This post is part of a serialized collection of chapters composing my recently completed Master’s of Education degree at the University of Victoria. You can access the other chapters on this site here, and access a pdf of the completed paper on the University of Victoria library space here.
In the preparation of this project, this review consults diverse sources of scholarship and literature ranging from contemporary educational philosophy and political science, to modern literature, philosophy, and the traditions of critical pedagogy and emergent epistemology. This inquiry considers educational databases, peer-reviewed journals and scholarly blogging, as well as presentations, collaborative learning and social networking to explore key themes and thinking about: citizenship, critical pedagogy, transformative learning, emergent epistemology, constructivism, connectivisim, the digital humanities, personal cyberinfrastructure, open education, networked learning, and the public sphere. Literature reviewed in these fields ranges in date depending on the topic, as digital, pedagogical, or sociological (i.e., pertaining to youth voting patterns) scholarship was limited to the last five, or occasionally 10 years, and literature focused on educational or broader philosophical traditions dates back much further (see: Kant, Foucault, Freire). Given particular prominence in the construction of the project’s underlying conceptual framework have been the ERIC and PsychInfo databases, journals concerned with contemporary citizenship, critical pedagogy, and digital culture; an ongoing engagement with public academics, scholars, and colleagues on social media has also greatly shaped the nature of this study.
To establish a conceptual framework, the literature reviewed here presents a view of curriculum reform in a moment of digital shock affecting all aspects of human society, not least education. This moment of digital shock, it is supposed, asks that educational reformers carefully consider the implicit messages that schooling (as well as the wider culture) communicates to young people about the nature of their own citizenship. In so doing, it is hoped that the educational opportunities created as a result allow for the rehearsal and experience of applying a critical lens to one’s culture, and creating unique individual and collective narratives which authentically represent the participants. It is hoped, as well, that students gain an awareness and ability to broaden the base of individuals holding positions of power and influence in the construction of a shared societal narrative. The literature reviewed highlights the prominence of challenging trends toward political apathy and economic oligarchy in North American society (with data suggesting a similar trend across western Europe), and proposes a reclamation of the public sphere that seeks to restore the democratic possibility of continuously reimagining collective identities out of emerging individual perspectives.
With this foundation, the conceptual framework is completed by aligning components of emergent epistemology, critical pedagogy, and transformative learning to present a conception of citizenship as shared fate, a notion which makes possible the critical renovation of democratic society to suit an evolving populace and citizenry. This view of citizenship is supported by the advent of digital communications technology, and the world wide public web, allowing the principles of such a citizenship to be applied to a global populace, inviting the potential for pluralism on an unprecedented scale.
As the advent of the 21st century presents educational stakeholders with rapidly evolving information, economic, and political realities, society encounters a state of “shock” wherein public policy discussions around how to respond to shifting contexts can become overwhelming, and lasting reforms may be implemented without a thorough consideration of their consequences. The directions that are taken during periods of such shocks, the project supposes, hinge upon the quality of the “ideas that are lying around,” and with this in mind works to present its notion of critical citizenship in the digital age such that it might be considered by those discussing 21st century curriculum. In this view, the notion of curriculum – as with citizenship itself – cannot be considered static but rather as a responsive construction of those who are engaged with it: teachers and students, as co-investigators and creators.
A particular challenge facing those who would seek to reform curriculum in the 21st century is facilitating – as part of the institutional design of modern schooling – the realization of truly constructivist practices in making meaning in the classroom setting. By attempting to prescribe the economic, cultural, or practical skills of value to society that policymakers deem ought be included in school curricula, institutions seeking to initiate the continuous pluralist recreation of society itself are posed with the difficulty of delineating between the meanings, dispositions, or cultural practices which are acceptable, and those which are not. As schools provide young people with foundational experiences in the relationship between citizens and the state, as well as between citizens themselves, it becomes important for educators seeking to promote diversity and inclusion to provide opportunities for young people to rehearse the expression of a collective voice that takes into account community narratives and perspectives. In considering the literature, the project explores the possibility that constructivism and an emergent view of knowledge can prepare young people to contribute to an inclusive society that promotes “the full and equitable participation of individuals and communities of all origins in the continuing evolution and shaping of all aspects of Canadian society and assist[s] them in the elimination of any barrier to that participation” (Canadian Multiculturalism Act, c 24 (4th Supp), 1985).
The notion that multiculturalism poses a direct challenge to a static national identity contributes further to the complexity of the ‘shock’ experienced in developing standardized curriculum in the 21st century, as educators are perpetually compelled to provide an ongoing process of relation and feedback to individual students and unique classroom communities.
However, the project works within a conception of “citizenship as shared fate,” wherein individuals and groups engage in a “continuous process of designing, expressing and interpreting their membership in the nation” (Ben‐Porath, 2012, p. 382), and places central importance on the praxis of critical reflection and relation to one another; as well, the unit framework strives to realize a pedagogy wherein the competencies at the heart of this learning are experienced directly and articulated by students rather than by being formally taught through a curriculum designed in advance to serve this purpose. To best impart such a mode of citizenship to young people, schools and classrooms are compelled to transform the view of the curriculum from a tradition of standardization toward one in which it is discovered – and created – by unique communities of practice in real time.
Finally, the literature review considers contemporary research into digital pedagogy and open education, and finds evidence to support the notion that the public web and infrastructure of online spaces allow for the democratic and collectivist spirit of pluralism to be practiced in a global public sphere. Literacies of participation, information, and fluency with personal cyber infrastructure are presented as learning experiences in which the meanings created through relating to the curriculum are individually and collectively forged in emergent, real time. This method of meaning-making is not only congruent with democratic principles dating back to the Enlightenment period, it is suggested, but also true to the spirit of the World Wide Web since its inception.