945 to 192 in 2006 (UN 2006). The number of people living outside
*Email: jbanks@u.washington.edu
ISSN 1467-5986 print/ISSN 1469-8439 online
Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2011.617417
http://www.tandfonline.com
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J.A. Banks
their country of birth or citizenship grew from 120 million in 1990 to 160 million
in 2000 (Martin and Widgren 2002). In 2008, the world’s population was almost
seven billion; approximately 200 million migrants were living outside the nation in
which they were born, which was about 3% of the world’s population (De Blij
2008).
Democratic nations around the world must deal with complex educational issues
when trying to respond to the problems wrought by international migration in ways
consistent with their ideologies and declarations. Researchers have amply documented the wide gap between democratic ideals and the school experiences of
minority groups in nations around the world. The chapters in The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education (Banks 2009) describe how
students such as the Maori in New Zealand, Muslims in France, and Mexican
Americans in the United States experience discrimination in school because of their
cultural, ethnic, racial, religious, and linguistic differences. In 40 chapters written
by scholars in various nations, The Companion describes the educational experiences of diverse groups worldwide.
When they are marginalized within school and treated as the ‘Other,’ ethnic
minority students – such as Turkish students in Germany, Muslim students in
France, and Korean students in Japan – tend to emphasize their ethnic identity and
to have weak attachments to their nation-state. The four Muslim young men who
were convicted for bombing the London subway on 7 July 2005, had immigrant
parents but were British citizens. However, they apparently were not structurally
integrated into British mainstream society and had a weak identification with the
UK and non-Muslim British citizens.
Democratic nation-states and their schools must grapple with a number of salient issues, paradigms, and ideologies as their populations become more culturally,
racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse. The extent to which nation-states
make multicultural citizenship possible, the achievement gap between minority and
majority groups, and the language rights of immigrant and minority groups are
among the unresolved and contentious issues with which diverse nations and
schools must deal.
Nations throughout the world are trying to determine whether they will perceive
themselves as multicultural and allow immigrants to experience multicultural citizenship (Kymlicka 1995), or continue to embrace an assimilationist ideology. In
nation-states that embrace multicultural citizenship, immigrant and minority groups
can retain important aspects of their languages and cultures as well as have full citizenship rights.
Nations in various parts of the world have responded to the citizenship and cultural rights of immigrant and minority groups in different ways. Since the ethnic
revitalization movements of the 1960s and 1970s that were stimulated by the Black
Civil Right Movement in the US, many of the national leaders and citizens in the
United States, Canada, and Australia have viewed their nations as multicultural
democracies (Banks 2009; Banks and Lynch 1986). An ideal exists within these
nations that minority groups can retain important elements of their community
cultures and participate fully in the national civic community. However, there is a
wide gap between the ideals within these nations and the experiences of ethnic
groups. Ethnic minority groups in the United States (Nieto 2009), Canada (Joshee
2009), and Australia (Inglis 2009) experience discrimination in both schools and
wider society.
Intercultural Education
245
Other nations, such as Japan (Hirasawa 2009) and Germany (Luchtenberg
2009), have been reluctant to view themselves as multicultural. In the past, citizenship was closely linked to biological heritage and characteristics in both Germany
and Japan. However, the biological conception of citizenship in these two nations
has eroded significantly within the last decade. However, it left a tenacious legacy
in both places. A statement made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting of the Christian Democratic Union party in October 2010 that made headlines
around the world evokes Germany’s troubled past of dealing with ethnic and racial
groups. Merkel said, ‘We kidded ourselves a while. We said, “they won’t stay, [after
some time] they will be gone” but that isn’t reality. And of course, the approach [to
build] a multicultural [society] and to live side by side and to enjoy each
other. . .has failed, utterly failed’ (Clark 2010). Castles (2004) refers to Germany’s
response to immigrants as ‘differential exclusion,’ which is ‘partial and temporary
integration of immigrant workers into society – that is, they are included in those
subsystems of society necessary for their economic role: the labor market, basic
accommodation, work-related health care, and welfare’ (32). However, immigrants
are excluded from full social, economic, and civic participation in Germany.
Since the 1960s and 1970s, the French have dealt with immigrant groups in
ways distinct from the United States, Canada, and Australia. La laïcité is a highly
influential concept in France, the aim of which is to keep church and state separate
(Lemaire 2009). La laïcité emerged in response to the hegemony the Catholic
Church exercised in France over the schools and other institutions for centuries. A
major goal of state schools in France is to assure that youth obtain a secular education. Muslim students in French state schools, for example, are prevented from
wearing the hijab (veil) and other religious symbols (Bowen 2007). In France the
explicit goal is assimilation (called integration) and inclusion (Castles 2004). Immigrant groups can become full citizens in France but the price is cultural
assimilation.
Balancing unity and diversity
Cultural, ethnic, racial, linguistic, and religious diversity exists in most nations
(Banks 2009). One of the challenges to diverse democratic nation-states is to provide
opportunities for different groups to maintain aspects of their community cultures
while constructing a nation in which these groups are structurally included and to
which they feel allegiance. A delicate balance of diversity and unity should be an
essential goal of democratic nations and of teaching and learning in democratic
societies (Banks et al. 2005). Unity must be an important aim when nation-states are
responding to diversity within their populations. They can protect the rights of
minorities and enable diverse groups to participate only when they are unified
around a set of democratic values such as justice and equality (Gutmann 2004).
In the past, nations have tried to create unity by forcing racial, cultural, ethnic,
linguistic, and religious minorities to give up their community languages and
cultures in order to participate in the national civic culture. In the United States,
Mexican American students were punished for speaking Spanish in school and
Native American youth were forced to attend boarding schools where their cultures
and languages were eradicated (Lomawaima and McCarty 2006). In Australia,
aboriginal children were taken from their families and forced to live on state
missions and reserves (Broome 1982), a practice that lasted from 1869 to 1969.
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J.A. Banks
These children are called ‘The stolen generation.’ Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime
Minister, issued a formal apology to the stolen generation on 13 February 2008. In
order to embrace the national civic culture, students from diverse groups must feel
that it reflects their experiences, hopes, and dreams. Schools and nations cannot
marginalize the cultures of groups and expect them to feel structurally included
within the nation and to develop a strong allegiance to it.
Citizenship education should be transformed in the twenty-first century because
of the deepening diversity in nations around the world. Citizens in a diverse democratic society should be able to maintain attachments to their cultural communities
as well as participate effectively in the shared national culture. Unity without diversity results in cultural repression and hegemony, as was the case during the Cultural
Revolution that occurred in the People’s Republic of China from 1966 to 1976 and
when the Communist Party dominated the Soviet Union. Diversity without unity
leads to Balkanization and the fracturing of the nation-state, as occurred during the
Iraq war when sectarian conflict and violence threatened that fragile nation in the
late 2000s. Diversity and unity should coexist in a delicate balance in democratic
multicultural nations.
Nations such as France, the UK, and Germany are struggling to balance unity
and diversity. A French law that became effective on 15 March 2004 prevents
Muslim girls from wearing the veil (hijab) to state schools (Bowen 2007;
Lemaire 2009). This law is a manifestation of la laïcité as well as a refusal of the
French government to deal explicitly with the complex racial, ethnic, and religious
problems it faces in suburban communities where many Muslim families live. The
riots in France in 2005 indicated that many Arab and Muslim youths have a
difficult time attaining a French identity and believe that most white French citizens
do not view them as French. On 7 November 2005, a group of young Arab males
in France were interviewed on PBS, the public television station in the United
States. One of the young men said, ‘I have French papers but when I go to the
police station they treat me like I am not French.’ The French prefer the term
integration to race relations or diversity. Integration has been officially adopted by
the state. Integration is predicated on the assumption that cultural differences should
be eradicated during the process of integration (Hargreaves 1995).
The London subway and bus bombings that killed 56 people and injured more
than 700 on 7 July 2005, deepened ethnic and religious tension and Islamophobia
in Europe after the police revealed that the suspected perpetuators were Muslim suicide bombers (Richardson 2004). The young men who were convicted for these
bombings were British citizens but apparently had weak identities with the United
Kingdom and non-Muslim British citizens.
Multiple views of citizenship
In the discussion of his citizenship identity in Japan, Murphy-Shigematsu (2004)
describes how complex and contextual citizenship identification is within a multicultural nation such as Japan. Becoming a legal citizen of a nation does not necessarily mean that an individual will attain structural inclusion into the mainstream
society and its institutions or will be perceived as a citizen by most members of the
mainstream group within the nation. A citizen’s racial, cultural, linguistic, and
religious characteristics often significantly influence whether she is viewed as a citizen within her nation. It is not unusual for their fellow American citizens to assume
Intercultural Education
247
that Asian Americans born in the United States emigrated from another nation.
They are sometime asked, ‘What country are you from?’
Brodkin (1998) makes a conceptual distinction between ethnoracial assignment
and ethnoracial identity that is helpful when considering the relationship between
citizenship identification and citizenship education. She defines ethnoracial assignment as the way outsiders define people within another group. Ethnoracial identities
are how individuals define themselves ‘within the context of ethnoracial assignment’ (3). Muslims citizens of the United States who have a strong national identity
are sometimes viewed by other Americans as non-Americans (Gregorian 2003).
Assimilationist theory and citizenship education
The community cultures and languages of students from diverse groups were to be
eradicated in the assimilationist conception of citizenship education that existed in
nations such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK prior to the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. One consequence of assimilationist citizenship education was that many students lost their first cultures, languages, and
ethnic identities (Wong Fillmore 2005). Some students also became alienated from
their families and communities. Another consequence was that many students
became socially and politically alienated within the national civic culture, as many
Muslim youth in French society are today (Lemaire 2009).
Members of identifiable racial groups often become marginalized in both their
community cultures and in the national civic culture because they can function
effectively in neither. When they acquire the language and culture of the mainstream dominant culture, they are often denied structural inclusion and full participation into the civic culture because of their racial, cultural, linguistic, or religious
characteristics (Alba and Nee 2003). Teachers and schools must practice democracy
and human rights in order for these ideals to be internalized by students (Dewey
1959).
When schools and classrooms become microcosms and exemplars of democracy
and social justice they help students acquire democratic attitudes, learn how to practice democracy, and to engage in deliberation with students from other ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious groups (Gutmann 2004; Osler and Starkey 2009). As
Dewey (1959, 13) stated, ‘all genuine education comes through experience.’
Kohlberg’s idea of democratic, just schools exemplifies the concept of democracy
in action in schools (Schrader 1990). Kohlberg created a cluster school within a
high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that ran as a just community. Each individual within the school – whether student or staff – had a vote in deciding school
policies. The just community school was characterized by ‘participatory democracy
with teachers and students having equal rights, emphasis on conflict resolution
through consideration of fairness and morality, and inclusion of developmental
moral discussion in the curriculum’ (Kohlberg, Mayer, and Elfenbein 1975).
Extensive reform is needed in nations around the world to help teachers actualize democracy and social justice in their curricula, attitudes, expectations, and
behaviors (Banks 2009). Multicultural democratic nations need to find ways to help
students develop balanced and thoughtful attachments and identifications with their
cultural community, their nation, and with the global community. In some cases,
such as in the European Union and in parts of Asia, it is also important for citizens
to develop a regional identification. Nation-states have generally failed to help
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J.A. Banks
students develop a delicate balance of identifications. Rather, they have given priority to national identifications and have neglected the community cultures of students
as well as the knowledge and skills students need to function in an interconnected
global world.
Cosmopolitanism and local identity
Nussbaum (2002) worries that a focus on nationalism will prevent students from
developing a commitment to cosmopolitan values such as human rights and social
justice, values that transcend national boundaries, cultures, and times. She argues
that educators should help students develop cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitans view
themselves as citizens of the world. Nussbaum states that their ‘allegiance is to the
worldwide community of human beings’ (4). Nussbaum (2002) contrasts cosmopolitan universalism and internationalism with parochial ethnocentrism and inwardlooking patriotism. She points, however, that ‘to be a citizen of the world one does
not need to give up local identifications, which can be a source of great richness in
life’ (9). Appiah (2006) – another proponent of cosmopolitanism – also views local
identities as important and all identities as multiple and complex. He states that he
has ‘always had a sense of family and tribe that was multiple and overlapping;
nothing could have seemed more commonplace’ (xviii).
Nationalists and assimilationists in nations throughout the world worry that
if they help students develop identifications and attachments to their cultural
communities they will not acquire sufficiently strong attachments and allegiance to
the nation-state. Kymlicka (2004) states that nationalists have a zero-sum conception of identity. However, identity is multiple, changing, overlapping, and contextual, rather than fixed and static. The multicultural conception of identity is that
citizens who have clarified and thoughtful attachments to their community cultures,
languages, and values are more likely than citizens who are stripped of their cultural attachments to develop reflective identifications with their nation-state (Banks
2004; Kymlicka 2004). They will also be better able to function as effective citizens
in the global community. Nation-states, however, must make structural changes that
reduce structural inequality and that legitimize and give voice to the hopes, dreams,
and visions of their marginalized citizens in order for them to develop strong and
clarified commitments to the nation and its goals.
The development of cultural, national, and global identifications
Assimilationist notions of citizenship are ineffective today because of the deepening
diversity throughout the world and the quests by marginalized groups for cultural
recognition and rights. Multicultural citizenship and cultural democracy are essential in today’s global age (Kymlicka 1995). These concepts recognize and legitimize
the right and need of citizens to maintain commitments both to their cultural communities and to the national civic culture. Citizens must be structurally included
within their nation in order to develop a strong allegiance and commitment to it.
Students should develop a delicate balance of cultural, national, and global identifications and allegiances (see Figure 1). These three identifications are highly interrelated, complex, and contextual. Citizenship education should help students to
develop thoughtful and clarified identifications with their cultural communities and
Intercultural Education
249
Cultural Identification
The Individual
National Identification
Global Identification
Figure 1. Cultural, national, and global identifications.
their nation-states (Banks 2004). It should also help them to develop clarified global
identifications and deep understandings of their roles in the world community. Students need to understand how life in their cultural communities and nations influences other nations and the cogent influence that international events have on their
daily lives. Global education should have as major goals helping students to
develop understandings of the interdependence among nations in the world today,
clarified attitudes toward other nations, and reflective identifications with the world
community. I conceptualize global identification similar to the way in which
Nussbaum (2002) defines cosmopolitanism.
Non-reflective and unexamined cultural attachments may prevent the development of a cohesive nation with clearly defined national goals and policies (Banks
2004). Although we need to help students develop reflective and clarified cultural
identifications, they must also be helped to clarify their identifications with their
nation-states. However, blind nationalism may prevent students from developing
reflective and positive global identifications. Nationalism and national attachments
in most nations are strong and tenacious. An important aim of citizenship education
should be to help students develop global identifications. They also need to develop
a deep understanding of the need to take action as citizens of the global community
to help solve the world’s difficult global problems. Cultural, national, and global
experiences and identifications are interactive and interrelated in a dynamic way
(Banks 2004, 2007).
A nation-state that alienates and does not structurally include all cultural groups
into the national culture runs the risk of creating alienation and causing groups to
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J.A. Banks
focus on specific concerns and issues rather than on the overarching goals and policies of the nation-state. To develop reflective cultural, national, and global identifications, students must acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to
function within and across diverse racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious
groups.
Strong, positive, and clarified cultural identifications and attachments are a prerequisite to cosmopolitan beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and the internalization of
human rights values. Schools must nurture, support, and affirm the identities of students’ diverse groups if we expect them to endorse national values, become cosmopolitans, internalize human rights values, and work to make their local
communities, nation, region, and the world more just and humane.
Notes on contributor
James A. Banks holds the Kerry and Linda Killinger endowed chair in diversity studies and
is the founding director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of
Washington, Seattle. His most recent book is the Routledge International Companion to
Multicultural Education. He is now editing the four-volume Encyclopedia of Diversity in
Education for Sage. His books have been translated into Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and
Korean.
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