1. Contesting nationalism &
globalization: Cultural framing of
citizenship education
Wai-Kwok Benson Wong
GIS @ HKBU
2013/06/21

2. Critical Issues
1. How are citizenship education and
citizenship related educationally and
politically?
2. How do nationalism and globalization
frame and reframe (in a counter way)
under citizenship education?
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3. Articulation of citizenship
education and citizenship
 The former refers to how schooling
introduces, formulates, promotes and then
internalizes the concept and ideas of
citizenship by designing pedagogy, adopting
materials, and organizing teaching and learning
activities inside and outside of the classroom
(e.g., student union’s election at high school
level)
 The latter focuses on the people being entitled
constitutionally, legally and politically to enjoy
the political/civil, economic, social and cultural
rights regardless of social, ethnical and cultural
differences within a nation.
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4.  One key concern is: how do
schooling’s experience and practices
connect with and shape citizenship?
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5. Cultural reframing of
citizenship education
 Culture: Ideas arising from values, beliefs
and/or ideologies are (re-)produced & then
shape people individually and collectively
 “Politics of signification” (Hall, 1982)
 Production of mobilizing and counter-
mobilizing ideas and meanings (from the
powerful & the powerless)
 Signifying agents actively engage in the
production & maintenance of meaning for
constituents, antagonists and bystanders or
observers
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6. Meaning construction
 “an active, processual phenomenon that
implies agency & contention at the level of
reality construction” (p.614)
 Active: something is being done
 Processual: dynamic and evolving process
 Agency: work of (social movement)
organizations/movement activists
 Contentious: generating interpretive frames
differing from, and even challenging, the
existing ones
 Resultant products: collective action frames
(CAF)
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7. Results
 By undertaking citizenship education,
schooling’s experience & practices can
be meaningful, useful and impactful for
learners to engage in society and polity.
 Meaningful: such democratic and liberal
values can be reflected upon the everyday
life and practices, and have become an
inseparable part of students’ life.
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8. Results
 Useful: how to resist, defend and protect
the civil rights, especially in face of
official/authority’s violence and distortion.
 Impactful: shape friends, family
members, colleagues as well as members
of associations, become participatory in
social and political affairs
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9. Cultural framing
 reestablishing the meanings based on
humanistic values (respecting/tolerating
the differences, pluralism)
 responding to, challenging and then
overthrowing the
hegemonic, dominating, and taken-for-
granted assertions
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10. Doing
Reframe
•Citizenship education
Reframe
•Nationalism & globalization
•Citizenship
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12. 12

13. 13

14. Nationalism (The dominating
frame)
1. Bounding the state-defined knowledge
and understanding: geography
China, cultural China and economic
China
2. Adopting the essentialist approach
3. Constructing the national imagination
based on apolitical issues
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15. Nationalism (Cultural
reframing)
1. Exploring and then respecting the (personal)
experiences in everyday life
2. Adopting an individualistic and humanistic
perspective: understand and accept the
differences in understanding China
3. Knowing about, and then responding to the
political and social controversies in the light of
the institutional and political setting
4. The importance of locality via-s-via nationality
5. Students’ orientation > state orientation
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16. 16

17. 17

18. 18

19. Globalization (The dominating
frame)
1. Equivalent to material culture: science
& technology, as well as goods &
services
2. “Respecting” cultural differences
3. Framing as international exchange &
cooperation
4. Disarticulation: science & technology /
good & services / different cultures
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20. Globalization (Cultural
reframing)
1. Acknowledging cultural relativism:
China/HK/US culture is NOT dominating
2. Accepting & appreciating the cultural
differences through everyday
experiences
3. Demarginalizing migrants:
Understanding, acceptance and inclusion
+ reject discrimination & exclusion
4. Global democracy, human rights and
freedoms
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21. Conclusion
 Cultural reframing aims to challenge &
then resist the hegemonic version of
nationalism & globalization endorsed by
the educational bureaucracy
 Cultural reframing fosters the inclusion of
everyday experiences in shaping
citizenship education apart from
challenging the hegemonic discourse
arising from the official curriculum, then
actualizing citizenship through reflecting
upon experiences and practices.
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