CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
(The History and Social Science Teacher)

CANADA'S NATIONAL SOCIAL STUDIES JOURNAL
VOLUME 38, NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css

Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education.

Canadian Social Studies is an indexed, refereed journal published quarterly on-line at the University of Alberta. It is a journal of comment and criticism on social education and publishes articles on curricular issues relating to history, geography, social sciences, and social studies.
Canadian Social Studies is under copyright. Unless otherwise designated, permission is granted to download and distribute individual student copies of anything in this journal as long as it is for non-profit educational use in the classroom. Copyright permission includes the requirement to include the following on the first page of any duplicated material: "Canadian Social Studies, www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css Canada's national social studies journal - by permission." All other duplication or distribution requires the editor's permission.
George Richardson - Editor

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From the Editor

Articles

The Pressure Cooker in Education: Standardized Assessment and High-Stakes
Loren Agrey

Embracing Ambiguity in the Artefacts of the Past: Teacher Identity and Pedagogy
Lisa Barty

Globalization and Peace Education
Brenda Basiga

Global Awareness and Perspectives in Global Education
Laura Burnouf

Social Studies and Service-learning: The Aleph of Democratic Citizenship?
Andrew Foran

National Identity in Korean Curriculum
Hyo-jeong Kim

Making Connections: Wholistic Teaching Through Peace Education
Kris Simpson

Identity and the Forthcoming Alberta Social Studies Curriculum: A Postcolonial Reading
Laura A. Thompson

Book Reviews

J. Bradley Cruxton, W. Douglas Wilson and Robert J. Walker. 2001.
Close-Up Canada
Reviewed by Sam Allison.

George J. Sefa Dei and Agnes Calliste (Eds.), with the assistance of Margarida Aguiar. 2000.
Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education: A Critical Reader.
Reviewed by Gulbahar H. Beckett.

Elaine Ursel. 2001.
Discovering Canada's Trading Partners.
Reviewed by JK. J. Bradford.

Harry Black. 2002.
Canada and the Nobel Prize: Biographies, Portraits and Fascinating Facts.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley.

S. G. Grant and Bruce VanSledright. 2001.
Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley.

Bruce H. Mann. 2002.
Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence.
Reviewed by Ron Briley.

Adam Kuper. 2000.
Culture: The Anthropologists' Account.
Reviewed by Jean-Guy Goulet.

Franois Tochon. 2002.
Tropics of Teaching: Productivity, Warfare and Priesthood.
Reviewed by Dr. Bryant Griffith.

Brent Bryon Watson. 2002.
Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry in Korea 1950-1953.
Reviewed by Ernest LeVos.

Hildi Kang. 2001.
Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945.
Reviewed by Ernest LeVos.

Michel Chauveau (translated from the French by David Lorton). 2002.
Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth.
Reviewed by E. Senger.

Hope-Arlene Fennell (Ed). 2002.
The Role of the Principal in Canada.
Reviewed by Caroline J. Thompson.

Editor
George Richardson
Guest Editors: Loren Agrey and Laura Thompson
Manuscript Review Editors
Robert Fowler, University of Victoria
Alan Sears, University of New Brunswick
Columnists
Kevin Kee, McGill University
Penney Clark, University of British Columbia
David Kilgour, M.P., Edmonton Southeast
John McMurtry, University of Guelph
Ken Osborne, University of Manitoba (Emeritus)

Features Editors
Kathy Bradford, University of Western Ontario
(Book Reviews)
Jim Parsons, University of Alberta
(Classroom Teaching)

Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life and by the Canadian Education Association; Corpus Almanac Canadian Sourcebook; Ulrich's lnt. Pedcs. Directory; ERIC; Canadian Education Index, Micromedia Limited; and H. W. Wilson Company.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

From the Editor

The current issue of Canadian Social Studies features an eclectic collection of pieces regarding several critical issues within the contemporary discourse of social studies. The authors share a common experience in that they were members of the University of Alberta's graduate education class, dealing with trends and issues in social studies education, taught by Dr. George Richardson. The students in this class include a selection of both masters as well as doctoral students at various stages of their respective programs. A variety of topics are explored and positions taken, which add to the discussion of interesting trends facing social studies teachers and scholars today. It is each individual writer's intent that their work will contribute to the discussion within the area of their selected topic and also stimulate further study and dialogue in these areas.

Loren Agrey writes about assessment and its relation to the several disciplines within social studies, reviews several perspectives on evaluation, and discusses the impact of high-stakes testing within the social studies curricula. The author notes that the goals of social studies education may be ignored due to the emphasis given to the high-stakes examinations which are currently prevalent in many jurisdictions across North America.

In her article, Lisa Barty discusses teacher identity and pedagogical choices as they relate specifically to the use of artefacts in the classroom. A link between pedagogy and teacher identity is delineated along with a review of how these correlate to methodological choice. A variety of suggestions are offered to promote reflective teaching and to support the strategy of using more primary sources in the social studies classroom.

Brenda Basiga's article explores the issues surrounding the concept of globalization and how its effects impact the teachers' pedagogies. A general discussion of these global effects provides an understanding of the threats globalization poses and how these specifically impact social studies curriculum and pedagogy within the educational context of the Philippines. The discussion then turns to how the problematic of globalization can be addressed through global education and peace education.

The theme of global education is continued in Laura Burnouf's paper as she explores the major understandings of this fairly recent addition to the social studies curriculum. Critical global education concepts are discussed and these discussions underlay the author's conclusion that to encourage the development of citizenship skills, all students need to learn about global issues. To have a truly effective citizenship program, teachers must adopt a multiple perspectives approach rather than using the traditional Eurocentric view that has dominated social studies teaching.

Andrew Foran links student identity to national identity and citizenship and indicates how these concepts can be used to develop responsible and active citizenship. Questions are raised whether education as a whole and the social studies curricula can provide a site for this development of responsible citizens. The author asserts that service learning is an aspect of social studies that can be emphasized to aid in this development and provide an experiential or active approach to learning with the ultimate goal of responsible citizenship.

Hyo-jeong Kim explores social studies education within the Korean context. She begins with a review of the changes adopted within the secondary social studies curriculum regarding national identity from the end of the Second World War to the present time. The traditional concepts of Korean national identity are being challenged by various forces-and particularly by globalization. Moreover, Koreans are attempting to re-write their concept of what national identity means in the current context. Implications of the changes which are evident within the new social studies curriculum adopted in 2000 are further discussed.

Kris Simpson explores peace education for primary students in the context of the current war in Iraq and asserts that the inclusion of peace education within the social studies curriculum is more critical than ever before. Alternatives to violence must be included in any social studies program, and it is imperative that teachers provide opportunities to do this with the social studies classroom being the ideal site for this to be accomplished. Peace education allows students to develop conflict resolution skills on a personal level which can then be translated to a more global perspective.

Laura Thompson takes a critical look at what ways multiple perspectives have been read into the Alberta junior high social studies curriculum. A review of the curriculum over the last several decades provides an understanding of the evolving constructs of citizenship and identity. This provides the foundation for a postcolonial reading of the 2002 Alberta social studies curriculum along with a clearer understanding of the concept of identity.

Loren Agrey and Laura Thompson

Guest Editors

Return to Contents Page

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

The Pressure Cooker in Education:
Standardized Assessment and High-Stakes

Loren Agrey
University of Alberta

Abstract

While assessment has been a part of education for a long time, the current increased emphasis on standardization of curriculum and assessment is unique. The author surveys varying perspectives on assessment, considers the role assessment plays vis--vis social studies and then evaluates arguments on both sides of the debate in light of the current high-stakes testing environment which is becoming an integral component of North American education. Finally, a discussion of the implications of increased assessment, and particularly that of high-stakes testing within the social studies curricula reveals that significant portions of important social studies outcomes are minimalized or ignored because of the emphasis on standardized testing.

You cannot increase the size of the hog, by weighing it over and over again.
Anonymous

Introduction

A major development in the field of education during the last several years has been an escalating emphasis on evaluation. The content area of social studies has not escaped this mounting pressure on assessment and has increasingly been affected by those who believe that standardization and evaluation will improve the quality of education. More and more provinces, states and nations are making assessment and testing an integral part of their educational system. While this phenomenon has caught the public's attention through the media and is largely supported by politicians, it is important for educators to evaluate the divergent views, assess the advantages and disadvantages of each position and ensure that their voices are heard in the defence of what is in the best interests of students.

Perspectives on Assessment

Evaluation has traditionally been an integral part of the educational process and there have been several rationalizations developed for assessment over time. A century ago, a standard justification for testing was that examinations were indispensable for encouraging adolescents to commit to a serious and sustained effort. When there was an examination placed ahead of them, pupils and teachers could no longer behave in an easy and casual way, with allowances made for good intentions, individual temperaments, passing indispositions or changing seasons. Pupils would pay more attention to their work and teachers would make their lessons more accurate and concise when faced with mandatory examinations (Luijten, 1991). This view was partially based on the notion that encouragement and reward of individual efforts would be difficult if evaluation did not exist. Excellence would be less demonstrable and decisions on curriculum and methods would be based on prejudice and caprice rather than solid evidence (Linn Gronlund, 2000).

Educational evaluation was furthered by the ubiquitous measurement movement which gained momentum with the coming of the First World War and for the next half century or more, the purposes of evaluation were several and varied. For most of last century, Guba and Lincoln (1981) record that the function of evaluation was to document events, record student change, aid in decision making, seek understanding and facilitate remediation and that the purpose needed to be determined by the needs of different audiences. Over time, many educationists have also defined the purposes of evaluation. Its goal was to aid educators in their tasks of classroom planning, improve teaching and learning situations, provide feedback, and ascertain if a standard had been reached. Other purposes included selecting a given number of candidates for certain reasons, testing the efficiency of teaching; indicating the progress of student's present and future performance, and sampling performances which the student was capable (Buckman, 1988; Payne, 1997; Salvia Ysseldyke, 2001; Scriven, 1980; Thyne, 1974).

The above purposes have been used as the traditional rationale for the use of evaluation and many of these goals still exist, but the recent emphasis on assessment has taken on a sense of urgency. The current focus in many jurisdictions across North America is on high-stakes testing, in which the measurement of results will have significant impact on students, as promotion, graduation and the qualification for scholarships are now tied to performance of these tests.

Supporters of high-stakes testing argue that these examinations force students, parents, teachers and school administration to take education seriously. The public ranking of schools and districts expose those students and teachers who do not do this. High-stakes tests require a clear standardized curriculum so that all students are taught the same material and then administered the same test. Thus, it is believed that the inequities in students' opportunity to learn would finally be eradicated (Nathan, 2002). Advocates also argue that anyone who opposes this form of testing is an apologist for a broken system of education. They claim that a good test is aligned with the curriculum so that the schools know whether children are actually learning the material that they are supposed to know (Semas, 2001).

Sceptics, on the other hand, worry that such policies may produce harmful consequences for individual students and perhaps society as a whole. Opponents present the anti-testing position which is based on the negative impact these tests have on the curriculum and more importantly on teachers and students. Black (1991) posits that public examinations are seen as assurances of fairness and reliability to a degree that is quite unjustified and that the public demands for external assessments arise from three main considerations. These factors include public distrust of teachers, the perceived superiority of standardized assessment over teacher-made tests and a desire for comparison between schools.

In viewing the impact that these tests have had on the curriculum, Amrein Berliner (2003) and Neill (1999) deplore the fact that art, music, creative writing, physical education, and recess are all reduced in time or dropped from the curriculum when schools need to increase their scores on the state's test. Even in the curricular areas that are tested, schools may drop a sub-area if they are unlikely to appear on the test. Instructional time is shifted to the curriculum that will appear on the test with the anticipation that the scores will improve. This curricular reductionism is an affront to the concept of variety, individual interest, and creativity.

Kohn (1999, 2000a, 2000b) also presents a challenge to supporters of high-stakes standardized testing with a plethora of arguments in opposition to the current maelstrom of examinations. He contends that students in North America are tested at an unprecedented rate and that the variance in test scores has a higher correlation to non-instructional factors, such as the number of parents living at home, parental educational background, type of community and poverty rate, than to instructional performance. He argues further that these tests often measure superficial thinking and ignore the most important characteristics of a good learner since standardized tests cannot measure initiative, creativity, effort, irony, judgment, good will, ethical reflection and a host of other valuable dispositions and attributes. Students care only if they get the right answer rather than how they got it. Wide-range and enthusiastic exploration of ideas that once characterized classrooms can no longer survive when the emphasis is on preparation for these exams.

Rejecting the argument that these tests provide equity and fairness for students, Kohn (2000) contends that high-stakes testing marks a major retreat from fairness, accuracy, and quality. The reasons are that the tests may be biased since they require a set of skills more likely to be possessed by children from a privileged background. Along with this, the wealthier can afford test preparation courses that the poorer segments of society cannot access and thus a greater disparity is created and fairness and equity become a hollow promise.

The damaging effects these tests have on teachers include the fact that they are often distracted from a thoughtful consideration of students and unable to appreciate their individual gifts. When a teacher's primary focus is on tests and test-taking strategies, reflective attention to individual potential is difficult to sustain (Donlevy, 2000). Along with this, many quality educators are leaving the field of education because of the intense pressures placed upon them. Widely divergent results between one group of students to another are common occurrences, even though they have had the same teacher, curriculum and pedagogical methods, but parents and the public hold the teacher and school responsible for results that are less than exemplary.

Because of these pressures, a more nefarious impact is seen in the fact that for those educators that stay in the classroom, an increasing number of teachers experience ethical lapses and rely on cheating to ensure the results from the classes are not substandard. This is expressed through a variety of methods such as giving hints or direct answers to students when asked for help on the test, and allowing more time than was allotted for the students to complete the examination. There have also been cases where teachers review the finished tests and revise the incorrect answers (Popham, 2001).

The most destructive effects of these tests are on the students that are required to take them. Popham (2001) believes that these high-stakes tests are doing serious educational damage to children. Many students are receiving educational experiences that are far less effective than they would have been if such programs had never existed. Specific harmful effects on students include increased anxiety, damaged self-concepts, a categorization and labelling of students and the creation of self-fulfilling prophecies (Linn Gronlund, 2000).

Amrein Berliner (2003) catalogue other deleterious effects as expressed in decreased student motivation, higher retention and student dropout rates and limited engagement with critical thinking. High-stakes tests also alienate students from their own learning experiences in school and deny students the opportunities to direct their own learning since they are no longer encouraged to explore the concepts and subjects that interest them. Along with these effects, many students also resort to dishonesty and cheating. The ethical values of honesty and integrity are sacrificed on the altar of improved test scores.

The notion that threats of punishment such as withholding a diploma will create a positive learning environment and radically transform beleaguered institutions has been discredited by research. High-stakes tests discourage and demoralize at least as many students and teachers as they motivate to work harder. Thus dropout rates rise, particularly for the most vulnerable students, and hurt the very students who are supposed to benefit most from them (Nathan, 2000).

The move toward high-stakes testing programs is based on several assumptions. First, tests are seen as a legitimate means of making distinctions among people on the basis of who passes and who fails. Secondly, test scores are assumed to be accurate predictors about people and their futures. If the test scores rise, it is perceived to be an indication that students must be learning more and therefore moving closer to excellence and that schools are doing a better job of educating the students because test scores are seen as an accurate reflection of education. Another assumption is that schools, governments, and test-makers know what high standards are and how to use them in tests (Hillocks, 2002). Based on these theories, the high-stakes testing movement across North America has become the norm across many jurisdictions.

This obsession with high-stakes standardized testing has not arisen in a vacuum. The ideological basis can be found in the neo-liberal value systems expressed in the current globalization phenomenon, a planetary unified global trading network operating according to a common set of rules (Smith, 2000), where the market is the only factor to consider in structuring our lives and our institutions (Currie, 1998, p. 9). With its tentacles reaching into virtually all aspects of life, just a few of its many effects on educational policies can be seen in the development of particular policies for evaluation and in the privileging of assessment (Burbules, 2000). Based on the philosophy that better education can be measured, and pushed by international organizations such as the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank (Cornoy, 2000), governments have reformed their educational procedures and have included the adoption and expansion of provincial and state-wide assessment along with national testing and student achievement examinations (Harrison Kachur, 1999).

Based on the premise that improving the measurement of what people know will enhance a country's competitive economic edge (Spring, 1998), standardized examinations, especially the recent plethora of them, are viewed as excellent preparation for the business world. Standardization, easily quantifiable results, and the willingness to reshape all intervening processes to obtain them characterize the path to success in both exams and in business (Ollman, 2003). Student success is measured through standardized testing based on multiple reasons privileging market principles such as the assessment of policies and innovations which develop a more productive workforce, the supporting of better management, the fostering of a more efficient allocation of resources, the selection of students according to ability and the evaluation of the productivity of teachers (Stromquist Monkman, 2000).

Several major corporations promote standards-based education and the accompanying high stakes standardized examinations with the ostensible goal of promoting global competitiveness. Critics charge that this is an egregious attempt at social control through the establishment of a routine, standardized schooling process which will socialize most workers to expect low level, mundane work lives that will cohere with the low skill level jobs that have proliferated with globalization and increased technology, and control through the well-established sorting mechanism provided by standardized testing (Mathison, Ross Vinson, 2001).

Assessment in Social Studies

Having reviewed the purposes of evaluation in the broad educational context, from both its adherents and opponents' perspective, attention must be given to how the subject area of social studies is being impacted by the emphasis on evaluation. Over the last two decades an increasing number of assessment programs have been dedicated to providing external accounts of student learning. Driven largely by political and economic forces, local, provincial, state and national authorities have demanded reports of student achievement in key areas. These typically include the subjects of math, language arts, science and social studies (Wilson, 1999).

In the area of social studies, it is beneficial to place assessment in an ideological context. Gaudelli (2002) presents four differing views of perennialism, essentialism, constructivism and multiculturalism and while these are not the only philosophical positions on the subject of assessment, they do represent a broad range of thought on the topic. Perennialists contend that there is an organized body of knowledge that students need to know so society might cohere around a common identity. History is the fundamental element of an exemplary social studies program and recognition of the master narrative is essential. Standardized tests are viewed as the method to see if students are being taught this information and poor tests results are often used in an attempt to illustrate that teachers are failing to pass this cultural heritage on to students.

Essentialists argue that core knowledge and skills are vital to a successful society, because these requisite abilities allow the individual to be an economically productive member of society. The economic purposes of education from this viewpoint parallel the philosophy of globalization. The learning of basic skills are seen as essential and the skills taught in history and other social studies content areas are seen as useful if they are transferable to the workplace. Assessment is seen as an important method to determine whether these skills are being learned and if not, it proves the need to return to a back to the basics approach where these primary skills are taught.

The other two viewpoints perceive the role of assessment in social studies quite differently. Constructivists see education as child-centred. The curriculum must connect to the student's living experience and the proponents of this approach charge that social studies has been reduced to a mindless heap of information which must be absorbed and then regurgitated on the tests. Poor test results indicate that the social studies curriculum has no relevance in the lives of students. The multiculturalist hypothesis, largely based on critical theory, posits that the social studies curriculum has under-emphasized and distorted the contributions of historically oppressed groups for too long and emphasizes the need for social justice. Adherents see standardized examinations as a method to reproduce the dominant culture and interpret the results of the tests as proof that equity has not been achieved and that diversity needs to be infused throughout the social studies curriculum.

With this ideological background it is important to assess the arguments in favour and against standardized assessment in social studies. Advocates argue that the tests, when developed by teachers, have been constructed to reflect the objectives of the program of studies in social studies (Belyk, 1992) and thereby support the learning of these curricular goals. O'Brien (1997) states that these forms of assessment are more than mere pencil and paper tests. Rather, they provide a relevant and comprehensive evaluation of achievement and focus on critical thinking and multidisciplinary achievement as well as being an effective instructional technique. Other proponents argue that standardized assessments would improve the status of social studies in education, since these tests would force school administrators to ensure it remains an integral part of every school's curriculum (Brousseau, 1999).

Critics of assessment in social studies claim that there has been failure in an attempt to measure students' awareness of major social studies understandings, appreciations, life applications and higher order thinking skills (Alleman Brophy, 1999). The argument continues that in life, performance is not a matter of how well one fills in blanks or selects correct answers to multiple-choice questions. Rather, a person is judged on what one can do with the attitudes, values and intellectual skills inherent in the social studies curricula such as decision-making, solving problems, critical thinking, separating fact from opinion, making sense of a barrage of data and the important task of getting along with other people. In the real world, people work in groups, not to memorize facts, but to gather, evaluate and use knowledge and skills to solve problems. Full assessment goes far beyond the narrow view of standardized testing (Biemer, 1993).

Social studies educators seek to help students become critical thinkers, problem solvers and decision makers (Yell, 1999) and since the most common testing format is the ubiquitous multiple choice question, a low level knowledge of objectives is measured rather than all the other higher order thinking objectives that are a critical element in an effective social studies classroom. Perhaps the most powerful weapon that critics of social studies wield is the results of the standardized tests themselves. They indicate that students show some familiarity with basic facts but have failed to demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the broad spectrum of skills found in the social studies curriculum (Risinger Garcia, 1995).

Curricular reductionism is also a problem vis--vis social studies assessment. Although teachers have always had to work within a mandated curricular framework, the degree to which they are free to exercise their independent judgement in the implementation of the curriculum is more severely restricted with centralized testing. The teacher is constrained by having to cover course material precisely as it will appear on the examination which results in a shift from student-centred to curriculum-centred instruction. Contextualizing this problem locally, Runte (1998) observes that the Alberta social studies curriculum leaves 20 percent of the course open to the instructor. The mere presence of centralized testing compromises this elective component, because the provincial examination must emphasize the core curriculum that all students need to be taught.

Evaluating the Arguments

As one analyzes the differing interpretations of standardized testing in general and in the content area of social studies in particular, it is evident that there are strengths and weaknesses inherent in each argument. The traditional purposes of assessment were to encourage and reward effort, to improve teaching and learning practices, and to ascertain if certain standards have been reached. These are commendable goals but unfortunately more recently, standardized testing has taken on a nature different than these. It is as if the tests have themselves become an end in education rather than a means. Examinations have seemingly become the be-all and end-all of education and the teaching process. It is necessary to re-establish a connection between the examinations and the ultimate purpose of education which is the development of citizens who are socially, culturally and technically capable (Luijten, 1991).

The argument that high-stakes testing is the only way to motivate students to learn is fallacious. The question must be asked, What should be learned? and a narrow focus on factual knowledge that can be regurgitated on a multiple-choice test is not the answer. This is not to say that assessment is entirely wrong. It does serve some useful purposes as have been discussed, but with the current emphasis on high-stakes tests, the curriculum has been reduced to that which can be tested, and this becomes a self-perpetuating loop when what is assessed becomes what is valued, which then becomes what is taught (McEwen, 1995).

The emphasis of teachers preparing students for tests from January to the end of the school year has also become common in classrooms throughout Canada and the United States. Specific emphasis on only what is on the test, have caused teachers to become managers of students rather than facilitators of knowledge and social values and have caused the discontinuance of programs which should be taught. There is an inevitable de-skilling of students by reducing learning to the level of developing test-taking strategies. (Cheng Couture, 2000; Kohn, 2002; Shaw, 2000; Stromquist, 2002). When assessment has impacts like these, teachers must voice opposition to such reductionary measures.

Serious consideration must be given to the argument that excessive testing creates ethical lapses in both students and teachers. The corruption of students, teachers and administrators by placing such pressure on them through exemplary performance expectations that they turn to cheating, is a damning indictment of the assessment program. If a student cheats on an exam to pass the course, or a teacher or administrator cheats to avoid public censure, it is clear that something is being learned but certainly not that which was initially intended. The high-stakes environment and its attendant pressures certainly can lead to a compromise in values which is detrimental to the cause of education and ultimately society in general.

Reviewing the opposing sides of testing in social studies, the argument for creating assessment that reflects the program of studies and focuses on critical thinking is a strong one. When the local context of Alberta examinations is surveyed, it is evident that in contrast to the producers of school-leaving examinations in many other jurisdictions, the Alberta examiners have tried to design tests that emphasize skill development, critical thinking and a generalizable understanding of the subject matter, rather than rote learning and factual memorization (Runte, 1998). The argument that it is not possible for exams to support curriculum is contradicted by the Alberta experience. Samples of student work clearly show that students who succeed in passing the diploma exams demonstrate a wide range of skills demanded by the program of studies (Scraba, 1989). If this were the case in other jurisdictions, the move towards assessment would have a much stronger justification. Any assessment that fails to measure the major social studies understandings, appreciations, life applications, and higher order thinking is not credible. Tests that only assess low-level knowledge and do not address critical thinking, problem solving or decision-making or other skills within the broad spectrum of social studies, fall short in their attempt of appropriate evaluation.

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and other leading scholars on assessment methods have argued for assessment that is well aligned with major social studies goals, more complete in the range of objectives addressed and more authentic in the kinds of tasks included. The NCSS Advisory Committee on Testing and Evaluation recommends that evaluation focus on curriculum goals and objectives, be used to improve curriculum and instruction; measure both content and process, be chosen for diagnostic and prescriptive purposes and reflect a high degree of fairness to all people and groups. Along with this, evaluation of student achievement should be used solely to improve teaching and learning; involve a variety of instruments and approaches to measure knowledge, skills and attitudes; be congruent with objectives, and be sequential and cumulative. To support this comprehensive approach, government agencies should secure appropriate funding to support evaluation programs and professional development of teachers (Alleman Brophy, 1999).

In considering both sides of the issue, taking a personal position on the role of assessment in education is not an easy task. It is evident that the current emphasis on high-stakes testing has gone too far, but what should the role of evaluation be? While there is a place for measurement and evaluation in social studies, it is clear that multiple assessments are not panaceas (Horowitz, 1995, p. 70). Testing students on an annual or even triennial basis, is a waste of time if all that is measured is low level thinking skill and memory recall. If the assessment can truly measure critical thinking and other higher order thinking skills then tests may have a place in a student's overall educational experience. But examinations should not be the sole arbiter in making high-stake decisions. Several evaluation methods are necessary since single indicators are never a complete representation of the performance of a student, teacher or school.

Social studies assessments should require students to go beyond memorizing facts and engage them in higher-level skills such as application rather than the recall of isolated facts or definitions. Other useful skills that should be evaluated include interpretation of social studies data, identification and explanation of important concepts as well as making connections between these concepts and a position taken on contemporary public policy issues (Brousseau, 1999, p. 358). Further, if evaluation could include tasks that are interesting and engaging to the students, as well as being multi-faceted, and assessing more than one aspect of achievement, it would improve the student's educational experience.

The emphasis on high-stakes testing is in serious need of re-thinking. While the ostensible purposes of encouraging learning, and improving education are commendable, unfortunately the results are contrary to these purposes. To force students to perform on examinations that hold such significant impact on their future and to impose this pressure-filled environment on teachers and administrators creates an atmosphere that is not conducive to learning. Evaluation, when taken to these levels promotes the very results that it is trying to prevent. Demoralization of both students and teachers, increasing numbers of students dropping out of school and a widening of the gap between the successful and unsuccessful are the infelicitous results of this movement.

Implications

A move away from high-stakes testing to an educational model, in which evaluation is still a component, but not the driving-force, would be extremely positive. First, the curriculum should again be broadened to include those subject areas that are deemed unimportant because they are not tested. There is a high correlation between participating in the performing arts such as music and drama while in school and success in later life. Subjects like these, that are not easily testable, should once again take their place as important elements of the overall curriculum. Within social studies, elements of the curriculum that have been avoided, again because these skills are not easily testable, should once again be emphasized. Process should not be sacrificed for a content-driven curriculum because that is what will appear on the test. Involvement in social issues must be balanced with transmission of knowledge.

A full range of skills, knowledge, attitudes and values must be taught. Together these should form an integral component of an effective social studies program. Skills such as decision-making, problem solving and the concept of citizenship should hold as prominent a place in the curricula as knowledge of content. While these skills are more difficult to assess, their place in the social studies classroom is as essential as the components that are more easily tested. A true social studies program cannot exist if these components are absent or only exist in a concomitant manner.

Another implication of this approach will be that students' individuality will be emphasized. Rather than a one-size fits all approach, pedagogical practices will focus on the needs of the individual student instead of the curricular content that will be on the examinations. Student creativity will also be highlighted, which will in turn enrich the learning experience. Options that interest the student will be explored, rather than ignored because of a looming test that may decide the student's future path. Feeling less constricted, teachers and students will be able to investigate interesting components of the curriculum that would be avoided if under pressure to perform on an examination.

A de-pressurized learning environment would also allow the teachers and administrators, those that have been trained in appropriate educational methodology, to be removed from the stress that they face under the high-stakes testing regime. The temptation to dishonesty would be removed, if they felt that their chosen life-occupations were not being threatened by those who demand exemplary test scores from children and schools. Teachers could concentrate on meeting the needs of their students if they did not feel compelled to bow to the demanding expectations of the public. Those public officials who have the authority to implement assessment procedures should rely on the advice of educational researchers whose studies show that these tests not only have a deleterious effect on student and teacher morale, but also do not achieve the purposes that they were designed to accomplish. Further information can be gleaned from teachers in the classroom on what affect these tests are having on the lived realities of both students and teachers. With this information in hand, hopefully policy-makers will realize that the current emphasis on high-stakes testing is not the panacea that it was originally perceived to be.

Conclusion

Assessment has been a major part of education for many years. Only recently has the concept of high-stakes testing turned the practice of examining students into a pressure-filled experience for students, teachers as well as administrators. Globalization and its market-driven forces have pushed the need for more and more assessment. This has impacted the field of education profoundly. Each subject area taught in school has been affected and social studies is no exception. The drive for more assessment has reduced the curricular expectations to those that are testable and thus a wide spectrum of social studies skills and values have been lost in this testing mania. It is important for all educators, including those involved in the social studies, to evaluate the purposes of evaluation and to ensure their voice is heard in defence of what is in the best interests of the students. Only then will measurement and evaluation again be an important component of education, but not the driving force that it has become.

References

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Burbules, N.C. Torres, C.A. (Eds.) (2000). Globalization and education: Critical perspectives. New York: Routledge.

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CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Embracing Ambiguity in the Artefacts of the Past:
Teacher Identity and Pedagogy

Lisa Barty
University of Alberta

Abstract

In this paper, the author considers the correlation between the construct of teacher identity and pedagogical choice, with specific reference to secondary social studies teachers and their use of primary sources in the classroom. After a brief review of the benefits and challenges of using primary sources in the classroom, the author concludes that the more pervasive challenge to using primary sources is pedagogical rather than pragmatic, and that pedagogy is intrinsically linked to teacher identity formation. The literature suggests that the construct of teacher identity is influenced by many factors, from individual experience and teacher training, to socio-cultural discourses relating to nationalism. The article concludes with a variety of suggestions of ways in which teacher educators can promote both reflective pre-service teaching, and encourage wider use of primary sources in social studies classrooms as an effective pedagogical strategy in an increasingly global society.

Introduction

Social studies education in Canada is a complex interweaving of history, economics, geography, and politics, grounded in notions of citizenship. As a result, social studies teachers must regularly deal with issues of identity and values, on both an individual and societal level. Everyday social studies classrooms delve into topics that are, or have the potential to be, controversial in nature. Though ministries of education can standardize curriculum documents and resources, each teacher, as an individual being, brings a unique set of life experiences to his or her classroom. This individuality impacts a teacher's philosophical beliefs, and ultimately, the pedagogical approaches used in their classroom. We often refer to this construct as teacher identity. While there is a substantial body of literature relating to the general construct of teacher identity, there is surprisingly little research into the specific notion of teacher identity relating to the field of social studies. However, the literature that does exist suggests that the construct of teacher identity is influenced by many factors, from individual experience and teacher training, to socio-cultural discourses relating to nationalism.

As a former teacher, and in my current role as a museum educator, I have been especially interested in the various ways in which teachers use primary sources in social studies education. In the past, many teachers I have spoken with informally suggest that lack of access to archival documents or historical objects have prevented their frequent use in the classroom. New technologies, such as the Internet, allow museums today to provide access to an unprecedented number of archival and photographic sources. However, increased access still has not resulted in their universal use in classrooms. It follows that the more pervasive challenge to using primary sources is pedagogical rather than pragmatic. Research shows us that primary sources have tremendous potential to help students develop critical thinking skills and to understand the complexity of historical interpretation (Lee, 2001; Cox Barrow, 2000; Seixas, 1998). They also have the potential to spark ambiguity, and even controversy, in the social studies classroom. As a result, some teachers feel hesitant about incorporating primary sources into their classrooms. Focussing primarily on pre-service, secondary social studies teachers, in this paper I will demonstrate some of the benefits and challenges of using primary sources. I will then suggest that emerging teachers' reluctance to incorporate primary sources in the social studies classroom is a pedagogical issue that is firmly grounded in notions of teacher identity, which ultimately, may have profound implications for our current practices in pre-service teacher education.

Defining Primary Sources

Often the term primary sources itself is vague or ambiguous to teachers. VanFossen Shiveley (2000) offer a good working definition of the term primary sources:

Though the authors make reference to materials, we must not let print-based records overshadow the rich learning potential that can also come from non-print sources. Cox and Barrow (2000), Susan Wunder (2002) and White White (2000), all present interesting case studies of their work introducing pre-service teachers to the range of learning that can be facilitated by using such things as museum artifacts and historic buildings.
The Benefits of Using Primary Sources

Recently, there have been a number of interesting studies completed by Faculties of Education, in partnership with museums, which investigated the issues that pre-service teachers face when using primary sources with students. For example, Cox and Barrow (2000) developed a practicum for pre-service social studies teachers situated at a local museum. The authors concluded that the activities the pre-service teachers developed in the museum setting helped them learn to incorporate higher level thinking skills in their lessons, in addition to empowering them with the ability to construct personal meaning from primary sources.

Wunder (2002) also discusses the benefits of teaching teachers how to use primary sources. She developed a partnership between her own elementary social studies methods students from the University of Nebraska and the education staff at the Museum of Nebraska History. Each student had the opportunity to work with groups of younger students in the museum setting. Wunder (2002) notes that working with primary sources has the benefit of promoting active learning and critical thinking skills (p. 159). Yet she also notes that [f]or pre-service teachers, as for other classroom teachers, providing sufficient artefacts for historical inquiry is a challenge (Wunder, 2002, p. 160). Therefore, this partnership was not only a way to help her pre-service teachers develop the confidence to use primary sources with children, but it was also a way of modelling to her own students how the challenge of access could be overcome by working directly with the education staff of a local museum.

Moving beyond artefacts to historic architecture, White White (2000) discuss their approaches to introducing both pre-service and in-service teachers to primary sources. Pre-service teachers in a social studies methods course were taken on a field study of a historical district in Boston. The authors note the importance of teacher preparation for such field trips. The field study was also a good experience in recognizing the kinds of questions teachers should ask and questions students might raise that can be answered, at least tentatively, when they return to their classroom, using primary and secondary sources (White White, 2000, p. 29). The examples cited above show that using primary sources has positive learning impacts. However, they do not specifically address how to overcome the ambiguous nature of primary sources and the unforeseen questions they can raise. For pre-service teachers, questions of ambiguity are the greatest obstacles teachers face when attempting to incorporate primary sources into their lessons.

The Fear of Ambiguity and Controversy in Social Studies Classrooms

Lee (2001) and Seixas (1998) both have studied the challenges that pre-service social studies teachers face when using primary resources. Lee (2001) conducted a qualitative study of twenty pre-service social studies teachers and investigated their ability to effectively use digital primary sources in the preparation of instructional materials. He found that Pre-service teachers recognized the interpretive potential of digital historical collections, but downplayed controversial digital historical resources when developing their pedagogical content knowledge (Lee, 2001, para.10). Though the pre-service teachers in his study acknowledged that using primary sources helped their students develop critical thinking skills by interpreting multiple points of view, they were reluctant to introduce any new sources that could result in controversy in their classrooms (Lee, 2001, para. 18). Unfortunately, most of the pre-service teachers in his study were unable to find ways to help themselves and their students effectively deal with the ambiguity and controversy associated with interpreting past events (Lee, 2001, para. 34).

Seixas (1998) investigated the difficulties social studies methods students faced when they were asked to use primary sources in a lesson plan for their practicum. He reminds us that the use of primary sources requires teachers themselves to possess the confidence and cognitive ability (often rooted in discipline specific knowledge) to interpret the source. Thus, the process of building knowledge about the past involves an analysis of the 'remainders of the past' (or texts), which proceeds in part through understanding them in the light of what we already know about the past (i.e. contextualization) (Seixas, 1998, p. 312). Further complicating the issue of interpretation and contextualization is the postmodern suggestion that presentism prevents the accurate construction of historical knowledge because we can never truly separate our present frames of reference from our interpretations (Seixas, 1998, p. 313).

Another complication pre-service teachers face in the use of primary sources is based on their view of historical investigation itself (Seixas, 1998, p. 328). For example, Seixas (1998) found that even pre-service teachers with undergraduate degrees in history found it challenging to construct pedagogically appropriate lesson plans that allowed for multiple viewpoints to be discussed in the classroom. Two of the four pre-service teachers interviewed construed the historian as detective finding answers to a puzzle whose answers are fixed, rather than historian as a builder of interpretations with limits set by text and context (Seixas, 1998, p.334).

Language is another major challenge when using primary sources. Some authors note that the reading level of primary source documents or the colloquial terminology that is to be found in many historical documents may frustrate young students, thus negating the positive impacts (Lee, 2001; Seixas, 1998). In addition, there is the difficult question of cultural sensitivity; language used in the past may actually be deemed offensive by today's society. This is often problematic when dealing with cultural or racial topics, such as American slavery or the treatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. One of the pre-service teachers in Lee's study struggled with the challenges of language and controversy during a lesson about the Civil War.

Lee's observations highlight what is perhaps the greatest challenge of using primary sources in the classroom. Introducing students to primary sources is not in itself an effective pedagogical approach. To fully realize the benefits of primary sources, teachers must possess the confidence and skills to help facilitate, not mediate, the controversial issues they may spark.

However, if teachers are unprepared to effectively deal with the challenges that primary sources can instigate, not only can the positive impacts be negated, but the result can lead to misunderstandings and uninformed conclusions. To more fully experience the range of cognitive and affective benefits, teachers must be taught how to effectively incorporate primary sources in their classrooms. More importantly, however, social studies teachers need to personally value the type of outcomes that result from using primary sources. They must envision a classroom where debate, ambiguity and even controversy are welcomed. They must see students as capable of thinking critically and compassionately about complex and potentially disturbing issues. They must have the confidence in themselves to be a facilitator of the inquiry process rather than the transmitter of indisputable facts. Ultimately, this pedagogical question is intrinsically linked to teacher identity.

The Discourse of Teacher Identity and Pedagogy

While there is a substantial amount of literature that discusses the construction of teacher identity in general terms, the literature is more limited in regards to social studies teachers specifically. Therefore, I have chosen to focus on aspects of teacher identity that directly or indirectly could be applied to the field of social studies. Of particular interest to my own work is the literature that explores the link between teacher identity and pedagogical choice (Miller Marsh, 2002; Gaudelli, 1999; Gibson, 1995).

Miller Marsh (2002), a teacher educator at Binghamton University, suggests that pedagogical choices are informed by teacher identity, which is shaped by both a child-centered discourse and a socio-cultural discourse. Working with her own pre-service education students, she challenged them to deconstruct the relationships between discourse, power and identity. She found that teacher identity is a process of social negotiation, strongly shaped by our experiences as students (Miller Marsh, 2002, p. 454), and deeply rooted in historical and contemporary constructs of power:

Throughout her course, she challenged her pre-service teachers to critically think about issues, from grading and standardized testing, to more philosophical issues about the role of language and the teacher's responsibilities within the classroom. In particular, she introduced strategies, such as group assignments, with collective grading, which forced her students to work reflectively within a socio-cultural discourse. Many of her education students found it challenging to move from the more traditional child-centred discourse, which establishes a linear progression of cognitive development, to a socio-cultural discourse, which questions the notion of power and encourages a more recursive approach to learning. As Danielewicz (2001) reminds us, teacher identity is shaped by the interplay of internal and external discourse. Miller Marsh (2002) concludes that, Helping teachers to make visible the power in the discourses they use and illustrating to them that they can make some choices about their own identities and the social identities of the children in their care is one way to work towards social transformation (p. 467).
Gaudelli (1999) looked more directly at the relationship between teacher's personal identity and pedagogical choice in an ethnographic study of fourteen educators, with varying levels of experience, who were teaching a course in global education. He suggests that:

Gaudelli determined that there was a relationship between teacher identity and the strategies individual teachers used to deal with controversy in the classroom. Though most teachers avoided having their students engage in substantive discussion about controversial issues, he noted that some of the teachers in his study actually sensationalized controversial issues as a pedagogical approach to generating student interest in the topic being studied (Gaudelli, 1999, p. 15). He ultimately concluded that:

Clearly, even the experienced teachers in his study grappled with how to effectively deal with issues of ambiguity and controversy in their classrooms. Certainly this problem is exacerbated for most pre-service and emerging teachers.

Gibson (1995) completed a qualitative study with eight emerging social studies teachers as they made the transition from student to teacher. She found that teacher identity is strongly influenced by our prior conceptions of teachers, and that most emerging teachers had formed some ideas about the nature of social studies and pedagogy well before they began their formal teacher training (Gibson, 1995, p. 74). Despite the influence of their experiences as students in social studies classes, most participants agreed that extended practice teaching experience during teacher training was beneficial in helping them shape (or re-shape) their own teacher identities.

A recurring issue brought up by participants was the notion of moral responsibility. She noted that many of these teachers struggled with how to deal with controversial issues in their classrooms and though their strategies varied, all were directly linked to their personal sense of the moral responsibility of the teacher (Gibson, 1995, p. 127). The author reminds us of the need for more reflective teacher training, so that prior values and notions of social studies, pedagogy and moral responsibility can be critiqued and refined. Gibson (1995) concludes:

Though some authors (Gaudelli, 1999; Gibson, 1995) suggest that the construction of teacher identity is a highly personal and ultimately internal process, other authors suggest that identity is predominantly constructed by larger external influences (Miller Marsh, 2002; Danielewicz, 2001).

Teacher Identity as a National Construct

Researchers, particularly in the United Kingdom, have written about how nationalism influences the construction of teacher identity (Moore et al., 2002; Grosvenor Lawn, 2001). They suggest that government policy has been used to determine, manipulate and enforce teacher identity, which ultimately influences curriculum and pedagogy.

Grosvenor and Lawn (2001) investigated the links between national education policy and teacher identity in the twentieth century. They suggest that, National identity and teaching were bound together, inseparable in their reliance on mythologies of the past, on the civilising rise of education and the distinguishing democratic responsibility of teaching in England. Professionalism and pedagogy were not separated, but intrinsically part of this process (Grosvenor Lawn, 2001, p. 357). Clearly, they suggest that nationalism and neo-liberal management practices imposed on schools shape both the individual and the collective identity of teachers (Grosvenor Lawn, 2001, p. 359).

Moore et al. (2002) also suggest that educational reforms resulting from rapid socio-economic changes and market forces in the United Kingdom are forcing teachers to form identities based less on educational theory and ideology, and more on what they term principled pragmatism (Moore et al., 2002, p. 552). They conclude that:

Both of these studies remind us of the external forces shaping teacher identity, individually and collectively.

Competing Notions of Teacher Identity

It is clear that there are many differing opinions about which factors are more influential in constructing teacher identity. Though each of the previous studies cited has something to add to the dialogue about teacher identity, any one factor alone can be proven to be more or less influential. In fact, it is imperative that as teachers we need to reconsider the relationship between our notions of personal identity and how they shape, and are shaped by, the wider discourse of collective teacher identity. This involves reflecting upon both the internal and external factors, which shape our identity as teachers. As Deborah Britzman (1991) suggests, teacher identity is formed by what she terms the complexity of relationships. Enacted in every pedagogy are the tensions between knowing and being, thought and action, theory and practice, knowledge and experience, the technical and the existential, the objective and the subjective (Britzman, 1991, p. 2)

In relation to the specific issue of controversy and ambiguity raised by using primary sources in the social studies classroom, pre-service teachers are reluctant to deal with these complex issues for a variety of reasons. Pre-service teachers do not get a great deal of time to engage in real teaching experience. In addition, not only do pre-service teachers require the skills to effectively incorporate primary sources into their daily lessons, but they need to personally believe in the outcomes the use of such sources can produce. Pre-service and emerging teachers need to envision a classroom where they and their students share the power and they need to give up their role as the central figure of authority. This is, indeed, a personal values issue steeped in one's sense of their identity. As Britzman (1998) also reminds us, dealing with contentious history requires educators to think carefully about their own theories of learning and how the stuff of such difficult knowledge becomes pedagogical (p. 117).

However, emerging teachers also need to feel safe utilizing this pedagogical approach and believe that there is support, from both colleagues and administrators, in choosing the more messy approach to teaching social studies. Beyond individual identity formation, this is an issue of collective teacher identity, shaped by socio-cultural influences, including government policy. Danielewicz (2001) has concluded that collective identity is profoundly influenced by the positive or negative affiliations that pre-service teachers had with mentors or cooperating teachers during practicum placements. Though there is value in the student practicum process, teacher educators must do more to encourage pre-service teachers to not simply emulate or copy their supervising teacher's identity, but rather to experiment and find their own unique identities. In other words, pre-service teachers must become more aware and reflective of both the external and internal discourses which shape teacher identity, individually and collectively.

Incorporating Primary Sources into Pre-service Teacher Training

In terms of helping emerging teachers to embrace primary sources, there are a few key strategies that could be easily incorporated into teacher training. Ledford and Hattler (1997) suggest that pre-service teachers need increased training in the effective use of technology, so they can take advantage of on-line primary sources and promote active learning. However, this is only a very small part of the training teachers require to effectively use primary sources in the classroom. More importantly, pre-service teachers need the confidence and skills to contextualize primary sources and develop age-appropriate lessons around them. All learners, regardless of age, require time and practice to develop new skills. Pre-service teachers cannot be expected to effectively incorporate primary sources in their classrooms without repeated exposure and opportunity to learn how to effectively use such sources with students. Teacher educators must look beyond superficial field trips and consider the benefits of developing more formalized partnerships with area museums, acknowledging and utilizing the expertise held by museum education staff (Wunder, 2002; Cox Barrow, 2000; Claire, 1996).

In terms of developing their ability to use primary sources Lee (2001) also makes a series of recommendations for pre-service teacher education. He suggests that social studies methods courses must prepare emerging teachers to handle the ambiguity that can arise when a primary source contradicts an accepted interpretation of an historical event. Teachers must be willing and able to help their students challenge the authoritative voice often found in instructional materials, such as textbooks (Lee, 2001, para 34). In addition, he suggests that teacher preparation programs need to help pre-service history and social studies teachers develop the attitudes and skills necessary to objectively address controversial issues in the classroom (Lee, 2001, para. 35). All of these suggestions would, in my opinion, promote more effective use of primary sources in the social studies classroom.

Teacher Identity and Pre-service Education

Though pre-service teachers are often focused on issues centred on curriculum and subject content, teacher educators must model reflective practice and specifically address the complex issue of teacher identity, particularly in the social studies. As Britzman (1991) reminds us:

The issues Britzman (1991) speaks of are firmly rooted in the construction of individual and collective teacher identity. To not address this issue head-on with emerging social studies teachers is to propagate the myth that social studies is neutral and to perpetuate what Gaudelli (1999) terms the quandary of relativism. As the world becomes increasingly concerned with the economic forces of globalization, we as teachers must deconstruct the impacts of the borderless world on our students, our schools, and ourselves. We must become more conscious of how these influences shape teachers individually and collectively.

In addition, Britzman (1991) and Danielewicz (2001) remind us that pre-service teachers are concurrently experiencing many kinds of identity formation, personally and professionally, as they approach the milestone of graduation. They both call for teacher training that is reflective and acknowledge the complexity of teaching.

Britzman's observations about the impact of technical rationality may help to explain why so many new social studies teachers are reluctant to use primary sources in the classroom. With the pressures that probationary teachers face to exhibit strong classroom management skills and to have students do well on high stakes achievement tests, it is no wonder that they are hesitant to introduce any pedagogical strategy that might be messy. Yet, if young teachers spend the most formative years of their careers teaching conservatively and avoiding risks a significant concern is that many will continue to teach this way throughout their entire careers. Surely avoiding the richness and complexity of social studies education is not the end goal of teacher education?

Danielewicz (2001) suggests that, To promote identities, teacher education programs should be situated, authentic contexts where they are an organic part of a discourse community that includes real schools, teachersstudents, districts, administrators, and any other people usually present in school settings (p. 182). In addition to student practicum placements, teacher trainers need to incorporate more meaningful experiences in informal learning settings, such as museums, cultural centres and civic offices, into their social studies methods courses. If social studies is truly grounded in notions of citizenship, we cannot be afraid to move beyond the often sterile walls of our classrooms and engage with our communities, in situ.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that there is much more research needed in the area of pedagogy and teacher identity, particularly as it relates to social studies. After all, the richness of social studies lies in the complex issues it raises. Rather than avoid such topics, pre-service and emerging teachers need to be given the tools to begin to embrace uncertainty and stimulate debate in their classrooms. Granted this is not always easy and can even be personally painful, as we are forced to look inward to our own values, biases, and ideologies. However, in an increasingly global society, the issues that are debated, and skills that are developed within the context of the social studies classroom, are going to become imperative life skills in the twenty-first century. More than teaching concepts of citizenship, social studies will be the cornerstone for teaching about what it means to be human in an increasingly borderless world. We owe it to ourselves as educators, and to our present and future students, to embrace this challenge and consider the benefits that can rise out of the ambiguity and controversy.

References

Britzman, Deborah (1991). Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning to Teach. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Britzman, Deborah (1998). Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Towards a Psychoanalytic Inquiry of Learning. New York: State University of New York Press.

Claire, Hillary (1996). Museum education departments and initial teacher training: A developing partnership. Journal of Education in Museums, 17, p. 20-22.

Cox, Linda H. Barrow, Jill H. (2000). On display: Pre-service teachers in the museum. Retrieved November 1, 2002 from http://beliot.edu/~newb/ed281sp02/Work/Challenges/cox_barrow.html

Danielewicz, Jane (2001). Teaching Selves - Identity, Pedagogy, and Teacher Education. New York: State University of New York Press.

Gaudelli, Bill (1999). Teacher as Self: Understanding Pedagogy in Global Education.
Presentation at the College and University Faculty Association National Council for Social Studies, November 19, 1999.

Gibson, Susan (1995). Emerging Teacher Identity: a study in learning to teach through the experiences of a secondary social studies methods course. University of British Columbia.

Grosvenor, Ian Lawn, Martin (2001). 'This is Who We Are and This is What We Do': teacher identity and teacher work in mid-twentieth century English educational discourse. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 9 (3), 355-370.

Ledford, Carolyn Cox Hattler, Jean Anne. (1997). Making connections: Social studies methods and the Internet. Computers in the Social Studies, 5 (3). Retrieved November 1, 2002 from www.cssjournal.com

Lee. John K. (2001). Pre-service social studies teachers reckoning with historical interpretations and controversy arising from the use of digital historical resources. Journal for the Association of History and Computing IV (2). Retrieved November 1, 2002 from http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCIV2/ARTICLES/lee/leeindex.html

Miller Marsh, Monica (2002). Examining the Discourses That Shape Our Teacher Identities. Curriculum Inquiry, 32 (4), 453 - 469.

Moore, A., Edwards, G., Halpin, D. George, R (2002). Compliance, Resistance and Pragmatism: the (re)construction of schoolteacher identities in a period of intensive educational reform. British Educational Research Journal, 28 (4), 551-565.
Seixas, Peter (1998). Student Teachers Thinking Historically. Theory and Research in Social Education 26, 310-341.

VanFossen, Phillip J. Shiveley, James M. (2000). Using the Internet to create primary source teaching packets. The Social Studies 91, 244-252.

White, Charles S. White, Deborah J.D. (2000). Preparing teachers to teach with historic places. Cultural Resource Management 8, 28-30.

Wunder, Susan. (2002). Learning to teach for historical understanding: Pre-service teachers at a hands-on museum. The Social Studies 93, 159-163.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Globalization and Peace Education

Brenda Basiga
University of Alberta

Abstract

Today, it would be difficult to find a community that has been unaffected by globalization, yet its effects are still unknown to many people. This paper is an attempt to bring the subject to the awareness of educators while particularly focusing on those in the Philippines. It is ironic that globalization on one hand has incited people all over the world to protest against it; on the other hand, it has drawn the world closer together. Various contradicting effects of globalization on nations all over the world, especially on the economic sphere, are presented in the early part of the paper, and then the specific impacts in the Philippine context are discussed. The latter portion of the paper discusses an attempt at reconciliation of the conflicts created because of globalization through global education or peace education.

Introduction

Recently, strong opposition to the war in Iraq has been expressed, not only in the countries which sent combatants but also in many other countries around the world. Massive protests have been well organized and tens of thousands of people have participated. A similar kind of organized opposition was seen in Seattle in 1997. Protests effectively derailed the World Trade Organization's (WTO) agenda regarding the worldwide installation of the Multilateral Agreement on Investments. Similarly, in June 1989, news about student demonstrations in China could not be stopped from filtering out of the country, despite the Chinese government's effort to control the news by means of banning satellites and fax machines, or by prohibiting foreign journalists from transmitting and broadcasting information about the way the government handled the country's dissidents. Supporters sympathetic to the dissent ensured the flow of information in and out of China, letting the world know that the Chinese government had ordered its army to fire on the protesting students. These examples of organized opposition suggest that peoples of different races, cultures, and classes, including citizens from various parts of the world, have worked to develop a form of world public opinion in opposition to exploitation and globalization.

As nations become globally interdependent, a growing number of citizens in both North and South contexts are becoming socially and politically aware of each other. Viewing planet Earth as a place where countries and peoples share common opportunities, common resources and a common future, such critically-aware citizens note that policies and actions imposed in one site or part of the world often impact on other countries, either positively or adversely. It is ironic that globalization, on the one hand, has incited peoples all over the world to protest against it, while on the other hand, globalization has drawn the world closer together. Peoples on opposite sides of the globe watch the same movies and shows, wear similar clothes, eat similar food and drink, and even communicate in a common language (Savage Armstrong, 1992; Touraine, 2000).

The contradictory impacts of globalization affect countries all over the world, especially with respect to the economic sphere, which is the subject of the first part of this paper. For example, while the internationalization of economies promises to bring prosperity to underdeveloped countries that need it most, it also causes poverty and enhances the disparity between the rich and the poor. Through the examination of global education and peace education, a reconciliation of the conflicts that are generated by globalization is attempted in the second part of the paper. Peace education seeks to address problems of globalization that extend beyond national boundaries. As economies become interdependent, peoples increasingly rely on each other to work out shared difficulties (Stockard, 2001; Wright, 2001). Currently, it is difficult to find a community or country that is unaffected by globalization, and yet a country such as the Philippines is very much affected by this phenomenon but does not currently include the subject of globalization in its educational curriculum. Examples such as this lead to the final pages of this paper, where the impact of globalization in the Philippines is examined. In this paper, globalization is used synonymously with modernization and with development, while global education is used interchangeably with peace education and with development education.

Definitions of Globalization

The impact of globalization will be understood more clearly by first defining the term, though it is interpreted differently by different authors. Some claim that globalization means the competition of companies nationally and internationally to maximize profit. It is also identified as a process of the international integration of economies by means of the social restructuring of the modes of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services on a global scale; this restructuring is accomplished in part through the removal of trade restrictions and the opening of national borders to allow capital to flow freely between countries (Burbules, Torres 2000; Carnoy, 1999; Hirst, Thompson, 1996; Scholte, 2000; Sanders, 1996; Tujan, 1998). Some authors go even further and suggest that globalization is not merely a process of economic integration, but the actual universalization and commodification of knowledge, technology and communication, culture, health care, heritage, genetic codes, and natural resources such as land, forests, air, and water (Barlow, Clarke 2002; Reiser, Davies 1944; Smith, 2000). A third definition equates globalization to westernization and modernization, where existing local social structures and cultures are destroyed and replaced by the social structures of capitalism, rationalism, industrialism, and the imperialism of such social institutions as McDonald's, Hollywood, CNN, and the like (Schiller, 1991; Scholte, 2000; Spybey, 1996; Taylor, 2000). All three definitions serve as the referents of globalization in this paper.

Impacts of Globalization

Although the roots of globalization can be traced back to the Enlightenment era of eighteenth-century Europe (Gray in Smith, 2000), the impact of globalization has never garnered as much attention as it has in the last sixty years or so. Rationalism as a paradigm of knowledge configuration allows globalization to flourish. It aims to define reality by means of observable, physical truths that are discoverable and understood in terms of scientific, objective research. The Enlightenment vision that dominates in the United States upholds this rationalist theory as it asserts that scientific knowledge is non-territorial and that objective truth is valid for anyone, anywhere, anytime [such that] certain products, regulations, technologies, art forms, and the like can apply across the world (Scholte, 2000, p. 95). The Enlightenment mindset opposes territorial divisions and state borders as it is affirmed as follows, Reason knows no territorial limits (Albrow, 1996, p. 32). Rationalism sets the foundation for other globalization forces to develop. It promotes a knowledge framework for capitalist production and the advancement of scientific thinking, a framework out of which technologies which open up intraterritorial spaces emerge (Smith in Hakovirta, 2000; Scholte, 2000). Other models of knowing are undermined and dismissed as irrational by rationalism. Nonetheless, so-called irrational knowledge and subsistence development have, in some ways, offered resistance to globalization. As an example, indigenous peoples' ways of knowing and living have sustained them for centuries.

In other areas, the movement of eco-centrism also works to oppose the rationalist belief. While rationalism claims that nature is subservient to humans (Eckersley, 1991), in eco-centrist knowledge, humans are only part of a larger life system, and are considered to be subordinate to nature. Indigenous peoples' cognizance of and relationship with nature becomes an integral part of the rejection of violence against, and the destruction of the environment (Warren, 1996). Some environmentalists and animal rights activists promote an understanding of Gaia, a notion that considers planet Earth to be a living thing and a source of life (Lovelock, 1979).

Economic globalization is often succeeded by a series of economic crisis. In the 1930s, Latin America experienced a foreign exchange problem created by a drop in export income in Argentina and in Brazil. In the 1940s, Europe underwent a crisis after its economy suffered during the Second World War. Later, as colonized countries gained independence, efforts were made to put the economies of Asian and African countries on their feet. A need to establish a new international economic order arose, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now known as the World Bank) were organized. Martinussen (1997) explains the functions of the institutions:

With the focus on economic growth in Third World countries, capital became increasingly internationalized. The IMF and the World Bank helped to develop the economy of poorer countries by lending them money for infrastructure, for communication networks, and for banking facilities.

Africa and Asia were pushed to move through gradual changes toward industrialization by means of a modernization process. This was the case because First World economists were of the belief that developing countries existed in a state of poverty because they are not industrialized. The Western experts believed that modernization would benefit both the developing and the highly developed Western countries. Hence, foreign capital flowed into Third World countries to build factories, as well as industrial and commercial establishments. Expectations were raised by the promise that globalization would create a more prosperous and egalitarian world.

However, naive optimism was eventually dashed because modernization brought, instead, enhanced economic disparity: poor countries became poorer, and rich countries became richer. The foreign capital that was provided to help the poor countries was motivated by the prospect of earning sizable returns in the form of interest. Debtor countries were given little banking control, so that capital was effectively free to move in and out of the country through an open trade policy. For the developing countries, the payment of debt-related interest alone was impossible. In order to repay their loans, debtor countries had to deprive their people of basic necessities. Increasing amounts of raw materials, such as logs, minerals, grain, and others items, were exported in order to earn the foreign exchange necessary to counter the growing trade deficit. Vast areas of farmland that had been planted with subsistence crops were now planted with cash crops to feed the hunger of foreign traders, not the farmers who tilled the land. Unregulated global market practices sacrificed forests and vast tracts of land for short-lived trade benefits. Governments of poor countries made radical cutbacks in spending, thereby reducing public and social services, and creating massive unemployment. Ultimately, the structural adjustment made by a poor country's government in order to repay its loans was economically, socially, and ecologically disastrous for its citizens (Bello, Kinley, Elison, 1982).

Technology facilitates international trading practices, the transfer of capital, and also makes possible the virtualization of international finance. National state governments [become] unprecedentedly vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of money markets, Smith (2000) writes. The World Bank and the IMF demand that Third World countries open up their markets to free trade so that such countries can accumulate hard currency through increased exports. Third World countries, however, are often not able to compete with the products imported into their countries because foreign governments often subsidize those products. As well, import tariffs commonly applied by debtor countries are often removed in order to comply with the conditions set by lending countries. When the growth of imported products surpasses a country's exports, a trade deficit results, and it is ultimately the rich country that accumulates the hard currency, not the poor one. On this subject, George (1992) cites a statement made by Senegal's Minister of State, Abdoulaye Wade: facts emerge from the World Bank's accounts[that] Africa is paying this institution more than it receives from it, which means that, contrary to received wisdom, African poverty is financing the long-term wealth of the rich countries (p. 208). As a consequence of the internationalization of capital, a new international division of labour emerges.

Early on in the internationalization process, developing countries export raw materials to developed countries, which subsequently manufacture goods. The developing countries, in turn, import the finished products. As the new international division of labour evolves between First World and the Third World countries, industries are established in developing countries to manufacture products for local consumption. Poor host countries become less dependent on foreign import, although they are still dependent on capital goods and on the import of machinery and technology. This results in the import substitution economy evident in poor countries since products that are normally imported from other countries become available locally. Later, changes are made to international division of labour practices. Now, First World corporations promote the production of goods in developing countries, not merely for local use, but for export to world markets, as well. As a result, Third World countries begin exporting goods, and the reigning import substitution model is changed to an export-oriented economy. Further assurances of wealth and economic stability are pledged, as employment opportunities are created in the developing countries (Brecher, Costello, 1994). The legal framework that organizes foreign investments in poor host countries makes investment attractive. Hardly any restrictions hamper the transfer of capital or the repatriation of profits to rich capitalist countries. Tax policies and exemptions are favourable to investor countries. Leaders of host countries, desperate for the injection of foreign capital, go even so far as to create a political will in their countries to meet the expectations of foreigners. Environmental standards are also brought very low or are non-existent and thus enhance profitability. The economic advantages of globalization are expected for both South and North countries (Brecher, Costello, 1994).

Eventually, globalization results in largely unilateral gains that are reaped by transnational corporations. Despite employment at the corporations' plants, workers can hardly provide themselves with basic supplies, since they are paid poorly. The support of workers' rights and health and safety standards are virtually non-existent in these corporations. Labour costs are extremely cheap, and unions are repressed. In order to discourage workers and unions from asking for better wages and benefits, and better working conditions in general, workers are prevented from forming unions. The pollution of water sources by the chemical and gas emissions of factories destroys the environment. Host countries hardly benefit from the operation of transnational businesses because whatever profit those companies make is repatriated to capitalist countries and is not reinvested in the local economy. The 'global stranglehold' of mega-corporations identified by Dumont is summarized succinctly by Toh (1987), when he writes, Transnational corporations super-profitably exploit cheap 'disciplined' labour and raw materials and transfer inappropriate technology [thereby] aggravating mass unemployment, or products harmful to health within unregulated consumer systems (p. 60).

Globalization proponents argue that modernization should extend further from urban sites into rural communities so as to reach the poorest of the poor. Consequently, they push for agricultural development. Poor countries that have large agricultural sectors and a large rural population are encouraged to venture into the green revolution program. In this process, landless farmers are first given land by means of a land reform program that involves the redistribution of land to small farmers, since it believed that large and wealthy landownersdo not have strong incentives to increase productivity or production (Martinussen, 1997, p. 138). However, this logic is contested by means of the argument that production is in fact more efficient and increases as a result of the cultivation of a larger track of land. By and large, the land reform law allows wealthy landowners to avoid giving up productive land, which is stipulated by the land reform law, such that small farmers are given unproductive parcels of land, getting hardly any yield from them.

At the same time as land reforms are imposed, large corporations, believing that technological innovations in agriculture can increase productivity, become the effective decision makers of the green revolution (Bello, Kinley, Elinson, 1982; Shiva, 1991). Varieties of high-yield crops are developed in research centres funded by organizations such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Crops are closely monitored and the necessary fertilizers and water are supplied by the organizations. Crops are sprayed with pesticides and insecticides to keep them free from diseases and insect attacks. The green revolution employs more labour and capital efficiently. It hires farmers, who are unable to get any crops from their unproductive land. Some countries become self-sufficient in food crops; some of them even export their crops to earn foreign exchange to pay foreign debt.

Despite positive developments, millions of people still do not have enough to eat. The green revolution pushes small landowners off their lands to accommodate the wealthy landowners' large-scale, high-tech agriculture.

In the long run, the modernization of agriculture brings more harm than good. Toh (1987) quotes Linear to explain this point:

Education is not spared by the overreaching grasp of globalization. Since education mirrors society in the sense that social change generates educational change (Anderson, 1991, in White, 1999, p. 168), educational policies bend to accommodate the impact and objectives of globalization. Globalization stands to provide a venue to deliver education in a more equitable manner by improving the quality of education for all students including the poor through the standardization of curriculum and standardized testing. However, since tests are 'influenced by political contexts,' testing and standardization do not necessarily raise the quality of education. Mathison et al. (2000, p.100) states, high stakes testing and standards movement in general are conceived as a broad corporate strategy to control both the content and process of schooling. Real growth becomes limited when schools teach to the tests. Moreover, pressure is exerted on schools and educational institutions to produce not only disciplined, skilled, and reliable workers, but also quick learners who are flexible, can multi-task, and are team players. Although the jobs created by globalization often demand personable, highly competent, and skilled employees, there is frequently no job security for workers and corporations offer few benefits. Since workers may have to change jobs a few times during their lives as result of changes in the global economy, the average level of education is raised (Carnoy, 1999). The governments of developing countries are thus pressed to increase spending to produce a more educated work force, which attracts foreign investments to their particular country. However, the forces of globalization discourage public spending and promote private spending on the expansion of education and other services.

Information technology, which is ushered in by globalization forces, changes the way education is delivered. The use of technology in classrooms revolutionizes the way students learn, think, work, and access bodies of knowledge and the world. The use of technology in the classroom can assist with the accommodation of students-differences, promote critical thinking, develop problem-solving skills, and enhance students' interconnection with others in different parts of the globe. Information technology can offer a motivating, relevant, and a dynamic way of teaching and learning (Quisumbing, 2001; White, 1999). Despite the remarkable promise of technology, former Prime Minister of Thailand, Anand Panyarachun, made the following observation at the opening of the Sixth UNESCO-ACEID International Conference in Bangkok on December 12, 2000:

Panyarachun's message is valid, for although technology has increasingly made humans' work easier in many situations, some of its implications are a cause for concern.

In terms of human security, social justice, environmental care, and democracy, the consequences delivered upon humans by globalization continue to be diverse, although I consider them to be more adverse than positive. Third World governments are attracted by globalization to the development it promises to bring to poor countries. The term development suggests an increase in productivity and an improvement in the quality of people's lives. However, more than four decades of development around the world have resulted in poverty, social injustice, and environmental degradation. Hancock (1989, p.114) cites Esteva's view on development: Development means the sacrifice of environments, solidarities, traditional interpretations and customs to ever-changing expert advice. Development for the overwhelming majority has always meant growing dependence on guidance and management. Zachariach emphasizes the definition, In many parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, development has become an odious word because of its connotation to patronization, unfulfilled promises and, worse, deceitful cover-up of inhuman exploitation (1983, p. 5). This perspective on development challenges the dominant paradigm of modernization increasingly labeled globalization-following the role model of North industrialized nations.

Modernization proponents argue that as countries experience sustained economic growth, individual income, in due course, will rise. This theory assumes that the success of development is measured solely by the value of economic input and output rather than by human and environmental considerations. Unfortunately, this is not the case. While some countries enjoy accelerated economic growth, the poor of those countries are caught in floods and drought, in structural violence, and are adversely affected by vanishing sources of income. Since the planet's resources have benefited only a few, global development has in fact created much disparity so that massive poverty exists in the mindset of unprecedented wealth. There are over a billion people who are unable to meet their basic needs amongst those whose consumption is not ecologically sustainable. In the modernization paradigm, development has prioritized economic growth even as the rural and urban majorities have remained economically and socially marginalized (Korten, 1990; George, 1976).

Globalization and Peace Education

Since globalization is here to stay, efforts should be continually made to mitigate its destructive effects. This challenge has been taken up through global education or peace education efforts initiated by people at the grassroots level, in the upper echelon of governments and societies, and by peoples' movements, religious groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others. Many schools have added global education to their social studies curriculum, while others have integrated it into other subject areas. However, greater awareness of and participation in the movement is required, particularly on the part of First World countries. Simultaneously, more education and conscientization is necessary in Third World countries. It has taken centuries to realize the encroachment of globalization into world systems; it may take longer to mollify its negative effects.

Beginning in the 60s, North-based NGOs that worked in the areas of aid and development began to realize that their partnership work in assisting Southern peoples and communities, through people-centred projects, was not sufficient. Equally important, it became apparent, was the need to raise awareness among Northern citizens of structures of global injustice and the role their countries' foreign policies and industries (e.g., trade, transnational corporations, and aid) played in reproducing North-South inequalities between and within societies. This increased awareness aimed to motivate citizens to take action in solidarity with Third World citizens to transform the structures of injustices and foster a fairer world system. It was in this social context that the movement called development education (sometimes referred to as popular education) emerged (Arnold, 1991; Cronkhite, 1991; Osler, 1994; Zachariah, 1983). Development education

Most importantly, development education drew inspiration from the dialogical and conscientization strategies formulated by the well-known Brazilian adult educator, Paulo Freire (1973). Burns (1989) describes Freire's central concept of conscientization in the following way:

In recent decades, a growing number of critical educators, including those in development education, have argued for a more holistic framework of consciousness-raising through peace education. While the major issues of underdevelopment and global injustice remain central to building a more peaceful world, humanity must also resolve a range of other issues and problems in social, political, and cultural life. Thus, as peace and global educators (Burns Aspeslagh, 1996; Hicks, 1988; Reardon, 1988, Selby, 1993; Toh Floresca-Cawagas, 2000) have argued, development issues cannot be understood when isolated from other problems including militarization, human rights abuses, cultural conflicts, environmental destruction, and personal or inner peace. Peace education delivered formally in classrooms, informally in communities, as well as in boardrooms tries to address the globalization issues. Some of its gains, big and small, give us reason to be hopeful.

Human rights, the fundamental values societies hold to be at the core of human dignity (Polentas, 1999; 1989), are guaranteed by the United Nations. Starkey (1994) makes this point about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Yet human rights are often violated in the process and safeguards of modernization, particularly by the practices of class-based injustices, racism, sexism, discrimination, and others. A holistic global education needs to integrate the core issues of human rights, such as gender equity, into the classroom (Brock-Utne, 1989; Reardon, 1986). Similarly, as the young campaigner on child workers Keilburger (1998) noted, dominant development models have exploited the labour of children and violated their rights as children and as human beings. In North and South contexts, hopeful indications of women's rights movements and child abuse prevention movements often surface in newspapers, although the struggles continue. In schools, child abuse prevention programs are included in the health curriculum. Women's centres and income-generating activities, such as co-operatives, are more consistently in place in numerous Third World countries. The ratification by 191 countries of the Convention on The Rights of Children, an international treaty protecting the rights of children signaled an engagement with, and the empowerment of, child labourers, few of whom are normally given access to alternative economic and social resources (Toh, 2001).

Peace educators today cannot avoid dealing with the effects of war and other consequences of militarization. Massive global spending on weapons and other military technologies clearly diverts valuable resources away from many nations' basic needs. As Floresca-Cawagas Toh (1993) note peace education motivates citizens to become more aware of the anti-development effects of militarization, and hence lobby for the conversion of arms expenditures into programs which satisfy the basic needs of the poor, (e.g., food, housing, health care, jobs, education) (p. 7). In school, efforts are being made to stop violence. Most recently, Edmonton Public Schools announced a Zero tolerance campaign for bullying, which is one of the curricular expectations covered in Edmonton classrooms, as well as The Safe and Caring Schools program. Peace demonstrations and peace rallies against wars across the globe-lately against the war in Iraq-are gaining more momentum by the hour. The stand that the Canadian government has taken to not support the United States' invasion of Iraq is impressive. Although new tensions are emerging, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reduction in arms that were accumulated during the Cold War era, the Walk for Peace, the reconciliation effort in Cambodia, and the bloodless People's Revolution in the Philippines, may all be examples of peaceful responses to physical and structural violence.

There is now widespread consensus among peace, global, and development educators that future development projects must promote sustainability (Fine, 2001; Shiva, 1991). Environmental degradation and the depletion of resources adversely affect the earth's ecology, and thus bring about poor living conditions. Many people are forced to leave their homes when their land can no longer sustain them as a result of destructive environmental practices. The resulting environmental damage undermines the peoples' abilities to support themselves, furthering the cycle of poverty, CCIC (2003) claims. Peace education also tries to address the issue of environmental destruction, among others, through formal education. For example, the subject of waste management, the study of trees and forests, pond life, and ecology are all topics taught in science classes in elementary and high school in Alberta. On the informal side, environmentally and ecologically conscious groups have been formed throughout the world to protest against commercial logging, mining, damming, and other deleterious activities that destroy the earth. In many Asian countries, laws have been passed that require developers to meet environmental guidelines before roads and tourist facilities can be built.

Development education is conducted within a peace education framework and centres on issues of intercultural/'ethno-racial' conflicts. Ethnic diversity is found, in some degree in most, if not all, of the world's countries. However, there are increasing numbers of examples of conflicts between cultural groups that have lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide (e.g., Rwanda, Bosnia, India, Iraq, Kosovo). In other cases, people are denied their rights because of the colour of their skin. Conflict ensues when a nation's or community's dominant group tries to integrate or to assimilate minority groups without regard for their identity or cultural diversity. Most displaced peoples are poor, and it is minority groups that are often blamed for a country's economic downturn. If globalization is to equitably benefit all cultural and ethnic groups within a society, and around the world, intercultural respect and solidarity clearly need to be developed. With the mobility of world populations that is enabled by globalization, governments, particularly those of Canada and The United States, have sanctioned educational policies and practices that affirm cultural pluralism. They have done so not only to address issues of ethnic diversity, but other socio-cultural differences such as behavioural patterns, literacy practices, bodies of knowledge, language use, and cognitive skills (Leistyna, 2002). The indigenous people in the Nunavut Territory have been given the opportunity to apply their own way of governance through self-determination. Also in Canada, the Alberta government tries to include aboriginal wisdom in its new social studies curriculum. One of the core values upon which a comprehensive peace education is based is the ideal of global citizenship. Reardon (1988) states that:

This idea is further developed by Reardon in relation to the other core value she discusses the value of humane relationships which starts with interconnections between the human order and the natural order and emphasizing a human order of positive relationshipsthat make it possible for all to pursue the realization of individual and communal human potential (Reardon, 1988, p. 59). There is an urgent need for peace education so that globalization problems such as the violation of human rights, poverty, environmental destruction, and structural violence can be alleviated and eventually eliminated. Peace education is necessary in order to resolve global issues, to preserve the environment, to safeguard human rights, and to ensure peace within and between countries. In a time of economic interdependency, world citizens have to learn to work co-operatively in culturally diversified settings. Peace education can assist in the development of social harmony, equity, and social justice as alternatives to tensions and wars.

The empowerment component that lies at the heart of peace education coaches citizens to exercise their social, political, and economic rights (Floresca-Cawagas, Toh, 1989). It helps people to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will ideally free them from hunger, from abuses and exploitation, and from structural violence as they take greater control over the direction in which their lives are headed (Selby, 1993). Global education, or peace education, puts great emphasis on participatory and experiential modes of learning, which foster both pupil autonomy and the development of critical thinking skills. Effective learning is seen as arising out of affirmation of each pupil's individual worth, the development of a wide range of cooperative skills, the ability to discuss and debate issues, to reflect critically on everyday life and events in the wider world, and to act as responsible citizens, observes Hicks (1993, p. 20). Citizens are empowered when they are given the chance to participate in the decision-making processes, especially on those that directly affect them.

Finally, a holistic model of peace, or global, education is ideal, especially one that DePass et al (1991) describe:

Peace education must not only involve school personnel, but also the community, private citizens, governments, business and everyone else since for it to be effective, it must be taught holistically.

Globalization in the Philippines

The Philippines is one of the highly globalized countries in the South that has been subjected to development and is still experiencing adverse repercussions. The country's development problems find their roots in the colonization era, when foreigners invaded the Philippines. Spain was the first to colonize the country and did so for more than four centuries. The Japanese lorded over the Philippines after the Spaniards left, and finally, the Americans ruled over it for many years before allowing its people to form a democratic republic (McCoy De Jesus, 1982).

Racism took root in the country during the colonization period, and was grounded in the foundation of the power imbalances between the colonial subjects and the imperialists. Ideologies of racism and cultural superiority were used to rationalize the actions of the imperialists (Constantino, 1975). The natives were regarded as inferior and incapable of managing their own affairs. The authoritarian rule of the colonizers consistently subjugated the Filipinos, who eventually lost their sense of self-worth. The disdain directed at them by the imperialists was internalized and thus contributed to the Filipino's loss of self-respect and the development of a colonial mentality. As a result of years of subjugation, Filipinos looked down on themselves. The Filipinos also adopted exploitation and corruption from their colonizers, so that when the invaders left, the local leaders who took power were well versed in corruption. In recent times, those in power have taken advantage of their positions by helping themselves to whatever resources are available to their office for their personal enrichment. Foreign aid intended for humanitarian purposes to help the poor often does not reach the identified beneficiaries. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to expand.

Also worthy of note is the fact that in colonial times, foreigners stripped the Filipinos of their freedom to live in their own way, to practise their traditions, and to own property. They became 'squatters in their own land' and 'slaves in their own kingdom.' They were not allowed to participate in the economic and political affairs of the country. The invaders made the decisions that directly affected the Filipinos, without any consultation with the people themselves. When their rights were taken away, so were their pride and dignity. Marginalization and the blatant disregard for the Filipino peoples' rights have continued into the present, long after they gained independence from the invaders. People are continually forced off their land by globalization. Western values are directly and indirectly imposed on them through technology and trade and are gradually replacing traditional Filipino values, obliterating a distinct Filipino cultural identity.

Although the country is now independent, it still receives a lot of foreign aid in the form of loans. The Philippines, which used to be an exporter of rice in the 1960s, has in recent years been unable to feed its own populace, since its productive and fertile lands are now owned by either the national elites or by the transnational agricultural corporations (Dahm, 1991; Hayami, Quisumbing, Adriano, 1990, as cited in Miron, 1997) and are planted with cash crops such as pineapples and bananas. Cash crop prices are fixed by transnational corporations (TNCs), which are more concerned with profits than with the welfare of the farmers. While corporations own vast farmlands, many citizens do not own any land and are unable to farm even for subsistence purposes. Agrarian reform programs that have been instituted in the country have been unsuccessful because they have not been accompanied by necessary agricultural support, such as irrigation systems, information about more productive farming techniques, and farm loans (Floresca-Cawagas Toh, 1989, 1993). Similarly, the adoption of a mechanized chemical-intensive and fertilizer-dependent rice technology [has driven] many small farmers to bankruptcy, while bringing windfall profits to farm machinery manufacturers, the fertilizer cartel, and the U.S. pesticide monopoly (Bello, Kinley, Elinson, 1982, p.87).

The structural violence inflicted upon farmers by the Philippine government is clearly illustrated in a press release issued by the IBON Foundation on February 21, 2001. IBON claims that the President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has recently approved the importation of 554,000 metric tons of rice from Vietnam, Thailand, China, and the United States. This move will result in a decline in the price of locally produced grain and will, in the long run, displace those local farmers who are not able to compete with the cheap imported rice. The IBON Foundation states, Instead of directly addressing basic concerns of farmers like insufficient post-harvest facilities, farm-support programs and the scrapping of the bogus agrarian reform program, Malacanang has perpetuated a cycle of import-dependency to offset the country's perennial rice shortage (IBON, 2003).
The present president was one of the signatories of the country's entry into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995, which has allowed the importation of not only rice, but of other agricultural products as well. This globalization policy, put in place by the Philippine leaders, has been detrimental to the entire country, not just to the farmers.

The country's economic structures have been set up to continue the exploitation of local resources and to benefit transnational corporations, which seem to be the modern-day colonial powers. The Foreign Investment Laws of the Philippines make it easy for foreigners to do business in the country though they produce little or no benefit to the host country beyond employing local people at exploitative salaries. Foreign businesses can siphon off, without restrictions, whatever savings and earnings they make from the employment of underpaid, highly qualified local workers who often work in poor conditions.

The Philippine government encourages foreign domination by allowing foreigners to own up to one hundred per cent of a business in the country. This is enabled by the Act Liberalizing Foreign Investments, passed in 1996. Unless a business has something to do with the manufacture, repair, or storage of ammunition, lethal weapons, explosives, military ordnance, and other similar products, any non-Filipino can have total ownership of a business. Although the amendment is intended to improve the economic situation of the country, since it entices foreign capital to come in, it may prove disastrous in the long run.

Transnational corporations (TNCs) control production and services in the Philippines. They manipulate government policies to their advantage and drive local competitors out of business. TNCs in the country have been involved in mining, logging, the production of energy, and the construction of highways. These businesses have been largely responsible for irreversible environmental destruction in the country. Forests are denuded, and people are inadequately paid for their land when corporations build highways to gain easier access to and from their plants, factories, and tourist resorts, and to facilitate the transportation of their produce. Floods, created by mining and logging, wash villages away, killing villagers and rendering the land unproductive. Chemicals that are drained from processing plants pollute water sources. People are displaced, and water species are obliterated to make way for electricity generating dams.

Stories are told by villagers about lives and homes destroyed along the Agno River in the Cordilleran Region, Northern Philippines, to make way for a dam. The relocation plan for thecitizens from their good farmlands and 'abundant natural resources base' [turn] out to be a social disaster. The relocation program [is] plagued by the lack of preparation of the resettled population for new livelihood, inadequate farm lots and poor soil, poor domestic water supply, and soil erosion, report Bello, Kinley, Elinson (1982, p. 87). Despite their strong opposition to the dam's construction, the residents have no choice but to give up everything their livelihood, their dignity, their culture, and their community life. According to the World Bank, The government has acknowledged the importance of preserving the nation's natural resources and has made plans to protect the forests, national parks, fisheries, and coastal waters, and to control waste disposal, air and water pollution (World Bank, 1993, cited by Miron, 1997). However, the World Bank adds, these plans are often compromised in favour of attracting foreign firms to invest in the national economy (Miron, 1997, p. 37).

When people are pushed to the limit, when they are stripped of rights and freedoms, they are reduced to destitution and they are left with no alternative but to take up arms. Such was the origin of the militarization movement of the New People's Army (NPA) and the various factions of the Islamic autonomy movement in the southern Philippines (Floresca-Cawagas Toh, 1993). During the abusive Marcos regime, between 1966 and 1979, the New People's Army on the island of Samar grew to 500 armed men and a popular base of 200,000 farmers. Nine thousand troops in ten battalions were sent to the island. The arrival of the Philippine Army began a reign of terror, murder, and rape, state Bello, Kinley, Elinson (1982, p.95). Instead of finding a peaceful solution to the unrest, the government continues to increase its military budget in order to quell the rebels. Military clashes between the Moro movement and Philippine military personnel are a common event in Mindanao, in the southern part of the country.

Violence may be stopped by identifying solutions to the problems caused by globalization. They can only be found through peaceful means, through social justice, and with respect for the rights of each of the groups involved. For this reason, I was dismayed to learn that global education is not a mandate of schools in the Philippines. It is imperative that global education be included in the Philippine social studies curriculum. The country presently continues to be colonized by multi-national corporations through globalization. In fact, the Philippines has been subjected to the IMF and the World Bank's Structural Adjustment Program for more than three decades now. It is surprising that the new Philippine social studies curriculum in the elementary, which has been mandated and followed for the first time this school year has excluded globalization. For a country that is highly globalized such as the Philippines and whose social and economic problems stem mostly from globalization, it is inexcusable not to include the topic. Hopefully it is covered in the higher grades, although it is not to say that primary children are not capable of understanding the concept. Its inclusion, as early as the primary years, may be a more effective tool in developing democratic citizens.

Peace education should be designed around global issues, studies that address the problems brought about by globalization, a more holistic approach to themes related to environmental care, cultural solidarity, human rights and social justice. By introducing global perspectives through issues-centred methods, students become critical thinkers. They are better prepared to deal with changes and are empowered to take their place in a dynamic interconnected world. Stimulating and meaningful global education programs should work to change popular attitudes and to encourage people's involvement in establishing a lasting peace throughout the world.

Conclusion

Given the absence of peace education, or global education, in the Philippine's social studies curriculum, it makes me wonder whether the state has a hidden agenda to encourage globalization and to silence communication around its effects. Avoidance of the issues is tantamount to encouraging and condoning the ills of globalization. Consequently, I would like to pursue further research work on the impact of globalization and how it is addressed and dealt with in Philippine schools. I am interested in learning about the kinds of educational opportunities provided to students that will develop their awareness of the dichotomies presented by the trend. I would like to know how students are encouraged to formulate and implement plans of action that may mitigate the difficulties brought about by the globalization movement. To be able to forge ahead and look beyond globalization, Filipino youth must be prepared to meet the challenges.

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CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Global Awareness and Perspectives in Global Education

Laura Burnouf
University of Alberta

Abstract

This paper examines the whole notion of global education by discussing theoretical and practical understandings by major figures in the field. Global education is a recent addition in social studies and there are many different understandings and conceptual which effectively teach the concepts in schools as part of the entire curriculum. A review of the explanation of Hanvey's five dimensions and the four-dimensional model of global education by Pike Selby as well as other figures in the field of global awareness and education are outlined. These understandings are used to form the conclusion that all students need to learn about global issues in school in order to become living and practicing citizens in our ever-changing global society. In teaching social studies the need exists to shift from the Eurocentric way of examining the curriculum and looking at it from multiple perspectives.

Introduction

In our rapidly changing society, an urgent need exists for schools to address and infuse global awareness into curriculum instruction. Students are increasingly confronted with many issues that require a global education focus. According to Kirkwood (2001), these students will face a new world order thereby creating a need to acquire a global education. He states:

Therefore, I feel that a relevant curriculum is needed to help students of differing worldviews to understand and function effectively in the social, cultural and economic worlds and to be able to understand the notion of globalization and the role of global education.

According to Werner and Case (1997), movements to promote a global perspective within social studies are due to the state of the planet as a whole and an understanding of how its systems - political, cultural, economic, ecological, and technological - are linked and how these are manifested in relationships. Werner Case (1997) introduce the importance of differing perspectives by stating global education has been associated with curriculum reform advocating a more global perspective on the world. A need exists for students to examine the world from varying perspectives and to become aware of the complex interrelationships that characterize it (p. 177).

Kirkwood (2001) describes globally educated people as those who possess high-tech skills, broad interdisciplinary knowledge about the contemporary world, and adaptability, flexibility, and world mindedness to participate effectively in the globalized world (p. 11). Therefore, the teacher needs to strive for and possess the above characteristics in order to validate her/himself as an educated person of the 21st century. Following the crisis of September 11th, Merryfield (2002) posits the question, Did teachers possess sufficient knowledge of relevant cultures, their beliefs, felt needs, histories, political economies and their past and present relationships with the United States to be able to provide students with the necessary background information? (p. 148). This question needs to be further explored and there is no better time than now due to the dilapidating state of our planet to begin to address the concern for a more holistic and deeper understanding of the world.

Given the above rationale, this paper will discuss the differing interpretations, opinions, and definitions of global education and how the social studies curriculum can help students critically examine their own perspectives and connections in the local, national, and global levels. All children, regardless of their race and culture, have a right to be educated and must be given tools to help them develop attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary to become competent, responsible, and humane citizens of their community. Children need to develop cross-cultural skills and attitudes in order to become effective citizens in a very diverse and pluralistic world.

Differing Global Perspectives

Hanvey's Definition:
Perhaps the most important step in understanding and incorporating global education in classrooms and communities is to understand and relate to the themes of global awareness as presented by experts in the field. Hanvey (1976), one of the first scholarly experts to give a comprehensive definition of the concept global awareness, proposes five dimensions that prepare students to achieve global awareness. These include perspective consciousness, state-of-the-planet awareness, cross-cultural awareness, knowledge of global dynamics, and awareness of human choices. Haavenson, Savukova, and Mason (1998/99) conducted their research on United States and Russian perspectives on teacher education reform and global education and found that these dimensions form the first level known as attitude formation upon which global education can be implemented. The second level is the development of cognition skills and the third level is an integrated view of the world. An explanation of Hanvey's five dimensions, paraphrased by Kirkwood (2001) and Haavenson et al. (1998/99) is provided below and an explanation of the other two levels will be identified.

Perspective consciousness
Perspective consciousness refers to an awareness of and appreciation for other images of the world and that a person's worldview is neither universally shared, nor necessarily right, yet may be profoundly different. It is the realization that an individual's worldview is both a matter of conscious opinions and ideas and more importantly to subconscious evaluations, conceptions and unexamined assumptions. Perspectives are shaped by ethnic, religious, differences in age, sex, and social status, among many other factors. These differences, as stated by Haavenson et al. (1998/99), have been one of the main causes of conflict and confrontation in the history of mankind (p.38).

The authors go on to say that, It is important to teach students to look upon a certain phenomenon or event from different perspectives so as to encourage respect and appreciation for beliefs, customs, and values different from their own (p. 38). It is not only about racial and cultural differences, instead, a pluralistic view needs to be taken when looking at global perspectives.

State-of-the-planet awareness
State-of-the-planet awareness requires comprehension of prevailing world conditions, developments, trends, and problems that are confronting the world community. It includes an in-depth understanding of global issues such as population growth, migrations, economic disparities, depletion of resources, and international conflicts, that require global learners to be aware of the world around them. Children need to be made aware that what affects the world affects them as well. In elementary school, students can be taught to make decisions about ways to prevent disaster by studying the consequences of environmental illiteracy.

Cross-cultural awareness
This dimension includes the diversity of ideas and practices in human societies and how these ideas and practices are found in human societies around the world, including concepts of how others might view one's own society as perceived from other vantage points. According to Hanvey (1976), this dimension is the most difficult to attain most likely because it refers to the highest level of global cognition. The misconception about cross-cultural awareness is that people consider it no more than a set of stereotypes that do more harm than good as superficial knowledge engenders prejudice.
An effective way to promote cross-cultural awareness, as explained by Haavenson et al. (1998/99), is by showing videos and then having discussions with students about these films to help them in separating stereotypical views from those that are more authentic.

Knowledge of global dynamics
Knowledge of global dynamics refers to an understanding of the world as an interconnected system of complex traits and mechanisms and unanticipated consequences. A high level of sophistication on the part of the student is required because understanding these processes is difficult to achieve due to the unanticipated effects on the human condition. It includes a consciousness of global change and cannot be acquired through mass media. Haavenson et al. (1998/99) explain that [s]tudents learn to identify subtle cause-effect relationships, anticipate side effects, model processes and make decisions about eliminating or altering undesirable consequences (p. 40). Students may be asked to create webs of the factors influencing the issue, to suggest feasible solutions, and to foresee possible side effects of such actions.

Awareness of human choices
Hanvey (1976) challenges global thinkers to realize the problems of choice confronting individuals and nations as consciousness and knowledge of global systems expand. It is related to global dynamics in such a way that it focuses on making choices and develops a sense of responsibility for making decisions made which affect future generations. It also includes an awareness of the interconnectedness of individual, national, and international settings. It fosters a sense of responsible citizenship on the local and global levels. Students may be introduced to alternatives on thought and behaviour by looking at relationships and interactions between man and the world. Students are asked to account for their choices and are taught to be tolerant toward the view of others.

In their study with teachers, Haavenson et al. (1998/99) posits that the second level of global education implementation is cognition focused. This means that life demands both a thorough knowledge of a domain combined with a broad perspective of the world. This is similar to the 'interconnections' theme that Werner Case (1997) identify and develop which explores both the international and inter-system linkages and conclude that we live in an interconnected world. Therefore students must be encouraged to see the different ways in which one situation is influenced by and influences others. Further exploration in the topic is explained by Haavenson et al (1998/99) that the brain often searches for common patterns and relationships and seeks to connect new knowledge with prior experiences that result in the fact that cognition operates in all concepts. The traditional approach of filling the minds with facts and information that students are simply asked to memorize and reproduce does nothing to promote global awareness and teachers must keep this in mind when working to plan curriculum. Instead, students need experience in critical thinking, in taking part in cross-cultural experiences, and to make decisions and substantiate them. In the study by Haavenson et al. (1998/99), students are taught to think for themselves and to be able to stand their ground. The authors advise that the atmosphere created by the teacher is very important.

The third level of global education implementation is an integrated view of the world as explained by Haavenson et. al. (1998/99). They state that the third level aims to create a specific picture of the world where geographical, physical and linguistic features all fit into a complex pattern (p. 43). This means that all discipline-focused world perspectives need to overlap due to the interdependence of facts, events, and phenomena. For instance, university interdisciplinary courses may be the most effective way to create a cross-disciplinary perspective.

Global Awareness Elements
Case (1993) identifies five key substantive elements that keep people informed of a range of global topics. The first element describes the universal values and cultural practices, and the second includes global interconnections, which refers to the study of the workings of the four major interactive global systems: economic, political, ecological, and technological. The third presents worldwide concerns and conditions such as development and peace issues while the fourth forms the origins and past patterns of worldwide affairs such as global history and geography. The last presents alternative future directions in worldwide affairs. In addition to these substantive elements, he proposes perceptual elements that should be addressed which include open mindedness, resistance to stereotyping, anticipation of complexity, empathy, and nonchauvinism.

Kirkwood (2001) analyses Case's elements and explains that the substantive elements listed above includes the objects of global education that incorporate the contemporary events, conditions and locations in the world that Hanvey (1976) addresses within the state of the planet awareness dimension (p. 7). The perceptual elements focus on the development of world mindedness and empathy and resistance to prejudicial thinking as well as stereotyping and cross-cultural knowledge. These elements are similar to the Hanvey dimensions of perspective consciousness and cross-cultural awareness.
Case (1993) and Hanvey (1976) provide similar definitions for global awareness even though the terminology they use is different.

Merry M. Merryfield, one of the leading scholars in the field of global education, combines the definitions of other scholars and provides us with a current framework in this field today. Kirkwood (2001) lists Merryfield's eight elements which include: human beliefs and values global systems, global issues and problems, cross-cultural understanding, awareness of human choices, global history, acquisition of indigenous knowledge, and development of analytical, evaluative, and participatory skills. Kirkwood (2001) concludes that Merryfield's work contributes significantly in reducing, if not eliminating, the definitional ambiguities that still linger in the field (p. 10).

New Understandings of Global Awareness
Kirkwood (2001) presents another dimension to the definition of global education that Lamy (1987) identifies as the acquisition of knowledge transmitted by indigenous people. He concludes that a global education must include knowledge about the contributions of native people who are representing the views of their world. In his words, The teaching of historical and contemporary events must be balanced by listening to indigenous voices (Kirkwood, 2001, p. 9).

To provide further elaboration in regards to listening to Indigenous voices, Battiste and Henderson (2000) think of globalization as a new threatening transformation that is emerging. In the introduction of their book, they state that, Globalization with its cognitive and linguistic imperialism is the modern force that is taking our heritages, knowledge, and creativity (p. 11). For Indigenous people it is not just physical survival that concerns them; it is an issue of maintaining Indigenous worldviews, languages, and environments (p. 12). It is ironic that the world looks to Indigenous people for help in order to solve the world's crisis that its worldview has created. Battiste and Henderson (2000) state that in view of the history of relations between the colonizers and the colonized, this is an extraordinarily bold request.(p. 11).

The work of David Selby and Graham Pike has brought new understandings in regards to ecological awareness or 'state of the planet awareness' as outlined by Hanvey. They have been influential in the global education field in the 1980's and are known nation wide. Influenced mainly by Richardson and Hanvey in the 1970's they have worked mainly with secondary schools. Hicks (2003) in his review of global education discusses the work of Selby Pike. He explains that in 1988 they further developed the conceptual map of the field and highlighted what they called 'the four dimensions of globality'. These dimensions make up the core elements of global education. The first is 'issues dimension', which embraces five major problem areas and solutions to them: inequality/equality, injustice/justice, conflict/peace; environmental damage/care; alienation/participation. The second is 'spatial dimension' which emphasizes exploration of the local-global connections that exist in relation to these issues, including the nature of both interdependency and dependency. The third is 'temporal dimension' that emphasizes exploration of the interconnections that exist between past, present, and future in relation to such issues and in particular scenarios of preferred futures. The fourth is the 'process dimension' that emphasizes a participatory and experiential pedagogy which explores differing value perspectives and leads to politically aware local-global citizenship. Selby and Pike then relate this to both individual subjects in the curriculum and whole-school case studies.

Hicks (2003) further explains that each of these four elements needs to be present before one can claim to be involved in global education. Both Selby Pike have written extensively on the importance of ecological thinking in global education and this is evident within the four-dimensional model that they propose for global education. It needs to be stressed that the environmental health of the world is just as important as taking care of all humanity and that the two must work together simultaneously. For example when explaining the 'spatial dimension' Selby (1998) writes that this dimension also concerns the cycles and systems of nature and the relationships between human society and the environment (p. 4).

Hicks (2003) explains that the 'temporal dimension' is a futures perspective that looks at how global issues affect and are affected by interrelationships between past, present and future (p. 269). He goes on to say that this works to help young people think more critically and creatively about the future, especially in relation to creating more just and sustainable futures (p. 269).

Making Sense of Varying Definitions and Perspectives

Given the comprehensive and overlapping definitions of global awareness and perspectives as they relate to global education it is evident that similar views are presented. The following reaction will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the interpretations and what implications they have for global education.
Hanvey's (1976) description of global awareness doesn't include the relationship between perspective consciousness and the power one holds either locally or globally. According to Merryfield and Subedi (2001), this makes a significant difference. They explain this relationship by explaining how the development of perspective consciousness differs considerably depending upon the degree to which students perceive that people like themselves are on the margins or in the center of their society (p. 280). DuBois (1989) wrote of double consciousness as a coping response to racism: Black children grew up conscious not only of their own culture learned from family and community but also the white culture that designated them an inferior race, a problem to be solved (p. 280). Merryfield (2000) states that DuBois' conceptualization of double consciousness helps to explain why people who are placed on the margins develop the ability to perceive multiple realities by looking at events and issues both through the perspectives of people in the mainstream and people on the margins (p. 441).

Conflicts and misunderstandings that occur in present day classrooms seem to be an indication of this. If this double consciousness does not develop in white people due to their race-based dominant position and if the majority of teacher educators are middle class, white, more male than female; then it is difficult to expect that the ways of looking at the world in classrooms is looked at from multiple perspectives. Although these teachers might interact with people different from them it is always from a privileged position. Merryfield and Subedi (2001) also state that white people because of their race-based dominant position did not develop double consciousness (p.280).

Battiste and Henderson (2000) further elaborate on this perspective consciousness by saying that Indigenous students, experience what scholar W.E.B Du Bois, in The Souls of Black Folk referred to as double consciousness (p. 88). They give a further explanation of double consciousness that states, Double consciousness occurs when the dominators reject the assertions of the colonized that they are human and insist on imposing the standards of the colonizers as universal and normal (p. 88). According to the above explanation it can be concluded that a global perspective does not mean a universal perspective. A universalism exists even in colonialism and imperialism. This has privileged a few and alienated many.

Colonization makes a difference in the way that Indigenous people view and accept globalization. Battiste (2000) states, Indigenous scholars are now struggling to define Indigenous humanity. First they need to understand the systems of thought that gave rise to this alienation, and then they need to create a shared language both sides can use to discuss education, science, epic storytelling of huge devastation, painful struggle and persistent survival (p. 13). Indigenous students need to begin to analyze knowledge and information and to be given the opportunities to participate in meaningful dialogue and interactions.

Wilson (2000) in a paper on lessons from Ghana further articulates this double consciousness by saying, we may be conscious of our own perspective but often are not aware how strongly our nationality, our culture, and our experiences inform that perspective (p. 2/8). Hanvey (1976), Case (1993), Merryfield (2000), among others, mention this and I agree that it is the first step in developing multiple perspectives. It is not enough to look at the world through one's own sunglasses, we must experience the world by taking another's sunglasses and looking through them in order to begin making sense of other worldviews.

In the same article, Wilson (2000) explains that along with fellow teachers he gains knowledge about the world from similar kinds of sources that include, course work in school, media, interaction with people from different countries, and people met while traveling. In the same way we can conclude that cross-cultural experiences, watching videos, reading online newspapers from other countries and organizing these activities around the expectation of free expression of ideas, respect for differing viewpoints, active participation and a desire to communicate are all effective ways in creating a global perspective. Textbooks and media sources used in order to retrieve information are not enough; rather meaningful experiences and reading and discussing books written by writers of differing cultures are more effective.

Edward Said, a Christian Palestinian who grew up in Egypt, makes sense of how perspectives are informed by defining the meaning of the East versus the West. He came to the United States and studied literary theory and came to understand that Americans had more myths than theories about the Middle East. He forms another perspective in the topic of global education by writing about embedded cultural understandings. Said provides a good description of how scholarly misinformation of different cultures came about and captures this idea in the following quote paraphrased by Merryfield (2003):

Merryfield (2003) explains that Said's writings are useful to teachers in that they help explain the thinking and pedagogy of exemplary global educators who challenge colonialisms in the social studies. His work helps teachers to understand and see how the legacy of imperialism shapes mainstream academic knowledge through its framework of us and them. This refers to us (the white men who created the dominant power and represent its ideals and them (the others who are divided from us by their inferior cultures, poverty, politics, language or other differences) (p. 13). Social studies curriculum must go beyond European or American constructions of knowledge and must teach experiences, knowledge, and perspectives of diverse peoples in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. (Merryfield and Subedi, 2001).

Selby (1998) states that global education is nothing less than the educational expression of an ecological holistic or systemic paradigm and as such has implications for the nature, purposes and processes of learning and for every aspect of the functioning of a school or other learning community (p. 2). Selby and Pike's research has led us to believe that global education is a holistic paradigm that encompasses the interconnectedness of communities, lands and peoples and interrelatedness of all social, cultural and natural phenomena (p. 1).

Teaching Social Studies

The first step towards global awareness is the shaping of attitudes. There needs to be a shift from the traditional Eurocentric way of looking at the curriculum and incorporating more emphasis on critical thinking and decision-making skills. White (2002) in his article states that Students who can think for themselves and look critically at societal problems will find their classroom a more exciting and challenging place. Engaging students in learning through dialogue enhances their journey to knowledge and competency (p. 265). Focusing, understanding, and applying the Hanvey (1976) dimensions combined with substantive and perceptual elements by Case (1983) are an important first step in creating a global awareness in children. However, understandings must include the concept of double consciousness and other ways of knowing that Du Bois and other indigenous writers such as Battiste, Henderson and Hampton discuss.

White (2002) discusses the need for social studies to change in reaction to the constantly changing world. The subject of social studies has been ethnocentric and intent on socialization, instead of focusing on critical citizenship. He proposes that the most effective way to engage children in learning about global perspectives is that they view the world as a planet-wide society and understand the interdependence of human beings (p. 262). As mentioned previously, teachers will need to develop a global knowledge, to experience cross-cultural experiences and to expand their own perspectives of the world in order to help students achieve the goals.

In order to view the world as a planet wide society, it is important to look at the work of Selby and Pike. They stress a four-dimensional model of global education as core elements of the program and relate this to both the individual subjects in the curriculum and whole-school case studies. One aim that Pike and Selby (1988) have pointed out is 'health of the planet awareness'. The aim states that students should acquire an awareness and understanding of the global condition and of global developments and trends and to develop a future orientation in their reflection upon the health of the planet (p. 268). Children need to possess an awareness and understanding of the global condition and of global developments and trends in order to become active in making sound choices and effective decisions at a variety of levels.

A challenge exists for society to make a definite change in the area of global education. Hanvey's definition of global awareness does not reflect this and it appears to be politically neutral. The elements that he identifies send a clear message that the world needs to make changes in order for the planet as a whole to sustain itself. However, it does not really challenge people to making a definite change. It builds a foundation needed for society to change attitudes but does not indicate any radical ways to accomplish this. In order to begin to make changes definite plans need to be implemented. Personal, family, classroom and community goals need to be followed through and at the same time it is important to keep in mind that plans need to fit into one's world-view. The Eurocentric way of action planning does not work for everyone and perhaps there are alternative ways that communities can work together to achieve certain goals. Hanvey's intent was only to create awareness and to instigate people into thinking in a global way and is a great start.

The media is another area where caution needs to be exercised in the area of forming perspectives. Media influences Eurocentric thinking and instead of depending on what the media presents students can find other sources of information and compare understandings. Other ways to get information is through cross-cultural interactions, presentations by guest speakers, videos, biographies and documentaries and books among many others. Students need to be informed with current up to date material and then given a chance to reflect on this information. Therefore, it is important that there be a reflection component to encourage further critical and decision making thinking. Reflection could take place by using discussion boards, e-mails, chats, journals, and any other way that students feel comfortable. These are all effective ways to gain substantive knowledge about the world and its systems and perceptual understandings especially if a follow up with constructive feedback is given. This method validates children's knowledge and strengthens their confidence in decision-making and in self-esteem. Teachers must educate themselves first in local, global and national knowledge systems of the world and continue learning about global issues together with their students.

Merryfield (2001) describes the need for decolonizing of the mind to take place in order to incorporate global education. This makes sense because how can one truly understand the notion of globalization if one's culture is looked down upon and seen as inferior to mainstream culture and where European history remains at the center of world history. The Kenyan playwright and scholar Ngugi wa Thiong refers to the concept of decolonizing the mind in the article written by Merryfield and Subedi (2001). As Thiong states, a colonial mentality deeply permeates many Kenyan's thinking today because it is not only embedded but unexamined (p. 281). Aboriginal people in Canada experience this phenomenon as well. They are not conscious of how oppressors force their worldview on their lives and therefore other societal problems such as physical/mental abuse, poverty, and addictions that seem to be separated from colonization become apparent. A tremendous amount of energy that goes into dealing with societal problems often neglects to look at imperial colonization. Merryfield (2001) explains this by stating, later generations people may never realize that their ideas and choices are affected by colonialist or neo-colonialist perspectives (p. 282).

In order to teach global perspectives as mentioned throughout this paper there is a need to decolonize the Social Studies. Merryfield (2001) discusses a strategy that teachers can use to accomplish this. Global educators use contrapuntal or opposing histories and literature to describe how they challenge the Eurocentric selection of historical events. To teach multiple perspectives or alternative histories instead of using a single universal history is crucial for students to critically examine and question their own historical understandings. This needs to be accomplished by current information and accurate content that includes the knowledge, voices and ideas of people from these regions. Haavenson et al. (1998/99) go on to explain that it is important to exercise the implementation in classrooms of the dimensions of perspective consciousness through the selection of updated, globally relevant content (p .41).

It is also important to keep in mind that it is not only the oppressed that form a colonized mind. Many young people are acculturated into thinking that white is superior. This gives a false sense of security that perpetuates across generations. McLaren (1995) explains that the white culture needs to be interrogated as well. He states, unless we give white students a sense of their own identity as an emergent identity -we naturalize whiteness as a cultural marker against which otherness is defined (p. 50). Smith (2000) states that the self identity of Western civilization for the last three hundred years is a myth and that a far more profound truth may be that there is no Self without Others, no Me without You (p. 4 of 5). It is important to stay clear from the embedded ways of thinking of the us versus them attitude.

Conclusion

Researching this topic makes me realize that there is so much more that needs to be explored and examined in the area of global education. The challenge of reversing the effects of cultural imperialism and of colonization is far beyond what a few groups of nations can manage. Informed educators are needed to present global awareness topics and to create trusting atmosphere in classrooms. All children of the world are entitled to education. This would be a great start in enlarging the global perspective of all society. Education is meant to change people for the better and to create prosperous, productive and meaningful lives. All nations of the world are related and there is no one race or cultures that is better than the other. This is all the reason more to teach social studies with a global perspective infused throughout with the themes, elements, and new understandings that are explained in this paper.

The role of the teacher, as described by Smith (2000), clearly enhances the atmosphere and the requirements for a successful classroom that enhances true learning in global education. He explains this by saying, a successful classroom is a place where each student feels that indeed they have a place; a place, over time, where relationships can be trusted, where inner dreams as well as demons can be shared without ridicule by both teachers and students alike, where individual differences of color, creed and origin are seen as contributive to a shared future (p. 4). He goes on to explain that it is not necessary to have all the answers and solutions but more importantly to work consistently at creating a successful classroom experience. My own interpretation of Smith's expression in this statement is that the importance of putting forth one's best effort and at the same time to keep in mind that the process or the journey of accomplishing a task or unit of study is more important than seeing the final result. It is too superficial to assume that all things will run smoothly but to take these experiences and to learn from them.

The definitions lead us to thinking that the aim is moving towards a less ethnocentric, less single-focussed worldview. As educators, we need to form connections with all systems of our planet. A West African proverb says, The world is like a Mask dancing; we cannot see it well if we stand in one place. In the same way, as social studies educators, we can broaden our understanding of teaching and become informed in other ways of knowing and understanding. We need to instill in our students a curiosity of the world and a desire to work together in making our world a better place to live in. We need to create a place where all races and cultures of the world learn to respect each other's ways of looking at the world where all perspectives are respected and encouraged. An overall goal in social studies classrooms, therefore, is to create a place where all students can practice and live as responsible citizens in a pluralistic society. We just have to stand in another place and listen to all perspectives.

References

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CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Social Studies and Service-learning: The Aleph of Democratic Citizenship?

Andrew Foran
University of Alberta

Abstract

Striking at the heart of social studies is an educational practice that restricts citizenship involvement in the promotion of a democratic society. Alberta Learning (2000) defines Social studies as a school subject that assists students to acquire [the] basic knowledge, skills and positive attitudes needed to be responsible citizens and contributing members of society (p. 1). Important to social studies education are the efforts students must make to bring new meaning to citizenship and community as a part of their national identity. Can social studies contribute to developing students' identity as citizens and promote an active and responsible role in Canadian society? Can education balance active involvement, and student responsibility, with the demands of curriculum, evaluation, and student uniqueness? One solution to the questions posed here is for a reform that integrates the experiential that is, the active aspect of citizenship-with the social studies curriculum through service-learning.

The Vision of Canadian Social Studies

To gain a deeper understanding of the vision for social studies' role in Canada's education system, one would have to start with the curricular intent. Currently, there seems to be a fragmented view in curricular philosophy with regard to content/process objectives and even the necessity for such a course, as a part of the instructional core. This divisive perspective on this subject area has not only pitted the scholars of the field in debate, but has divided the practitioners in the classroom in instructional practice. Thus, confronting attempts for a common perspective are challenges of a non-unified understanding and divided acceptance of the role of social studies in Canadian education. Striking at the heart of social studies is an educational practice that restricts students' genuine citizenship involvement and the promotion of the societal democratic aim. This becomes an instructional dilemma that is compounded when classroom methods are aligned with a societal reality forcing the teacher to grapple with the pluralistic, regional expanse of Canada. How can a course, like social studies, reconcile the actuality of the Canadian polity and the issues of community uniqueness with individual learner needs and the hopes of contributing to the national identity through citizenship? The question at the forefront of this analysis is whether social studies has in fact lost sight of its intended purpose, or if social studies, as a course for senior high school students, can adopt innovative methodologies of instruction to remain a viable classroom offering.

Is there promise and hope for a common definition of who we are as Canadians in light of cultural, economic, regional, and historical differences as a practicing parliamentary democracy facing ever-changing global realities? What is the understanding, among citizens, of Canada and the Canadian spirit as a multicultural, pluralistic country? The challenge of a contemporary curriculum is to address the specific and general outcomes for students within the diverse entity we now call Canada. A past response to diversity was the Common Curriculum Framework for Social studies K-12. This document stated:

Succinctly, Alberta Learning (2000) defines social studies as a school subject that assists students to acquire [the] basic knowledge, skills and positive attitudes needed to be responsible citizens and contributing members of society (p. 1). This concise definition is reflective of curriculum documents in social studies Canada-wide (Sears, 1997, p. 23). To accommodate the vast range of interests, abilities, needs and future directions of Canadian students, curricular theorists must extend their assessment beyond an over-argued investment in content, methodology, and process by offering real, tangible directions for practices in Canadian schools. There is a need to instigate a challenging analysis of concept development, critical thinking, student creativity, and methods to develop the skills required by students, but generated through their own inquiries. The strength of a sound social studies course rests with the practiced variety of skills and strategies (Alberta Learning, 2000, p. 1) that are needed to face a changing society. Ideally, students will gain in the ability to acquire knowledge, interpret their findings, and communicate discoveries in order to solve problems. Inherent in this process is the nurturing of student creativity and its application to various realities that constitute the Canadian social landscape. Therefore, the purpose of social studies education, linked as it is with citizenship education as a primary aspiration, [is] to cultivate a sense of national cohesion, loyalty and obligation to the nation (Garrat, 2000, p. 324). However, I am left questioning the type of citizen we are shaping in social studies: a national citizen or an active democratic citizen embedded within the community?

The Realities Facing the Classroom in Fulfilling the Vision

Merryfield Subedi (2001) state the primary role of social studies is to prepare youth for civic competence. Central to their argument is that social studies must go beyond traditional constructs of knowledge to incorporate more perspectives from diverse global cultures (p. 278). How is this possible in a pluralistic society like Canada? Can a single curriculum accommodate so many various and multiple distinctions? Pettit (1997) Callan (1997) clearly state that citizenship education cannot rely on traditional views in education. Rather, it must hold as central the ideal of democracy while allowing for religious and cultural pluralism (Annette, 1999, p. 87). Canadian social studies not only has to account for and balance regional divisions, political views, class differences, religious beliefs and gender concerns, it must also complement the curriculum at a deeper level to reflect the multicultural richness that is rapidly growing within Canadian classrooms. Taylor (1993) envisions a deep diversity which will bind us in a national enterprise. The doubt that plagues my enthusiasm for Taylor's vision is whether we have in fact achieved ways of belonging [that are] acknowledged and accepted and that embrace all citizens within the curricular framework (p. 183). Teachers and students struggle to understand their potential to develop a sense of national identity even as members of disparate cultures within the larger context of Canadian culture. I am curious about the moment when I discovered, realized and acknowledged that I was a citizen, and a Canadian. As a teacher of social studies, I am curious to know when students within Canada's range of cultures embraced their sense of being Canadian, and particularly within their cultural identity.

To complicate the classroom experience further, Seixas (2002) reminds social studies teachers of our historical consciousness (p. 3). Do these teachers all share this consciousness? How can students that occupy the fringe of plurality develop a sense of citizenship in the present and conceptualize their national identity for the future when their connections to historical accounts derive from different experiences? Social studies education is in need of unifying moments that bind students to the curriculum within the classroom experience. Due to an overriding dissociation of self from culture, community and national identity, the number of students finding themselves on the margins of what curriculum deems to be mainstream is increasing. This is creating a straining point in classroom relations, curricular relevancy, and the community for a responsible active citizen. As educators we need to follow Santora's (2001) work in multicultural education in the quest for new meanings of citizenship, community, and governance (p. 153). In short, as social studies teachers, we have to negotiate a curricula (Santora, 2001, p. 154) that is respectful of the pluralities. However, if we are to achieve Kincheloe's (1993) critical consciousness, a challenge is to consider the issues of culture, gender and community membership that each student confronts if we hope to cultivate a responsible and active citizen (Barber, 1998). I posit that once hegemonic consciousness is challenged, especially at the social nexus of citizenship identity, we must go further and push the constraints of current scholarship and classroom practice. Santora (2001) contests our curriculum of sameness (Carson Johnston, 2001) with the following assertion: change must be both deep and pervasive (p. 152) for educational practice to succeed in a multicultural plurality. The aim for social studies education, then, at the level of classroom practice, is to engender and foster multi-cultural citizenship (Garrat, 2000).

What is the cause of our disintegrating sense of democracy and growing numbers of apathetic citizens? Can social studies provide the needed infusion of democratic values for faltering communities? Smith (2000) would contend that the fact that we are suffering a national crisis is in part due to a sweeping sense of individual isolation. Social studies should heed the following recommendation:

How do we educate a citizen for a democratic society if our curricular methods have removed the student from their reasoning context? Smith's reading affords a clear analysis of the ramifications to community identity because of a larger society girdled by neo-liberal economics. According to Smith (2000), we are being reduced to a new form of dependency culture (p. 2). Because families are on the move and because earners garner lower wages, family bonds are disintegrating and there is a lack of real community affiliation that has brought about a decline in public education as a consequence of the decline of simple civility and a sense of the common good (p. 2). Can public education remedy this? Can social studies contribute to the development of a tangible citizenship identity to affect an individual's active and responsible role in Canadian society?

Owens (1997) would argue that over the past forty years social studies has not lived up to its scholastic potential. Ultimately, within the field of social studies, the view is one of negativity (Kincheloe, 2001). A summary of Kincheloe's findings would reveal the following faults: students' limited exercise of democratic values; students' and teachers' over reliance on textbooks; conservative instruction practices that avoids genuine innovative practices; teacher alienation within the field of education; confusion around the subject's intended goals; stunted academic activities that do little to challenge students' intellects; behaviour and classroom management issues; fragmented time schedules; and a lack of public awareness around the importance of social studies as a credit course (p. 17). Kincheloe leaves the reader with a powerful impression that even the practitioners themselves are confused in terms of the purpose, direction, and conceptual potential of the course. As a result of this turmoil, social studies teachers resort to factual drill and conduct classes that lack or stymie real analytical questions. Consequently, they are forced to question how best to teach a course that is skill oriented, is linked to democratic premises, and is central to the notion in creating citizenship as an outcome.

Taking Kincheloe's (2001) advice, teachers must take social studies and get beyond the nonconceptual approach (p. 26). The concern is not the potential of the course-for who would deny democracy and citizenship as an important result? Rather, it is the struggle to implement instructional methods that accounts for the above constraints. The promise of social studies rests with the classroom practice and guidance from theorizing scholars that can disentangle themselves from the ongoing discussion that allows the early 20th-century curriculum experiment called Social Studies to quietly die (Egan, 1999, p. 132). It seems that social studies educators have buried themselves within a debate for far too long. Egan challenges them to reconsider the expanding horizons model in social studies curriculum due to the paradoxical result of children becoming alienated from the social experience. The further the model reaches outward, the social studies curriculum ironically becomes more contained. The classroom experience has become sheltered and isolated - separate from the dynamic flow of everyday life. In many schools social studies education has become strictly a classroom experience divorced from the community. I argue that this disembodied experience has resulted in students experiencing the concept of citizenship and democracy only with the confines of the classroom. The question remains: how can social studies teachers realize the promise of social studies, beyond mere classroom socialization?

Counter to Egan's position, the solution does not lie solely in academics. The dilemma is how we really employ Dewey's understanding of what it means to educate for social life? The common ground between Dewey's philosophy and classroom practice is a struggle to achieve praxis (Aoki, 1984; Eisner, 1985; Huebner, 1975). What is the common ground between experience-based learning and academic learning? Can both have a shared place in the educational setting? Dewey believed that people learn by putting thought into action: that is, primarily, by confronting problems that arise while engaging in activities that interest them (Dewey, 1938). He advocated that education should start with a child's interest in concrete, everyday experiences and build on that understanding to connect with more formal (abstract) subject matter (Dewey, 1902). To ensure that connections with the intended learning are made and that the curriculum has relevance, the student participates in experiences drawn from community life and occupations. The curriculum is constructed around exploratory themes, and the student progresses through exploration and discovery (Dewey, 1902). The experiences that the students have are supplemented with more specific work in the subject areas of language, science, history, geography, fine arts, math, music, and industrial arts (Dewey, 1900). Furthermore, Dewey considered schools to be central to democracy preservation. The role of schools is to allow students to learn citizenship through practice (Dewey, 1916). By having genuine experiences that are carefully tailored to instruct the curriculum and meet the needs of the student, connected learning (linking self to knowledge) is not left to chance (Dewey, 1916) and youth are enabled to take their rightful place within society.

As Dewey (1938) intuitively knew, every experience lives on in further experiences. Hence, the central problem in education based upon experience is to select the kind of experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences (p. 27). How do we actually and actively produce democratic citizens? Is social studies the best course to inculcate these concepts? Kaye (1995) provides a partial answer: Through schooling and education a people expresses and cultivates its public values, identities and aspirations, and prepares its newest generations to engage them. Thus, a democratic society requires a democratic education (emphasis in original, p. 123). The obstacle in the path of achieving this kind of education includes not only increasing inequality, but political and cultural freedoms [that are] under attack and democratic activity becoming narrower and shallower, subordinated to the freedom of the market, the imperatives of capitol and the manners of the media (p. 125).

The Struggle of Democracy, Citizenship and Curriculum

How then can the public exert its position against the corporate and political elite and the limited conception of democracy they promote in society? Democracy, by definition, cannot mean merely that an unskilled worker can become skilled. It must mean that every 'citizen' can 'govern' and that society places [them], even if only abstractly, in a general condition to achieve this (Gramsci, 1971, p. 40). What this means, according to today's understanding, is a form of democracy that combines the Aristotelian notion of virtue as individual excellence with the ethical concept of democracy as a way of life espoused by John Dewey (Curtis, 1995, p. 133). For a democracy to become a way of life,

Is this particular reality a possible condition in the social studies curriculum? Can students realize this within the struggle of Canada's democratic nationalistic aim to include the possibility for a full engagement of civic involvement? What is an appropriate curriculum for a democracy? Carr (1998) argues, any contemporary democratic society always reflects the definition of democracy which that society has accepted as legitimate and true [and] the debates about the curriculum that occur in a democracy at any given time will reveal both how that democracy interprets itself, and how that interpretation is being challenged (p. 324). My democratic examination aims to present a possible and potential means for curriculum to socially engender future citizens and to promote the vision of a good society.

Curriculum has immense importance in determining the skills, knowledge and attitudes that stand to be fostered, particularly in light of the varied views of society that could contribute to an intellectual battleground, with each party struggling to promote its version of reality for society. Thus, drawing from the above discussion, we must first ask, What is democracy? Etymologically, one could present various historical uses of the term as it applies to curriculum theory. The realization at the end of the discussion is that democracy is still misunderstood in conceptual-meaning, and that there exists a fundamental disagreement between rival and social groups (Carr, 1998, p. 332) that necessarily contributes to open and democratic disputation. This is important to ponder because the primary function of democracy [is] educative (Pateman, 1970, p. 21). For modern society, this democratic understanding, or misunderstanding, is only possible because the existence of a liberal society allow these particular democratic principles to be practiced.

With the onset of industrialization, traditional community values founded in democratic liberalism changed radically, and they continued to do so as people aggressively adopted a neo-liberal mindset. Consequently, the cultural environment was degraded by a fragmented community, divided by labour practices, disparities in wealth, and political interests. In education, there continues to be a desperate need for Dewey's experiential approach to successfully educate the child for the common good. However, the common mistake educators and curriculum theorists make is failing to view the student as a participating and active member of society; for the primary role of the curriculum in a democracy is to be a curriculum for democracy, reproducing those forms of consciousness and social relationships that meaningful participation in democratic life requires (emphasis in original, Carr, 1998, p. 336). Carr argues that Dewey's conception of democracy was bound to fail. Dewey's curricular democracy lacks the necessary conditions for its practical application [given] the inadequate and impoverished conception of democracy that such a society embodies and accepts (Carr, 1998, 336). Teachers' instructional methods continue to educate for the passive student in the classroom. One is forced to accept that society defines separately what democracy is to be in philosophy and in practice. It is imperative then to rebuild instructional methods for social studies from two vantage points, the democratic and the curricular, if teachers are to be open to the possibility of education contributing to a communal society. What does this mean for Canadian social studies?

To state Dewey's concept of participatory democracy is to fail is unfounded. Dewey's educational philosophy is evolutionary, progressing forever forward in social practice. In this I see the reciprocal relationship that exists between curriculum and democracy. As educational practitioners and theorists we must not underestimate the power of educational transformation. A democratic curriculum is not dependent on the societal role of democracy alone. Curriculum can and does influence society. I do agree with Carr's warning against allowing politics to distort curriculum and to avoid this by incorporating democratic discussion and thus shape the educational role of curriculum that in turn contributes to a future democratic society. Democratic education must do more than just serve economic and vocational ends. Curriculum is not a device to train members of a democracy; curriculum must give voice to those would challenge society to address injustice. In short, a democratic and active civic education is meant to improve the quality of life at the most immediate level-the community-but is inexorably connected to the democratic discourse we call Canada.

As social studies educators, we must work to ensure that democratic education is not merely a marginalized construct in curricular theory and practice. Democratic participation is not a popular enactment in modern liberal societies. However, civic participation is critical to democracy, encompassing all members of the said society (Phillips, 1999). Pedagogy must strive to do more than just produce passive, socialized students who accept the political status quo and are versed in democratic idle talk (Sears, 1997, p. 33). Social studies, in fact, should be the impetus in preparing pupils to participate actively in all facets of life in society. Therefore, we must promote a model of active democratic participation that would include a broader concept of community participation and foster democratic values through community Service-learning and curricular reform. Genuine reform starts with the responsibility of accepting that teaching has not done more to realize fully the democratic promises that continue to underwrite public education (Willinsky, 1998, p. 16). Is this the role of social studies? How can we possibly fulfill this role in light of the current demands and challenges in the classroom? Sears (1997) takes this even further by asking, What is a Canadian? (p. 19) and he challenges our meanings of what it means to be a Canadian and the purpose of citizenship education in the Canadian classroom.

Civics

Richardson (2001) points out that public education was, in the early years of this century, merely the promise to honour Massey's conception of the Good Canadian (which was steeped in British traditionalism), in hopes of assimilating a broad diversity of cultures. This concept was espoused in 1925 but, ironically, curriculum designers did not give it real attention until the release of the Western Protocol for Social Studies Education in 1999 (Richardson, 2001, p. 2). Teaching efforts have sought to create an identity that is national and is built on a civic consciousness strongly bound to an emotional interpretation or reading of nation (Richardson, 2002, p. 56). However, Richardson (2002) reminds us that we continue to struggle with what we understand to be Canadianization, which lacks a clear and commonly understood definition (p. 60). Today, we still flounder not only in our vague understanding of what it means to be Canadian in a nationalistic sense, but also what it means at the local level, in practice, and as common citizens.

Society enables students to fulfill talents and qualities by virtue of individual progress and to achieve harmony with other living beings. Civic consciousness helps to resolve social conflicts, strengthen national bonds, and instill a sense of belonging. Is this possible in a nation where this consciousness is so fragmented? The word civics is derived from the Latin word civis, which means a citizen. A similar Latin word, Civitas means city state. Both concepts have given birth to the social science known as civics. Civics is an old subject and was previously was taught alongside history and political science. It was introduced as separate subject only in the nineteenth century. Thus, civics is that branch of human knowledge that deals with the rights and duties of humans that live as members of a politically organized group (Alejandro, 1993). However, the current reality of Canada makes civic effort a daunting challenge. Sadly, curriculum designers consistently identify citizenship as paramount among requirements essential for graduation for Canadian students in social studies. They do so, however, without offering clear methods for teachers to employ for citizenship to be realized beyond the passive classroom experience.

Alberta Learning (2000) has signified citizenship as the ultimate goal for students in social studies. The intent is for students to become knowledgeable and purposeful responsible citizens. To achieve responsible citizenry status, the following criteria becomes the bench marks for students and teachers in this course:

Understanding the role, rights and responsibilities of a citizen in a democratic society and a citizen in the global community Participating constructively in the democratic process by making rational decisions Respecting the dignity and worth of self and others. (Alberta Learning, 2000, p. 3).

A complete understanding of being a Canadian citizen, according to this curriculum document, is made possible by drawing upon the content disciplines. In short, the student develops the skills of citizenship by applying rapidly changing knowledge standards to meet the needs of the Canadian community and the world (Alberta Learning, 2000, p. 3). This is accomplished, however, primarily within the classroom. It should be noted that Alberta Learning views this form of citizen creation as a simultaneous process of addressing knowledge, skills, and attitude objectives. Hence, to become not only a local and national citizen, but also a global citizen in a changing world, emphasis is placed on learning those Social Studies facts, concepts, generalizations and skills that are useful for lifelong learning and responsible citizenship (Alberta Learning, 2000, p. 3). What happened to active from the WCP Social studies K-12 Foundation Document?

Osborne (1997) concisely defines citizenship as a common understanding beyond legal status, as a member of the state (complete with the rights and benefits associated with membership), and the duties that are expected. Citizenship is situated as intensely value laden, embodying a set of ideals that represent[s] what citizens ought to be and how they ought to live in order to enjoy the rights of citizenship (Osborne, 1997, p. 39). Osborne is clear that to be a good citizen one must go beyond minimal requirements in the form of community involvement, personal efforts dedicated to the public's well-being and, simply, in helping others. As teachers, we must be able to educate our students to possess citizenship as a matter of belief (Osborne, 1997, p. 41). Furthermore, Osborne argues that if we are to teach citizenship, students and teachers must be cognizant of the debate that surrounds the concept, and this is significant to the Canadian challenge. I would like to extend this further by proposing that citizenship is not merely subject matter that must be taught, but rather a process of active involvement and discovery that is intimately linked to the curriculum of social studies and that intensifies the academic experience. Can education balance active involvement and student responsibility, with the demands of curriculum, evaluation, and student uniqueness? Democracy, for Osborne (1997), depends on the qualities of its citizens. It also depends on the existence of a vital civil society - that network of non-political institutions (unions, associations, clubs, organizations of all kinds) in which people participate and practise such democratic skills (p. 49). Thus, the road to a democratic society and civic understanding of self is a learned process. What better place than within schools and in the community to accomplish this understanding - with social studies as our common ground!

Service-learning: A Possible Solution for the Social Studies Classroom

Service-learning as a possible educational landscape could allow for harmony in the creative blending of curriculum and community needs, by providing for actively engaged learning. As a social studies teacher, within traditional education, the hope for me rests within a concept of servant leadership (Dickson, 1976; Greenleaf, 1977). I share in Taubman's (2000) educational vision of hope that is attune[d] to the thick meanings that we make with our students (p. 26). Within those meanings evolves a learning community, a place to belong. The best hope for establishing such a learning community lies in Service-learning-a combination of the experiential-the active aspect of citizenship-with the academics of the social studies curriculum.

Service-learning has been identified as the modern vehicle for reform that is appropriate for achieving the current goals of education and youth development (Bhaerman, Cordell Gomez, 1998). Bhaerman, Cordell Gomez state that Service-learning is consistent with the goals of systemic educational reform attempting to change the very nature of how students learn in school, making it attractive to policymakers, administrators, teachers, students, and community members at all levels. The optimism for this reform is reflected in Waterman's (1997) findings in curricular outcomes: improved academics and positive social involvement for learners. The promise for educational change fostering this instructional reform has potential positive effects on the school environment and curriculum as elements of instruction founded in sound experiential and curricular practice.

Service-learning is an instructional strategy, a philosophy, and a process (Kinsley McPherson, 1995). The numerous perspectives engaged with the development of service-learning methodology present mixed philosophies: volunteerism, community service, and Service-learning (Morton, 1995). The National and Community Service Trust Act of the United States of America argues that [s]ervice-learning combines service to the community with the student learning in a way that improves both the student and the community (The National Youth Leadership Council The University of Minnesota, 1993, p. 1). The Act provides a further framework as implementation guidelines with the following criteria. Service-learning, the Act proclaims,

Is a method whereby students learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets actual needs of communities; Is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of high education, or community service program and the community; Helps foster civic responsibility and caring; Is integrated into and enhances the student's academic curriculum, or the education components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled; Provides structured time for the students and the participants to reflect on the service experience; Provides young people with the opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real life situations in their own communities-experiential education; Enhances what is taught in the school by extending student learning beyond the classroom. (The National Youth Leadership Council The University of Minnesota, 1993, p. 1)

The Act seeks to enable authentic learning through the exercise of student roles that contribute to a democracy (Foran, 2001). Stanton (1990) views service-learning as an approach to experiential learning, an expression of values-service to others, which determines the purpose, nature and process of educational exchange between learners and the people they serve, and between experiential education programs and the community organizations with which they work (p. 1). The practices of service-learning lead students to contexts they may not have had the opportunity to experience otherwise, extending students' experiences well beyond the conceptual. One could argue that service-learning is the curricular practice that can engender hooks' (1994) and Warren's (1998) engaged pedagogy.

Cairn Cairn (1999) reported that service-learning is a pedagogical movement that cuts across the curriculum and is not strictly an academic discipline. Service-learning is a tie that strengthens the method and discipline for social studies. This tie brings the agent of education and the benefactor of education together through a process of genuine learning. Therefore, it is critical to embrace the view that the most important outcome in education is what our students do with the knowledge and skills they have learned. Service-learning is the key to reforming a traditional social studies approach by making the pedagogy richer and fully experiential. This is accomplished by service-learning centering on the deliberate connection of curricular outcomes with acts of service. The result of this educational practice will be outcomes of improved academic standing and raised levels of community involvement that improves the quality of life.

In presenting a possible academic practice for social studies that engages in service-learning, I anticipate scholarly discussion will lead educators and students back into the community. This method of instruction seems to provide reconciliation for the challenges that face social studies education. Can service-learning allow for citizenship, in light of the pluralistic realities confronting our curricular delivery? Can service-learning link Dewey's philosophy in educational theory and classroom practice, the fulfilment of praxis? What is the ground of truce between experience-based learning and academic learning? Can both have a place in the social studies setting? Can one approach be effective without the other? How much of modern education is experiential? The reality in the senior high school classroom, in my experience, is simple to articulate: very little of the education/learning process is gained through experience. Lindsay Ewert (1999) argue:

This is reflective of Kincheloe's (2001) findings. Therefore, at this juncture the consideration of service-learning, as an instructional strategy for social studies teachers, takes on paramount status when we contemplate the possibilities of reform.

I believe, as does Lambert (1999), that education, at its best, represents human engagement, and it is this shared process between students, teachers and the communities that I feel will promote and reconstruct a more positive civilization. The curricular experience must do more than further textual-knowledge advancement. It must empower students to reach their full potential. If the purpose of curriculum is to enrich the school experiences of both youth and adults in the educational system, perhaps this can best occur when teachers and students are encouraged to lead, and are challenged to be more fully engaged with the world- participatory democracy. Would this not contribute to the vision of social studies: active, responsible citizens contributing to a democratic society? I believe we must

One way to transform curriculum requires that teachers move away from a traditional mode of teaching and toward a partnership with their students in which they converse with each other as they create knowledge together (Bishop Glynn, 1999). I believe that the best way to meet the needs of learners is to involve them in the co-creation of important questions, knowledge, and shared pedagogical stories as democratic citizens. I am placing my faith in the promise of service-learning. This experiential approach will be the teaching modality that will bring face-to-face the encounter of students immersed in the subject matter of social studies, the other, the community. This is potentially the moment of realization for the student as a citizen, acknowledging their cultural sense of Canadianism in a democratic society, but from their perspectives of plurality.

The Aleph vs. the Curriculum of Sameness

Diem (2000) notes that traditional teacher centered education paradigms have not appreciably changed in the last twenty years, (p. 493) and this observation would reflect the practices of most educators and social studies instructors. Diem further indicates that despite this lack of change there exists a pedagogical possibility in discussion [that] can encompass collaborative work among students and active construction of knowledge based upon problem solving, writing reflectively on what they have learned, relating to past knowledge and applying it to others; all important Social Studies skills (2000, p. 496). In light of our standard assessment tools and accepted practices outlined by current curriculum documents, it is evident that we are still teaching from a curriculum of sameness (Carson Johnston, 2001). Can service-learning provide the aleph, the point in which the past, the present and the future are condensed to form a picture where all time and space are embraced (Alejandro, 1993, p. 1)? For social studies, this matrix would be the temporal moment of civic consciousness as it connects with the student's unique perspective of national identity at the local-school level. Service-learning allows for plural realities to become intertwined in the curriculum of the present day, and involves the student in an active, responsible role as a participant in a democracy created for the future. As contributing citizens, respective of the plurality, students will discover their contribution to the rich foundations that continually redefine a democratic Canada. Within the aleph, the student lives the curriculum, in academic authenticity, as a contributor to society and not just a passive benefactor of democracy.
Citizenship, through the guidance of social studies, is more than a possibility despite the pluralism within Canadian schools. Service-learning can very well create a place for student diversity in a democracy. Needed for this to become practice is for social studies to authentically embrace active and responsible elements of the curriculum document, and create an open forum for reflective-student dialogue in their roles as citizens. I cannot deny, nor stress enough, the importance of language in shaping our collective consciousness of our roles and societal responsibilities. This very thinking is rooted in our ethical actions and our moral obligations as we deal with issues of cultural assimilation, the oppression of women and marginalized populations, the poor, and our greed in resource exploitation. Houser Kuzmic (2001) present challenges of independence, isolation, and domination that face us as educators. Regardless, they encourage us to begin to recognize and embrace the interdependence, reciprocity, and contingency of our postmodern world. Nor must we lose sight [sic] of the mutual relationships that exist between self and community (Houser Kuzmic, 2001, p. 453). With this in mind Diem's point becomes obvious when we are asked to consider the pedagogical advances in our educational practices: lecturing, note-taking, round-robin reading, reliance on textbooks, use of information disconnected from the everyday life of the student, and a lack of adequate, critical reflection.

How do teachers and schools link society with self, citizenship, democracy, and life-long learning despite the diverse populations that exist in the Canadian classroom? How might education generate an accepting dialogue that is open to community-civic involvement without sacrificing academic primacy? The postmodern framework includes the possibility of the ethical promise that is inherent in all citizens by considering the important implications for a more connected approach to citizenship education in general (Houser Kuzmic, 2001, p. 455). Community strength, along with a Canadian vision of democracy, is the virtue of social studies education. But is it strong enough to face significant social changes, i.e., an increasingly plural Canadian culture and polarization of individualism? The specific argument interprets the interconnectedness of social studies education as embodying the following: self/society, subject/object, mind/body, humans/environment, community/citizens, and the continued building on of national traditions a democratic Canada. The primacy of social studies is a curricular innovation for the common good the development of citizens so they can deal with contemporary challenges, in a way that results in a just society based on caring. I refer once again to Smith's (2000) cautions and social concerns. Houser Kuzmic (2001) claim this intention has become a lost attempt to produce citizens by oversimplified formulas in the curriculum. What is needed is real action, on that part of student citizens, using social studies as the means to improve democratic life at the community and national level.

As social studies evolved, that of the responsible citizen gradually replaced the notion of the good citizen, and somehow active was left out of the curricular language. The intent in social studies education was not to replicate an uncritical, obedient societal member, but rather a reflective decision maker focused on the needs of the community. This citizen was to be beyond the me mentality, by solving issue-laden events that are current and relevant to the community and the student. Since the 1970s, challenges to and refinement in social studies education explored assumptions around decision making in the development of citizenship, facts and values, knowledge, and the familiar knowledge-skills-attitudes that structure many curricular documents today. Social studies educators continue to struggle - philosophically, theoretically, and practically - with the classroom and the social meaning of citizenship. This alone is explanation enough in understanding the criticism launched against social studies. The struggle has resulted in confusion in methodological implementation within the classroom and stunted possibilities for students to benefit from a challenging and needed curriculum. Egan (1999) may very well be right: we are slowly dying, and the cause is our own rhetoric.

Is the resistance in social studies due to our limiting approaches stemming from our dualistic-Cartesian split, the dominating Western mechanistic paradigm of mind/body? Social studies is a victim of subject separation, of discipline isolation, and of the community-individual suffering a disconnection and fragmentation. Social studies may very well have to present an alternate understanding along Capra's (1996) concept of life and society-understood as a vast web of interconnected and interdependent relationships, systems, and systems of systems-if it is to remain a viable classroom learning experience. Service-learning provides a possible curricular connection between the multicultural stance of students, their unique learning needs, the community, and the infinite issues that an active, concerned, informed citizen could involve themselves in as he or she approaches social studies education. Potentially, this creates a program of studies that facilitates an ethic of caring for others, the community, the environment, global issues, and a sense of what it means to be Canadian. This, when further developed through experiential social interaction, may continue to broaden our classroom perspectives of multicultural, pluralistic certainty in Canada, but with more self-conscious social studies students.

The need for social studies is apparent given the knowledge that students will eventually confront social injustice, inequality, racism, cultural stances, social structures, power, interest groups, organizations, and environmental concerns that will challenge all good citizens. What does it mean to be responsible or active? Why does social studies remain cognitively-laden rather than experiential? An established premise of service-learning is that it promotes social efficacy, interest in politics, and community involvement. However, is a student engaged in service-learning a democratic member of society? Is a service-learning curriculum directly or indirectly linked to a democratic curriculum? Dewey (1916; 1938) felt that an involved student who participates in the affairs of their community would, by default, become democratized within the experiential process of serving and learning. A consideration for further research is to explore the potential impact of a democratic attitude resulting from serving in the community. If a democratic curriculum has to emerge from a democratic society, the question that challenges research in social studies education is whether Service-learning contributes to a curriculum for democracy. Service-learning may very well be coming into educational practice in response to the lack of democratic practices that seem to be evident in modern communities. If Service-learning continues, it may very well become the kind of reform that is needed in social studies education to achieve a true democratic curriculum, and a civic consciousness, that is uniquely Canadian. Serving-learning is an expression of individual civic Canadianization facilitated by the guidance of social studies teachers: Each citizen brings a unique perspective to discussions of issues and should be able to participate directly at all levels in the political life of the nation (Sears, 1997, p. 21). Social studies must allow for a pluralistic aleph. Students need community engagement that is more than a symbolic understanding of citizenship, if the curricular practices of activity are to be authentic educational experiences for students as participating democratic citizens.

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CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

National Identity in Korean Curriculum

Hyo-jeong Kim
University of Alberta

Abstract

The concept of national identity has evolved during the last half century within the Korean social studies curriculum. There have been seven curricular revisions since the first national curriculum was released in 1955. Each time the concept of national identity was changed with the biggest changes to this concept within the last two iterations of the social studies curriculum. After a review of the curricular revisions, a discussion of the implications of these changes indicates a much different view of national identity than just a short while ago.

Introduction

As a social studies teacher, my primary concern is based on the question 'what should I teach and why' rather than 'how should I teach?' This tendency began when I first realized that the subject matter that I taught in my class was quite different from what I had been taught as a schoolgirl. For example, I learned that the communists (especially, the North Koreans) were monstrous and extremely cruel. However, now I have to teach that the people in the North and in the South are actually brothers and we have to reunite. How can we create a family with monsters? Although I understand that the curriculum contents must be changed as the circumstances change, it has caused me to be suspicious about the correctness of what I am teaching. It also makes me ask why I teach what I teach, which is connected to the question about the purpose of education.

Thus, the question arises, what is the purpose of social studies education? Sears (1997, p.20) points out that civic competence preparation for citizenship is social studies' raison d'tre. According to Ken Osborne (1997, p.39), to be a citizen is not only to be a member of a state and fulfill his rights and duties for the state but also to get involved in community affairs. Needless to say, to be a person who actively gets involved, one would need to have a sense of responsibility or solidarity toward the community he or she is attached to. I believe that this particular sense is developed on personal and national identity. The problem is that the identity, especially national identity, is not innate but must be developed. It is important to note that the most effective means to raise this issue would be through education. Therefore, when we want to grasp the characteristics of national identity of one nation, the most effective way we can use would be the examination of a nation's curriculum.

In this context, I would like to review the Korean high school social studies curriculum regarding national identity. Korea has a long history as a nation and it has developed a unique national identity under the Confucius tradition seeing the nation as an extended form of family. However, such a conception of national identity has been changing under rapidly changing circumstances such as globalization. Now, in various areas, Koreans are struggling viewing themselves somewhat differently from the past and trying to re-invent their new (national) identity. The educational realm is no exception to this tendency since the curriculum is directly related to social changes. To meet the demand of the new age, a new curriculum was established and implemented in 2000.

In this paper, first, I will briefly summarize the history of Korean national curriculum change focusing on the social studies. The second part of this paper will review the sixth and seventh periods of curriculum development regarding Korean national identity. A look at the implications of the changes within the curriculum will then be reviewed.

Part 1: A History of the Korean Social Studies curriculum

Generally, there is consensus that the purpose of the social studies as a subject is the development of democratic citizenship in Korea, since it first appeared in 1940's. However, since the concept of democratic citizenship is not a traditionally inherited notion in Korea, there has been constant dispute about the nature of so-called democratic citizenship and the proper way to realize it. Consequently, the Korean social studies curriculum has been a constant target of criticism from all kinds of people who thought educational reform was urgently needed, and it has been excessively and broadly influenced by some external conditions such as change of powers.

Since the new Korean government proclaimed the first national curriculum in 1955, it has been reformed six times, with its major theme characterized by centralism. In other words, curriculum changes were led mainly by the central government. Therefore, those changes have been intimately related to political changes. For example, the first national curriculum revision (that is, the second national curriculum) appeared after a military revolution in 1960. The second revision was accompanied by the amendment of the national constitution, which was needed in order to maintain the military dictator's long-term ruling. The third revision took place after the former military president was assassinated and another military officer came into power. The advent of new democratic government in 1992 made the fifth revision. In this way, the Korean national curriculum has been changed, according to the changes in the leadership of the government. Thus, there has been much confusion, conflicts as well as numerous mistakes in Korean curricular development.

On the other hand, the Korean social studies system has at least two characteristics, which are quite different from any in North America. Although there have been constant suggestions and efforts towards the development of an integrated curriculum, Korean social studies curriculum is still sectionalized in many different ways. Therefore, the social studies are divided into many subject matters such as General Social Studies, Human Society and Environment, Korean History, World History, Korean Geography, World Geography, Economic Geography, Politics, Economics, and so on.

The second characteristic is the existence of Moral studies. Morals (or Ethics) appeared during the 1950's and attempted to establish the national spirit beyond the confused, degraded society (the Guidebook for Morals teachers, 2002. p.8). Since then, Morals has been preserved as an independent subject in the Korean educational system.

I will briefly portray the changes of the Korean national curriculum below. They illustrate how the subject of social studies subject also changed as the national curriculum changed.

#1. The syllabus period under the U.S. military administration (1946-1954)

This was a transitional period, which started right after independence from the Japanese imperial rule. Until the first national curriculum appeared, Korean education followed the educational system of the United States. The fact that Americans trained or influenced Korean educators had a strong impact on educational policy-making and administration, and it was quite natural for American democratic education to become the dominant model for the Koreans to follow. (Sin-il kim, http://aped.snu.ac.kr/cyberedu/cyberedu1/eng/eng201.html).

The primary goal of this period was to overcome the existing imperial education system so as to foster the democratic mind which was assimilated with the western mind at that time. For the first time, social studies appeared as the leading subject for this purpose. Social studies, as the main subject, was separated into Civics, Geography, and History. Civics was divided into Politics, Economics, and Ethics-Philosophy, and Geography into the Introduction of Geography, Descriptive Geography and Economical Geography, while History was divided into the History of Human Culture, History of Korean Culture and Life and Literature.

#2. The first national curriculum (1955-1962)

The Korean War (1950-1953) caused so social problems. The national economy had been broken, and this provoked excessive materialism. Besides, the influence of the ideological confusion between democracy and communism had not been disappeared. These called for a strong educational policy. The most important purpose of this curriculum was to infuse anti-communism into the people's mind and to train skilled workers. On the other hand, due to the perceived need for moral education, the Morals subject appeared as an independent subject. The social studies subjects were General Social Studies, Morals, Korean History, World History, and Geography.

#3. The second national curriculum (1963-1972)

The second national curriculum (that is, the first national curriculum revision) appeared after a military revolution in 1960. Sensing a need to justify its power, the new military administration designed a policy which emphasized the establishment of a national identity, the modernization of the state and the non-communist unification of the North and the South Korea. These were automatically accepted as educational objectives. To achieve those goals, Korean History was stressed, and a new subject called Ethics was created instead of Moral studies.1

The social studies subjects during this period were General Social Studies, Ethics, Korean History, World History, Politics and Economics, and Geography.

#4. The third national curriculum (1973-1981)

The second revision was accompanied by the amendment of the national constitution, which was needed in order to maintain the military dictator's long-term ruling. Although, globally, there had been a turning from antagonism between ideological extremes towards a multipolarized utilitarian diplomacy, South and North Korea were still opposing each other. This meant that Korea was not free from the ideological dispute yet. Korea also faced various social problems caused by the rapid economic growth and the discord between government and people who longed for democracy.

This curriculum stressed the Korean History and Ethics with the goal to make people closely united based on the enhanced national identity and anticommunism. The objectives of this curriculum were to enhance national quality, humanity education and knowledge and technical education. The social studies subjects during this era were Society and Culture, Ethics, Korean History, World History, Politics and Economics, National Geography and Descriptive Geography.

#5. The fourth national curriculum (1982-1988)

The new administration, which resulted from a military coup, carried out two strong policies, as it needed to overcome a crucial weakness, that is, its lack of political justness. One of the policies was to oppress people who demanded democracy. The other one was to pacify people through the various social reform policies. The educational realm was also impacted because of this.

Unlike the former three periods of curricular development, this curriculum put various ideas together. Moreover, this was produced by a special research institute, [Korean Educational Development Institute], and not by the central government. This reflected a public demand to stop following foreign curriculum models and to produce its own curriculum, which would be appropriate for the Korean context. Thus, this curriculum contained some fresh ideas. For example, the idea of curriculum integration appeared for the first time in this curriculum document. Private companies could produce textbooks and localization of the curriculum was discussed by this curriculum. The purpose of this curriculum was to establish a well-organized educational program emphasizing national spirit, science and technology education; and education for the whole person. The social studies subjects during this period were Social Studies I, Social Studies II, Ethics, Korean History, World History, Geography I and Geography II.

#6. The fifth national curriculum (1989-1994)

The curriculum during this era was not significantly different than the fourth. The new president was a former four-star general. Actually, Koreans despised him for his incompetence, but since he had showed his loyalty to the former president, he became the president. Thus, he ordered a ceremonial reform of national curriculum, but wanted to maintain the framework of the fourth-national curriculum, which had been made by his predecessor.

The goals of this curriculum were to help educate people, attain subjectivity, autonomy, creativity, and morality. The names of the social studies subject courses were returned to those used during the third curriculum: Politics and Economics, Korean Geography, Ethics, Korean History, World History, and Society and Culture.

#7. The sixth national curriculum (1995-1999)

In 1993, a new democratic government came to power. This government aimed at the total reformation of the Korean school system. In this period, the metaphor of a corporation appeared in educational discourses for the first time. According to governmental policy, which was characterized by introducing the idea of globalization and free-market system, the epitome of school reforms has been focused on strengthening competitive power. Parents or students were treated as consumers. The official objective of this curriculum was to cultivate morality and creativity. The social studies were Common Social Studies (General Social Studies and Korean Geography), Korean History, Politics, Economics, Society and Culture, World History, World Geography and Ethics.

#8. The seventh national curriculum (2000- )

This curriculum has been being implemented gradually since 2000. In its development, the Presidential Commission on Education Reform advised that, in preparation for the 21st Century, the development of creativity in elementary school, junior high school and high school children should be given high priority. Responding to the Commission's advice, the number of compulsory subjects was decreased, and the importance of the optional subjects was stressed. Also, the curriculum was diversified according to different achievement levels. Consequently, this curriculum consists of two parts: a national compulsory curriculum for grade 1 to 10 students, and optional courses for students in grade 11 and 12. The national compulsory curriculum is also being organized according to the different levels of difficulty rather than by grade and year.

The well-educated Korean citizen promoted by this curriculum is defined as a person who seeks to develop his/her own individuality on the basis of well-rounded and wholesome development; a person who demonstrates creative ability on the basis of a solid grounding in basic knowledge and skills; a person who explores career paths on the basis of broad intellectual knowledge and skills in diverse academic disciplines; a person who creates new values on the basis of understanding the national culture; and a person who contributes to the development of the community where he/she lives, on the basis of democratic citizenship.

The social studies curriculum consists of two parts: the national compulsory subjects Social Studies, Korean History and Morals: and elective subjects Civic Ethics, Ethics and Thought, Traditional Ethics, Human Society and Environment, Korean Geography, World Geography, Economic Geography, Korean Modern and Contemporary History, World History, Law and Society, Politics, Economics, and Society and Culture.

Part 2: National identity in the Korean curriculum

Korean. When I hear this word, it usually reminds me of Korean national flag and map. It also brings up the image of a people who are relatively slim and have yellowish skin, round face and black hair. On the other hand, when a Canadian thinks of Canadian, I guess, the image of it would be quite different from mine as a Korean, since these two countries have absolutely different histories in shaping the nation and state. Actually, among Koreans, it is proudly said that Korea is one of the few nations in which single-blooded people have dwelt on the same land, and kept their own culture for a long time. This allows Korean people to have a unique national identity.

Then, what does it mean to be a Korean? It must mean not only the Korean nationality one holds but also the sense of attachment he/she feels to the Korean people. In this sense, when we talk about the Korean national identity, we unconsciously assume that it includes not only the national identity but also the ethnic identity. So for Koreans, national identity is the same as the ethnic identity. 2

A review of the sixth and seventh curriculum periods

In this part, I will review the Korean high school Ethics textbook (1997) and the Guidebook for the Teachers (1997) from the sixth national curriculum and the Moral and Social Studies textbooks and the Guidebook for Teachers from the seventh national curriculum. My primary focus is on the Korean national identity those curriculums describe. In general, since the philosophical, psychological elements such as national identity have been mainly dealt with in Ethics and Moral subjects, my review would be carried out with those subjects as the central topic.

The Ethics of the sixth curriculum shows a long description of national identity. According to the textbook (1997, p. 127), the ideally developed form of Korea needs at least three conditions; to be a democratic society; to be a welfare state; and being a nation in which its people feel a strong coherence to each other. To establish the ideally developed nation, each Korean has to internalize the strong national identity and the sense of liberty, equality and responsibility.

This textbook makes a definition of national identity as a sense of belonging to one's nation and people and as an essential element in preserving the state's system (p.127). It describes the formation of national identity as follows:

The textbook also asserts the role of national identity:

The textbook ends the explanation on national identity with this comment:

Unlike Ethics of the sixth national curriculum, I cannot find the term national identity in the seventh curriculum textbooks. However, it doesn't mean that the new curriculum has no interest in it. In view of Moral subject's property, identity education is still importantly dealt with on all sides. For example, The Guidebook for the Moral Teachers presents that: [In order to achieve the objectives of Moral subject] in the new curriculum, the practice-centered goal was set to help students to establish a desirable national identity and ethnic identity (2002, p.8).

The general goal of the Morals subject is to make students not only learn the core moral norms and various etiquettes but also build civil consciousness and nation consciousness needed for a desirable life as a Korean. It is also intended to make students develop moral judgments that are needed for a rational solution of moral problems in daily lives and cultivate moral dispositions that can systematize and practice the ideals and principles of human life.

Instead, the term ethnic identity frequently appears. The new Moral textbooks which are used from the seventh to the tenth grades consists of four sections: 1) Personal life, 2) Life in family, neighborhood, and school, 3) Social life, and 4) National and community life. Although the exact term 'national identity' doesn't appear in those textbooks, we can easily trace its conception in the last section national and community life which is presented in 8th and 10th grade textbooks. For example, the 8th grade Moral has four chapters under the title of National and community life. They include:

Korean national development and cultural fluency The importance of the state and national development Correct love of the state and nation Unification and strong will for the reunification of North and South (Korea)

They generally deal with the state-nation relation and reunification issues. Especially, the third chapter (that is, 3.Correct love of the state and nation) begins with a sub-chapter the Awakening as a Korean (2002. p.243). Even though it doesn't use the term national identity, the textbook seems to have a clear intention to plant the spirit and notion of it into the students.

On the other hand, the 10th grade textbook, the same section National and community life, is divided into three chapters:

The causes and processes of the partition of North and South Unification policies of North and South tasks for the reunification The development of the national community and the future of a reunified Korea

They deal mostly with Korean reunification problem and Korean future based on
Korean people's national awareness. In connection to this, The Guidebook for the 10th Grade Morals Teacher asks this interesting question: Discuss the right way to be Korean who cherishes Korean ethnic identity at the same time to be a world citizen who has a wide outlook (2002, p.209).

Part 3: Implications

Generally speaking, the seventh social studies curriculum emphasizes three elements: the Korean ethnic identity, the Korean reunification and globalization. Although these concepts have been appeared (like a package) in Korean curriculum for a long time, it seems to me that nowadays they are considered to be more important than ever. I think this tendency is quite natural at this particular present time.

While the National Ethics subject of the sixth national curriculum describes national identity in detail, the seventh social studies curriculum does not use that term. Rather, ethnic identity frequently appears. At first sight, it seems that its concern has been moved from national identity to ethnic identity. Is this so?

As I mentioned before, based on its unique characteristics in shaping the state and nation, the Korean national identity has been created differently from that of other countries. That is, national identity and ethnic identity are regarded as identical. If this is so, the transformation from national identity to ethnic identity is just an ostensible change, since no matter which term we choose, the nature of national and ethnic identity remains the same.

To more fully understand the Korean national identity, it would be helpful to examine the Korean traditional view of a state. Historically, Korea has developed a distinct and unique conception of what a state is, which tends to distance itself from that of Western tradition and culture. For Koreans, the family is the ideal type of a complete community, hence it, symbolizes a typical form of a well-ordered society.

This unique view of state is deeply connected to Korean nationalism. Due to its geo-political location, Korea had constantly been a target of invasion by neighboring countries. In the process of self-defense against the numerous foreign aggressors, Koreans has formed a solid nationalism, and still exists. This nationalism has automatically influenced the Korean education throughout its history.

The appearance of democratic citizenship education did not arise until Korea achieved its independence from Japanese rule in 1945. According to Korean democratic educator Sin-il Kim, however, its predominance over nationalism ended as a nationalist, Ho-sang An was appointed as the first Minister of Education in 1948. His educational policy, which was named as Nationalistic-Democracy Education, is well represented below:

On the other hand, although there are continuous disputes over whether the nationalistic democracy education has been successful or not, it seems that at least Ahn's will has been successfully taken over so far. For example, the Ethics of the sixth curriculum asserts that Koreans pursue the nationalism, democracy, and capitalism to form the ideally developed Korea (1997. p.128). It also presents the possible/desirable roles of Korean nationalism for the further study of history, for example,

in fostering social unification based on healthy national consciousness; in encouraging people to devote themselves to developing Korea as a culturally advanced country; in motivating the national passion and energy for the reunification of North and South; and, in fostering national will for the worldly peace and happiness.

Emphasizing nationalism or the national (ethnic) identity is connected to emphasizing the national (ethnic) community. We can find that, although the names of the related chapters are different, Korean national community is accentuated in both curriculum (the sixth and seventh). In the Korean situation, this conception naturally calls for the reunification.

The 10th grade Morals curriculum makes a definition of national (ethnic) community as a community which has strongly combined the objective elements such as biological, cultural, historical homogeneity and the subjective element, that is, the national consciousness (2002. p.163). It also asserts that Korea has preserved a good community throughout its history (p.164). If so, the present situation (the two Koreas) is not right. In this respect, the following section which is named the present questions of Korean national community is relevant. According to this section, the urgent problems of Korean society are:

to overcome the partition and establish one community which would guarantee the qualitative life to confirm the ethnic identity, so as to adjust to the globalization tendency at the same time (pp.166-167).

The first one explains the need for the Korean reunification. If a state is a big family, people who live in a divided nation cannot develop a whole, sound national identity. In other words, reunification is the right way to regain the Korean homogeneity (Ethics, 1997 p.257), and this homogeneity becomes the foundation for the ideal Korean national identity.

On the other hand, perhaps globalization would be the best word to express the present world. It seems that the seventh national curriculum deals with this phenomenon very seriously. For example, the grade 10th Moral (2002. pp.12-15) and Senior high school Social Studies (2002. pp.147-153) present the general characteristics of globalization and the desirable attitudes toward it. It is naturally related to the recognition of world citizenship over the national one and, hence, the narrow nationalist concept of national identity seems losing its position. Nevertheless, it is interesting that both textbooks emphasize keeping our own Korean identity in fitting to the globalization trend. In other words, the seventh national curriculum seems to insist people should have strong national/ethnic identity and world citizenship at the same time. It is understood as an effort to remake citizens with a broad outlook beyond the narrow nationalist identity.

Conclusion

Based on their own nationalism, Korean people have had a unique national identity which is regarded the same as their ethnic identity. It seems that Korean nationalism is transforming itself into a new stage. For example, the 10th grade Moral insists that the unified Korea should pursue the open nationalism (2002. pp.175-176). Open nationalism does not exclude other nations or peoples. Rather, it is one that fosters world peace and happiness outwardly as it enhances the (Korean) national solidarity and prosperity inward at the same time (p.176).

I think the concept of this open nationalism gives an important implication to the Korean identity education in that it encourages people to see the national identity problems with their open eyes. In this context, I would like to close this paper introducing an interesting example. Perhaps the following are not exactly about the national identity in that there is no clear mention about how Susan and Robert feel about Korea or America. Nevertheless, I believe, they provide us an opportunity to deeply speculate about national identity issue and our attitude on it more than anything.

Who is the real Korean?

Example 1) Susan Lee is a third generation Korean living in the United States. Her grandfather was a sugar cane farm worker who immigrated to Hawaii, and her parents were born in there. Even though she has a Korean face, she lives with American ways of thinking and living.

Example 2) Robert is the second generation American in Korea. His parents came to Korea as missionaries work and he was born there. Although he has golden hair and blue eyes, he speaks with a Kyung-sang-do accent. He follows the Korean life- style. However, other people still regard him as a foreigner. They are surprised at his fluency in Korean.

Question 1) Do you think Susan Lee is a Korean or an American? What makes you think so?
Question 2) Is Robert a Korean or an American? What makes you think so?
(Social Studies, 2002, p.253)

Notes

1 Morals and Ethics: According to The Guidebook for Morals Teachers of the seventh national curriculum, these two subjects do not show any critical differences in their goals and framework (2002, p.19). In general, from the first to the ninth grade, subjects had been called Morals, while the tenth through the twelfth grades were called (National) Ethics until the sixth national curriculum. In the seventh national curriculum, however, Morals is a national compulsory subject which is taught from grades 1-10. The Teachers' Guidebook also indicates that in the tenth grade, Morals stresses the practical morality while the former National Ethics were concerned with cognitive morality and ideological education (2002, p.19).

2 It should be noted here that I have difficulty in understanding the concept of the English word national identity. The English term nation could be translated as a state, or a people, or a race (ethnicity). On the contrary, in the Korean language, they hold different connotations; a state is called 'kuk-ga'; a people 'kuk-min'; and a race(ethnicity) 'min-jok'. 'min-jok' is also called 'gyu-lei', which means a people who have the same ancestor, community, language and culture. For this reason, I will use the term national identity separately. That is, when it is related to the state, I will call it national identity and to people ethnic identity..

References

Kim, Sin-il (2003). Democratic Citizenship Education in Korea. Seoul National University. Retrieved March 31, 2003 from http://aped.snu.ac.kr/cyberedu/cyberedu1/eng/eng2-01.html.

Korean Ministry of Education (1997). The Senior High school Ethics. Seoul, Korea: Author.

Korean Ministry of Education Human Resources Development (2002). The guidebook for teachers of the Junior High school Moral. Seoul, Korea: Author.

Korean Ministry of Education Human Resources Development (2002). The guidebook for teachers of the Senior High school Moral. Seoul, Korea: Author.

Korean Ministry of Education Human Resources Development (2002). The Junior high school Ethics 2. Seoul, Korea: Author.

Korean Ministry of Education Human Resources Development (2002). The Senior High school Moral (2002). Seoul, Korea: Author.

Park, Hyo-chong (2003). Confucianism and Korean Communitarianism. Seoul National University. Retrieved March 31, 2003 from http://aped.snu.ac.kr/cyberedu/cyberedu1/eng/eng24-01.html.

Sears, A. (1997). Social Studies in Canada. From Wright, Ian Sears, Alan (eds.) Trends Issues in Canadian Social Studies. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, pp. 18-38.

The Senior High school Social studies (2002). Seoul, Korea: Doo-san Inc.

Osborne, K. (1997). Citizenship Education and Social Studies. From Trends Issues in Canadian Social Studies, Wright, Ian Sears, Alan (eds.). Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, pp. 39-67.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Making Connections: Wholistic Teaching Through Peace Education

Kris Simpson
University of Alberta

Abstract

Educating for peace at the primary level is more critical now than ever before, as our students struggle to choose and emulate the models of peace education that stand before them. Continuously facing a sensationalized picture of war, students must not learn from the media generated models that stand before them in a time of war. Instead, education must equip students with alternatives to violence. Thus, teachers must provide students with opportunities to explore their feelings about war, and learn about peaceful alternatives to conflict resolution. Further, students must learn to challenge the assumptions that traditions have put into place, to ensure that the tenets of peace education preside over inequity that is structural and has gone unquestioned for too long.

Introduction

All across Canada, teachers are involved in educating their students about peace education. Under the guise of many names, such as Education for Conflict Resolution, International Understanding, and Human Rights; Global Education; Critical Pedagogy; Education for Liberation and Empowerment; Social Justice Education; Environmental Education; Life Skills Education; Disarmament and Development Education, peace education is not a new phenomenon, nor are the greater issues that accompany its need (United Nations Publications, 2003). Surrounded by such a vast amount of literature, it is clear that there is no direct path to educating for peace, nor is there a Band-Aid solution to ease the malaise and fears of children regarding the atrocities which they witness either directly or via media. It is difficult to explain the reasons for war, but when working with children, one must always be prepared to help students seek out answers to the tough questions.

The aim of this paper is to help direct educators through some of the research and current documentation of peace education as they attempt to guide their students through the tumultuous tides of the war. Educating for peace at the primary level is more critical now than ever before, as our students struggle to choose and emulate the models of peace education that stand before them. Continuously facing a sensationalized picture of war, students must not learn from the media generated models that stand before them in a time of war. Instead, education must equip students with alternatives to violence. Thus, teachers must provide students with opportunities to explore their feelings about war, and learn about peaceful alternatives to conflict resolution. Further, students must learn to challenge the assumptions that traditions have put into place, to ensure that the tenets of peace education preside over inequity that is structural and has gone unquestioned for too long.

Review of the Readings

As we continually question the objectives and goals of the Social Studies curriculum, it is imperative that the concerns and questions of students be integrated into what is being addressed in the classroom. Meaningful learning requires that students be engaged in thinking that both interests and motivates them to inquire and discover for themselves. In one study, when students were asked to rank their major concerns for the future, they indicated concerns regarding unemployment [as it] was the most frequently mentioned, followed closely by nuclear weapons and war, then violence and crime (Hicks, 1988, p. 3). Even more prudent in terms of present circumstance, it seems only natural that students be concerned about violence and war, as glorified representations of conflicts are continually brought to our attention through various media. Although it is critical to address the controversial events that impact students, it is important to consider all of the factors that accompany the intense nature of like issues.

The pedagogy that teachers employ must consider the developmental stage of the child, as well as the individual understandings and circumstances surrounding each child in the classroom. Thus, Education for peace, then, is an attempt to respond to the problems of conflict and violence on scales ranging from the global and national to the local and personal(Hicks, 1988, p.5). As children begin to define their own ideas of war between the ages of six and seven, it is evident that peace education is a requirement at the primary level so as to further develop their personal relationship with and conceptual understanding of peace (Hicks, 1988). Hicks (1988) supports a program that begins with the development of self. Based on the expanding horizons framework, Hicks (1988) asserts that changes for peace must begin with the development of self-respect. By providing students with opportunities to engage in the process of learning, Hicks (1988) encourages teachers to act as facilitators as students develop the critical understandings of self and their individual experiences with peace. As the author notes, beyond the foundation building and exploration of 'self', as it connects and relates to the surrounding world, the aim of peace education is to help pupils to understand the world in which they live, and the interdependence of individuals, groups, and nations (Hicks, 1988, p. 9).

For Hicks (1988), a curriculum based on inquiry, respect, and understanding, will encourage students to look for structural inequities in their personal surroundings. It is thus hoped that students who are uncomfortable with the assumed understandings and accepted 'Truths' will hunger for answers to the difficult questions regarding structural inequities or power distributions (Hicks, 1988). This form of questioning will inevitably lead them to live out the global responsibility that lies before each individual demanding that they reach beyond themselves to the greater community and employ their critical thinking skills and empathetic, cooperative attitudes to resolve conflict peacefully and seek answers in the interest of developing a culture for peace. With expectations as great as these, we must move beyond socialization in the primary classroom as a means to peace education. Instead, we must program and implement strategies that will engage students in the process of developing attitudes to meet learning goals that promote care, concern, and commitment (Reardon, 1988).

Carson and Lange (1997) highlight two different approaches to peace education. The first offers students the opportunity to critically reflect and act upon the elements of peace such as cultural diversity, environmental issues, social responsibility, and global solidarity. Integral to the curriculum, students are faced with the challenges of facing the inequities that impede the development of a culture of peace. The second, or additive approach, sidelines peace education and devalues it to a simple and separate study of topics such as non-government organizations, and remains separate from the existing curriculum. Carson and Lange (1997) support the integrated approach and suggest that the key to effective peace education relies on instruction that is embedded throughout a child's program. The intent of addressing peace in every subject is that children will learn through the lived interconnectedness of the program; that to demonstrating peacefully conscious decision-making requires thought, foresight, and awareness of the vast web of relationships that exist beyond that which we bear witness. Reardon (1988) also addresses the dual approaches to peace education, but is less committed to either approach. With greater emphasis on introducing the tenets of peace education to students and involving them in the process, Reardon (1988) posits that implementing both the additive and 'infusion' approaches has the potential to offer a more balanced program.

Carson and Lange (1997) identify seven interconnected dimensions of a peace education program including human rights, non-violence, social justice, world mindedness, ecological balance, and meaningful participation. Mirroring Hicks (1988) and Toh Swee-Hin Floresca-Cawagas (1987), the authors emphasize the seventh dimension, personal peace, as a critical aspect in the early developmental understandings of peace education that is often overlooked. In plural societies, where students struggle to weave the delicate fibers of their multiple identities into a manageable thread, students are faced with conflicting sets of core values from which they must create their individual belief systems. Advocating for the inclusion of cultural diversity as one of the core values underlying peace education, Reardon (1999) supports the promotion of cultural sensitivity so that individual differences are integrated into the vision and practice of peace education that embraces the dynamic nature of plural societies.

The linear progression of the peace education movement has seen a second duality with regards to the framing and defining of peace itself. In early years, peace was negatively stigmatized as it was defined in the absence of war. Many peace educators based their programs on this framework, focusing on anti-military, anti-war, and non-violence. Alternately, most peace educators now incorporate multi-faceted peace education programs that allow for more prescriptive and proactive approaches toward developing a culture of peace through education. This positive approach aims at promoting peaceful alternatives to conflict resolution and encourages educators to offer students an alternative lens from which to view peace. Human dignity resides as the central tenet in positive peace education, as it promotes and encourages students to consider the greater capacity of humanity and the collective good. Helping students form global thinking skills based on the tenets of promoting the dignity of all people and stewardship of the planet, is the goal of this approach to peace education. The aim of this type of peace education program is to change the attitudes of future generations by guiding them to experience the impact of our choices in a world community in which we are all interconnected (Reardon, 1999). UNESCO provides an example of this transformation, as their stance on education for peace, as of the new millennium, has realigned itself with the more contemporary approach. Promoting the development of peaceful cultures in place of the previously existing program that promoted peace by advocating non-violence, UNESCO has recently reframed their peace education program and to endorse a more holistic approach.

Using human rights as the central tenet to her peace studies program, Reardon (1997) is a pioneer of the peace education movement. Although grounded in tertiary education, Reardon offers a number of curricular resources to guide both the primary and secondary classroom teachers through the various aspects of peace education. Acknowledging that peace education is a daunting and contentious area, Reardon's (1997) approach is proactive and supports the positive peace model as her focus on human rights is directed towards the creation of peaceful conditions rather than the elimination of violence and the causes of war (Andrepoulos Claude (Eds), 1997). Although her research categorizes violence into three succinct domains, physical, political, and structural, Reardon (1997), like many of her contemporaries, uses the lens of human rights in order to observe the concrete experiences of violence. Using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as the framework for peace education, Reardon (1997) addresses the critiques that attempt to mislabel peace studies as indoctrination, laden with the values of the dominant culture. Reardon (1997) argues that peace education and human rights are both conceptually based on the principles of non-violence and thus human rights provide the foundation for peace education, as they establish the groundwork for social, political, and economic understandings that will inevitably lead to the creation of social cohesion and non-violent conflict resolution (Andrepoulos Claude, 1997).

While Reardon accesses peace education through the framework of human rights, Jardine (1997) contends that there must first be an earth, before we concern ourselves with the continued existence of humanity, and thus we must tend to the immediate needs and issues pertaining to the earth. Using an ecological framework in the place of Reardon's socio-economic lens, Jardine (1997) highlights the advantages to implementing an integrated and truly lived curriculum in the context of peace education as he asserts that Ignoring the ecological and spiritual consequences and character of the integrated curriculum plunges education into a peculiar paradox, and impossibility (1997, p.216). In an effort to outline that it is truly a time to pose the question of how to educate to protect the environment and promote the principles of sustainability, we are warned against the #133;strangulated approach to education [that] forgets that it is not accumulated curricular knowledge that we most deeply offer our children in education them but literally their ability to live, their ability to be on an Earth that will sustain their lives (Jardine, 1997, p.217).

Likewise, in his efforts to place ecological concerns at the root of the cultural crisis, Selby introduces and endorses the ecological foundations to peace education (2000, p.88). Taking root in the industrial revolution when the human relationship with nature morphed from one of codependence and sustenance to one of unfettered license to exploit, Selby (2000) posits that the road to peace education must evolve and take on a darker shade of green should we truly wish to address the core issues facing our global community (2000, p.88). Calling for a reconceptualization of the worldview, Selby (2000) alludes that both rebuilding and reconnecting to the earth are integral to the peace education process, however, educators must also recognize and address the obstacle imposed by the fragmentation inherent in our current practices. In their efforts to reestablish and redefine 'connectedness', Selby (2000) criticizes other peace education programs as reflect[ing] a higher order of reductionism (i.e., an intricate relationship between still separate parts), as they are not founded in holistic frameworks (2000, p. 89). Selby (2000) identifies this separation as an obstacle to the process of education as it allows students to continue to perceive themselves as separate from the issues and concerns that do not directly affect their daily experiences.

Contradictory to Hicks (1988) and Carson Lange (1997), Selby (2000) asserts that peace education must begin with a global focus, as we cannot separate ourselves from our biotic community. Instead, Selby (2000) suggests that we must shift our idea of local from proximal to a locality that refers to the earth in its entirety (p.89). In shifting their focus from the more traditional pedagogy, in order to implement a greater variety of disciplines that provide students with varied opportunities to cultivate their attunement to their senses and body rhythms, primary educators will ultimately help students to develop a deeper, more connected understanding of both their role and relationship with the natural world (Selby, 2000, p.90). Drawing from the early traditions of indigenous teaching, Selby (2000) encourages peace educators to draw from a myriad of voices so as to allow for multiple ways of knowing and interpreting. The question of how life on this precious earth can go on is a question of how the conversation between different voices can go on (Jardine, 1997, p.218). Selby (2000) posits that developing ecological awareness requires a commitment to restructure many of the systematic inequities in an effort to deepen our understanding of that which stands in the way of peace.

In its early beginnings, peace educators sought a program that would unite students through the shared vision of the world without war and violence (Johnson, 1998, p. 3). However, during the time of both World Wars, when involvement seemed the only means to resolve, peace education was vilified as being subversive and those who spoke for it were deemed un-American (Johnson, 1998, p.3). The teachings from this research have resurfaced, and the adage plays true that history does indeed repeat itself. Once again, in the face of conflict where public perception plays an integral role, a dichotomous division has resurfaced and peace education has been sidelined in favor of education that promotes patriotism and nationalism under the guise of democratic principles and ironically, the preservation of human rights. As participants in peace protests have been identified as 'supporters of tyranny and terrorism' by the media, the current conflict has been reduced to a case of 'black and white'. Once again, at a time when education for peace is most essential, peace educators face obstacles and are required to refocus and shift their attention to a more positive approach to peace.

An Analysis

Exploration into the plight of humanity in an attempt to resolve and reconstruct by means of peace education is a daunting and courageous endeavor. As I read through the literature, I find myself grappling with my own teaching philosophy and the pedagogy that I employ. Ultimately, there are many brilliant academics connected to this area, and yet, their individual approaches speak to the ultimate weakness of this domain. Lacking an overall sense of accord, peace educators who share a common goal rely on diverse principles and seem unable to agree upon any one approach to reach their utopia, their culture of peace. The fact that both Hicks (1988) and Reardon (1997) address the importance of initiating a peace education program that begins at the primary level is a strength, as many educators often bypass this critical learning stage when considering controversial and sensitive issues. The knowledge and abilities of students at this level is often devalued, but we must consider that these students are equally exposed to the inequities and struggles that their elders face. The reality is that exposure to images of violence in uncontrolled settings that lack either guidance or support may result in the desensitization of children as they are forced to understand grim realities by their own definitions. Teaching students to respect themselves is a critical step in assuring that these students feel empowered to alter their surroundings, and as they learn to perceive their actions as they relate to others. Primary students who are introduced to the web of connections that tie us together and binds us into one collective humanity are better equipped to face the continued challenges that they will inevitably face as they grow.

Like Jardine (1997) who uses the concept of 'centre' to draw his students' attention to the abstract nature of connectedness to the earth, primary educators can employ the centre approach to help students understand the action-reaction pulse of each choice that they make. Providing students with understandings that begin with 'self' will empower them to relate to global issues. As they learn about their potential as agents for change, they will ultimately learn to consider the greater consequences imposed on others as a result of both their individual actions and choices.

Although they do not commit to integrating peace education at the primary level, the emphasis that Carson and Lange (1997) place on promoting personal peace leaves room for the inclusion of students of all ages. The multidimensional approach offers a variety of entrance points for educators who wish to implement peace education into their classrooms. By emphasizing the process, rather than the content of peace education, Carson and Lange (1997) have met the holistic needs of contemporary classrooms and have provided a framework that suits the diverse demands of plural educational settings. With continued reference to actual classroom practices, it is apparent (and necessary) that the process of peace education looks different in every setting.

Framing her work using the UDHR makes Reardon's approach to peace education is tough to contend with. Promoting the development of a culture of peace, her positive approach does not impose a specific methodology to assure that an effective program be implemented. Reardon (1997) takes a realistic stance, contending that teachers must implement peace education, but that they must also choose an approach that suits the situation and reflects the needs of the students.

Holistic by design, Selby (2000) purports a strong peace education program and offers curriculum guides that employ a sequential approach to rethinking the structure of relationships that are built in the classroom. By encouraging educators to link their efforts in peace education to environmental consciousness, Selby (2000) considers the implications of fragmentation and rejects other approaches that separate concerns into local, national, and global levels. The strength in Selby's (2000) interpretation is that the global picture is central to all of the lessons in peace education and thus connections are implied, not forced.

An overall critique to the peace education program takes root in a sad generalization about our society. Peace education will only come to fruition in its most true sense by creating equity for all; those who serve to lose the most are also those who must initiate the questioning and dismantling of the structural inequities that have allowed them to advance and maintain both economic and political power and wealth. In a movement to decrease the gap between rich and poor, we cannot be sure that the oppressor will peacefully relinquish their power over the oppressed. When history has taught us that given the opportunity 'the oppressed often become the oppressor', it is difficult to believe that the tides of power may eventually level out. Even amongst those who strive to initiate peace education there is doubt that challenging existing power structures will end in resolve.

Theoretically, peace education is an obvious choice for educators. Teaching students to approach conflict with peaceful resolve in mind, will serve the greater interests of both global and school communities. Unfortunately, what has yet to be addressed is the practicality of any such program in the face of pressure that educators face with regards to meeting the demands of present curriculum standards and high stakes testing. In a system that relies on cohort results and numbers, the pressures incurred by provincial testing leave educators with little time to devote toward programs such as peace education in which progress is not easily graded. Inevitably, one of the many structural inefficiencies and obstacles that must be addressed is the rigidity of current school practices and provincial mandates that direct the attention of educators away from essential programming needs such as peace education.

The most obvious weakness in the pursuit of peace educators is expressed through my own inability to choose any one particular peace educator as a guide for my own teaching, and so instead I choose to draw from each of them. In essence, this speaks to the difficult nature of spearheading a universal education program for peace that serves each individual equally. Perhaps, our goal in peace education must focus on providing a curriculum that shares common aims while embodying flexibility in order to allow for the individuality that transpires in each of our classrooms to be realized as well. As an educator, one must do everything in their power to give students opportunities to view conflict from varying vantage points. Alternately, as students bring a variety of experiences with them to the classroom, their prior knowledge must be addressed in order to guide instruction practices and approaches. In a plural society where many students feel alienated due to any number of factors, it is imperative that these students be encouraged to express their feelings and negotiate their understandings so that they do not feel torn between the teachings at home and those in the classroom.

Using the positive peace framework, students must learn and experience the power of prevention and tolerance. Beyond the absence of war, we must reinforce that our choices determine the future and impact the actions of others. These belief systems must be put to the test in the classroom, as students must learn to live by this knowledge. Students will only be prepared to deal with the complicated decisions in life when their values have been strengthened under fire. We are building a strong foundation that will inevitably be put to the test and this must be supported throughout their schooling, adding to their understanding bit by bit each year, while challenging their preconceptions and assumptions along the way.

Implications for Teachers in the Social Studies Classroom

For many, peace education is a natural extension of the elementary classroom, but I would challenge all teachers to take a closer look at what they have deemed education to develop a culture of peace and tolerance. For too long, we have assumed that peace education is something that kids do, and what we have forgotten is that it is not what they do, but what we model and teach through example. The generation that will lead us into the future must be equipped with tools that offer alternatives to violence and military action. For this to occur, peace education must create the foundation for social studies instruction. Educators must find a place in every lesson where students are faced with the challenge of questioning and deconstructing learned 'truths' in an effort to make equitable decisions. There is a place in every activity and lesson where critical thinking can be integrated so as to provide students with settings that require conflict resolution. Peace education should not be a sidebar issue, nor should it simply supplement the existing curriculum. We must be committed to recreating curriculum where peace education lays the foundation, so that it is constantly reinforced as students develop each set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. In addition to increasing the time spent on critical reflection and questioning, as suggested by Carson and Lange (1997), I agree with Selby (2000) who feels that student must also engage in active listening. They must learn to actively listen to the voices around them, to the voices of the past, and to the voices with which many of us are no longer attuned to hearing (Jardine, 1997). In using this non-traditional and complex approach, many educators will have to learn to exchange knowledge with students and accept their roles as learners in this complex domain. Educators must learn to model tolerance by accepting and promoting that there are many ways of knowing, all equally valid and recognized in the classroom.

During my limited teaching experience, there have been many things that I have learned from the children in my care, and my teaching is fueled by the hope that I can continue to work with students with the same boundless faith. I have learned that children do not struggle to find the words to express their inner convictions because their beliefs are, in plain language, unfettered and simple. The children that I have worked with have taught me to believe in the possibility of human solidarity and the potential to preserve and return a dying planet to a healthy state. The children that I respect accept differences without having to be told that it is required of them, and they know that violence serves no end but to exclude and oppress those violated. Contrary to most adults, children believe in peace and it is our place as educators to nourish that belief and give them cause to pursue it with fervor and conviction. Clearly, the road to peace education is littered with obstacles, but we have yet to identify any aspect of social education that is clearly defined and uncontested. The tough questions are always the ones worth pursuing and the pursuit for peace education is no different, as it will require a committed collaborative effort on the part of educators to see that it becomes an integral part of the global classroom. It may require that we listen to our children or to the voice of the Earth, even if listening is difficult, perhaps painful, perhaps disruptive of the clear and distinct boundaries we have set for ourselves and our children (Jardine, 1997, p.219).

When speaking of the power of the integrated curriculum, Jardine (1997) expresses the challenge of reformation. The process of integration necessitates that we face difficulty as an integral part of a truly lived and seamless curriculum. Disruption of our deeply held beliefs is what is required if we hope to truly establish a culture of peace, as the inequities run deeply into the foundation upon which we have established our existence. In facing the many obstacles that stand in the path towards attaining a culture of peace, we will be forced to rethink and restructure much of which is ingrained in our collective thinking. Surely, we can learn from the children who deserve nothing but our most dedicated and determined efforts as we attempt to guide them and work with them to create a culture of peace.

Personal Retrospective

Faced with the challenge of teaching in a bilingual school has been a very humbling experience for me. I have had to face many of my own prejudices and have had to carefully examine both my actions and the assumptions that I have made along the way. During my first year of teaching, I was very fortunate to work at a school where the Instructional Focus was Character Education. Occupied with the typical concerns of a first year teacher, I had not put a lot of thought into the values that I hoped would be transmitted in my teaching, and thus my critical error was that I relied on 'hope' to transmit the foundation of my working relationship with the students in my charge. Thankfully, my second grade students were 'experts' and were able to supply me with a list of character traits that each student had learned in their previous year at the school, and followed in order to be considered true citizens of the school. It amazed me how as the months went on, students were able to use the language of our character education program, not only in the classroom but also on the playground and in their everyday lives. I was also struck by the number of students who were able to repeat the slogans of our program, but completely lacked a practical use for them, as they were unable to activate their meanings. To many, character education was nothing more than a memorized routine.

Although it shares some of the tenets that serve peace education, character education appeals to educators for two reasons. First, it offers reform from previous programs such as the controversial and contested values education of the 70's. Second, character education tends to come packaged and ready for use and is thus easily and quickly implemented. I had assumed that character education was the answer, but I now feel that I was mistaken. Unfortunately, character education lacks the impact that peace education offers, as the latter requires that students learn to 'walk the walk' as they seek to find answers and equity in the world around them. More global in its focus, peace education promotes a 'process' that students experience as they explore and challenge the wrongs of the past, to promote a more sustainable future. Peace education attempts to alter the vision that students have of their future, helping them to look inside themselves and through a multitude of lenses in order to see how they are connected to the Earth and to her kin. Unlike the character education program, students are integral in the decision making process, and must select and chart their course to peace.

Peace education has presented itself as one aspect of social studies that may ultimately serve to link a fragmented body of knowledge together. By providing a collective goal for students and educators alike, it may also serve to unite the fragmented collection of students in current classroom settings throughout the nation. It is evident that although there are numerous readings connected to this area of study, there continues to remain room for exploration in this vast domain and my intention is to pursue and further explore this topic as it relates to the primary classroom. Peace education outlines the multiple areas that require further examination including cultural beliefs in relation to gender perspective, as well as perspectives from various economic standings, with an emphasis on those who live below the poverty line. Above all, in-depth research is required to provide the basis for policy-making to help ensure that curricular changes address this critical domain of social education.

My passion for character education has now progressed, as I look to peace education to further my knowledge as a learner, as well as my ability as a facilitator in the classroom. When I look into the eyes of my students and listen to their questions and thoughts regarding our current global issues, I am left with feelings of hope and pride. By nurturing their innate good and modeling the tenets of peace education, I put my complete trust in their ability to repair the wrongs imposed on both the people of this earth and the earth itself.

References

Carson, T.R. Lange, E. A. (1997) Peace education in social studies. In A. Sears I.
Wright (Eds.), Trends and Issues in Canadian Social Studies (pp. 208-227).
Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press.

Hicks, D. (1988). Understanding the field. In D. Hicks (Ed.) Education for Peace: Issues,
principles, and practice in the classroom. (pp.3-19). New York: Routledge.
Jardine, D. (1997) To Dwell with a boundless heart: On the integrated curriculum and
the recovery of the earth. In D. J. Flinders S. J. Thornton (Eds.) The Curriculum
studies reader (pp.213-223). New York: Routledge.

Johnson, M. (1998). Trends in peace education. Washington, D.C.: Office of Educational
Research and Improvement. (ERIC document Reproductive Service No. ED 417123)

Reardon, B. (1999). Education the educators: The preparation of teachers for a culture of
peace. Peace Education Miniprints No.99. Malmo, Sweden: School of Education.
(ERIC document Reproductive Service No. ED432527)

Reardon, B. (1997) Human Rights as education for Peace. In G. J. Andrepoulos R. P
Claude (Eds.) Human Rights education for the twenty-first century.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Reardon, B. A. (1988) Introduction: Education to ensure a future. In B. A. Reardon (Ed.)
Educating for global responsibility: Teacher-designed curricula for peace education,
K-12 (pp. xv-xxv). New York: Teachers College Press.

Reardon, B. A. (1988) The Early grades (k-3). In B. A. Reardon (Ed.)
Educating for global responsibility: Teacher-designed curricula for peace education,
K-12 (pp. 1-22). New York: Teachers College Press.

Selby, D. (2000). A Darker shade of green: The Importance of ecological thinking in
global education and school reform. Theory into Practice, 39 (2), pp. 88-96.

Toh Swee-Hin, Floresca-Cawagas, V. (1987). Peace Education: A Framework for the
Philippines. Quezon City: Phoenix Press.

United Nations Publications (2003). United Nations Cyberschoolbus. Retrieved March
28, 2003, from http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/peace/index.asp.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Identity and the Forthcoming Alberta Social Studies Curriculum:
A Postcolonial Reading

Laura A. Thompson
University of Alberta

Abstract

Beginning in the early 20th century, the role of citizenship as an organizing concept has been significant in the teaching of social studies. The central aim of the social studies was the production of good citizens, and the main focus of the Alberta social studies curriculum has ultimately become developing responsible citizenship. While citizenship has always been the raison d'tre of social studies, identity has also played an important role in the formation of young citizens. The author's aim in this article is to explore how and in what ways multiple perspectives can be read in the context of the Alberta Junior High social studies curriculum. After examining the evolving concepts of citizenship and identity from the 1970s to the 1990s, she undertakes a postcolonial reading of the forthcoming Alberta social studies curriculum.

Introduction

Beginning in the early 20th century, the role of citizenship as an organizing concept has been significant in the teaching of social studies. The central aim of the social studies was the production of good citizens, and the main focus of the Alberta social studies curriculum has ultimately become developing responsible citizenship. While citizenship has always been the raison d'tre of social studies, identity has also played an important role in the formation of young citizens. For example, the consultation draft of the Alberta social studies curriculum (2002, p. 1) states that it will meet the needs and reflect the nature of 21st century learners, and it will have at its heart the concepts of citizenship and identity in the Canadian context. As a teacher and a Francophone, I have learned that identity is not easy to define, not easy to represent, and not easy to even trace. While the social and cultural location of learners and teachers is complex, it is difficult to represent such complexity given Canada's evolving realities. Nevertheless, if the Alberta Social Studies Program of Studies is to make a valuable contribution to a Canadian spirit, it will need to explore the complex, cultural construct of identity. My aim in this article is to explore how and in what ways multiple perspectives can be read in the context of the Alberta Junior High social studies curriculum. Particularly, my interest is to examine the evolving concepts of citizenship and identity from the 1970s to the 1990s. Furthermore, I undertake a postcolonial reading of the revised Alberta social studies curriculum. In doing so, I revisit social studies education within the framework of a plural society. It is my hope to provide social studies educators with a deeper understanding of the complexity of identity in the Alberta social studies curriculum, both past and present.

Creating a sense of national identity

Although the concept of identity is at the core of the new Alberta social studies curriculum, it has also been a central question in citizenship education. Because identity has historically been associated with the nation, national identity has become a problematic concept in the globalized world environment. In the 19th century, the nation became the focus of people's loyalty and the modernist idea of national character created a unique sense of identity critical to the survival of the state (Richardson, 2002). The production of good citizens, therefore, became the domain of the civic nation. On the one hand, the nation as political construct and consensual contract between the governed and the governorsremained a fairly abstract concept, while on the other, it romanticized nationalism for its people (Richardson, 2002, p. 53). While both of these constructs created the modernist idea of identity, it was the state itself that developed the national character of its citizens. Therefore, national curricula were created to perpetuate, and in many cases manufacture national myths for the twin purposes of grounding national consciousness in some kind of legitimizing historical tradition and garnering the allegiance of people to the existing political status quo (Richardson, 2002, p. 54).
If Canadian schools are currently serving the needs of the global marketplace, then historically they have served the needs of the nation-state. Throughout the 19th century, the expectations of the Enlightenment Project were central to the emergence of a state-constructed national identity. Modernist education of the 19th century was designed to support the development of liberal democracy. Such a function was both political and economic in scope because its aim was to manufacture the modern citizen (Richardson, 2002). The educational system of the time emphasized the age of nationhood where the making of national consciousness was the order of the day. In this way, national identity became a legitimate platform for modernist education. When thinking in terms of identity formation, the state served to mediate the content to be learned and, thus, the meaning of national identity.

Canadian national identity has historically been problematic in citizenship education. The subject of social studies has been used to teach citizenship and the related theme of identity. National citizenship, or national identity, prepared students to contribute to a single vision of Canada (Osborne, 1997). And within the modernist paradigm, national identity tended to be presented in narrowly essentialist terms. The dominant discourse of citizenship was used for creating a consistently 'English' national identity until the 1970s, creating the dichotomy of 'us' versus 'them'. In this regard, citizenship was an exclusionary concept. The decidedly Anglophone and Eurocentric view of Canadian history was an attempt to portray nation building as the common theme and vision of Canada. For example, Canadian identity was inextricably linked with conformity to British culture and Eurocentric history in Canadian history textbooks. In Osborne's words (1997, p. 41), citizenship has been used to justify attempts to eradicate minority cultural traditions that were seen by dominant groups as inconsistent with their vision of citizenship. Moreover, aboriginal peoples and women were excluded from Canadian history, while Qubec separatism, Americanization, and regionalism posed different threats to Canada's existence. Inasmuch as Canadian education was to create a single vision of Canada by distancing itself from the United States, it also distanced itself from Qubec and Canada's Francophone population and, in turn, contributed to the ongoing crises of Canadian citizenship and identity (Osborne, 1997).

The emphasis on Canada's Britishness failed for Canada as a 'manufactured' nation because Canadian national identity retained its modernist form. And attempting to create a single sense of the nation was doomed to fail because it has lost the mythic and emotive power to evoke the passion of students (Richardson, 2002, p. 56). While the portrayal of the Canadian experience has been British, European, and North American in scope, it is now being placed in global contexts. The fact that Canadian citizenship and identity have evolved in Canadian education and curriculum bears close examination. Increasingly, the teaching of identity and of a sense of Canadian citizenship is becoming problematic in an era of global thinking. The concepts of citizenship and identity are inextricably linked to the social studies. Therefore, the following examination will focus on the constructions of citizenship and identity in the Alberta Program of Studies from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Defining citizenship and identity in the Alberta social studies curricula (1971-1989)

The definition of citizenship within the Alberta social studies curriculum has evolved and, in turn, influenced the curricular definition of identity. It is important to consider the role of citizenship in the making of Canadian identity since the 1970s. By determining the relationship between citizenship and the formation of national identity in curriculum, social studies educators can generate questions about identity tout court.

In the 1970s, the new social studies curriculum for Junior High Schools of Alberta kept with the basic tenets of democracy. For instance, the 1971 Program of Studies for social studies invited free and open inquiryby actively confronting value issues (Alberta Education, 1971, p. 7). In general, it was stated that students would deal not only with the what is but also with the what ought to be in hope of having the opportunity to make this world a more desirable place in which to live (Alberta Education, 1971, p. 7). The fact that Alberta students were expected to create a world that ought to be represents the participatory and activist component of citizenship. Furthermore, it reflects the social progressivism of the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, the constructivist approach encouraged student engagement around civic issues and the development of connections with society. What is somewhat surprising during this era of free and open inquiry, however, is that the definition of identity was not subject to such debate. Discussions of identity were limited to the fact of the assimilation of other minorities in either the English or French linguistic groups (Alberta Education, 1971). In Grade 3, students learned to compare and contrast community life in for example, a Mennonite or Hutterite community, followed by historical, economic, sociological and/or geographic analysis of Alberta's peoples in Grade 4. Such comparative examples included Australia and Middle East oil producers (Alberta Education, 1971, p. 13). Furthermore, the Grade 5 unit on People in Canada provided sample studies to analyze historical and/or contemporary life in Canada's regions, citing for example, people in an Atlantic fishing port and people in a French-Canadian mining town (Alberta Education, 1971, p. 14). Such economically driven discussions did not move beyond the newly created policies of official bilingualism and official multiculturalism at the time.
The free and open inquiry era of what ought to be was directly targeted during the more conservative era of the 1980s. It is not surprising then that effective citizenship became the ultimate goal of a much less activist social studies curriculum. The 1981 curriculum was designed to help students to explore, and where possible, to resolve, social issues that were of public and personal concern (Alberta Education, 1981, p. 52). Its objectives were designed to have students develop more effective involvement in various aspects of their communities. History, geography, and the social sciences provided the essential base for such social inquiry, while skill objectives were required for effective community, Canadian and world citizenship (Alberta Education, 1981, p. 52). Therefore, the concept of citizenship was developed in terms of interrelated objectives with a focus on content, both Canadian and historical in scope.

Identity, too, was seen in terms of a national consciousness where history provided the content for social inquiry. In a section on Canadian society, its peoples and their culture, the concept of identity was more fully explored. However, under the same heading of Canada: A Multicultural Society, reference is made to the examination of issues pertaining to cultural interaction, preservation and adaptation in Canada (Alberta Education, 1981, p. 64). Although the 1981 curriculum developed the notion of identity in terms of interrelated concepts of multiculturalism, ethnic diversity, discrimination and assimilation, the competing values in this section involved seeing minority rights from the perspective of the welfare of the majority. In decision-making, for example, students learned to define a position on a social issue in terms of what appears to be in the best interests of Canadians (Alberta Education, 1981, p. 64i). On the one hand, national consciousness referred to an effective citizenry from two dominant language groups, and on the other, it represented the preoccupation of Canada with its two 'founding nations', in Grade 8, for example. In Sears' words (1997, p. 28), mainstream British and French cultural perspectives dominated most curricula, and where other cultures were included at all, they are interpreted in terms of one or both of these dominant groups. The 1980s, then, marked an era of attempts to create a sense of unity in diversity, while identity continued to be developed in terms of a national citizenship.

While the 1980s saw a rise of effective citizenship practices, the 1989 Alberta social studies curriculum emphasized the roles, rights and responsibilities of the citizen. Henceforth, responsible citizenship became the ultimate goal of social studies. Responsible citizenship was defined by participating constructively in the democratic process by making rational decisions (Alberta Education, 1989, p. 2). It also included the development of critical thinking and an understanding of history, in particular. Central to social studies knowledge objectives was that learning be deemed useful for lifelong learning and responsible citizenship (Alberta Education, 1989, p. 2). With its strict emphasis on knowing and learning, the 1989 curricular definition of citizenship was the most narrow of the period under examination.

To be a responsible Canadian citizen in a changing world, history along with geography, economics, and other social sciences played a key role. Canadian identity was shaped by our values, attitudes and cultures as they have emerged from our history and geography (Alberta Education, 1989). Moreover, the belief was that bilingualism and multiculturalism were fundamental to the Canadian identity. The 1981 curriculum heading Canada: A Multicultural Society was modified to reflect the country's bilingual nature, and became Canada: A Bilingual and Multicultural Country (Alberta Education, 1989, p. 6). Under the section People and their Culture, the rationale states that the study of cultural interaction and adaptation in Canada necessitates an understanding of bilingualism and multiculturalism (Alberta Education, 1989, p. 6). Therefore, students in Grade 7 were encouraged to develop an understanding of the bilingual and multicultural influence on the Canadian way of life along with an appreciation and a respect for the contributions of cultural groups to Canada (Alberta Education, 1989, p. 11). By including the policies of bilingualism and multiculturalism with regards to Canada's basic nature, the Alberta social studies curriculum supported the existence of culturally diverse perspectives. At this time in Canadian curriculum theory, the inclusion of multiple cultural perspectives is seen as an important organizing idea for the social studies curriculum in all of the educational jurisdictions in Canada, and detailed programs with explicit rationales have been developed (Sears, 1997, p. 28). Therefore, in the 1990s, students' understanding of history, geography, and identity would contribute to the requirements of responsible citizenship in an ever-changing world.

The Alberta social studies curricula from 1971, 1981, and 1989 the latter which is still in effect represent three visions of citizenship education in Alberta that span thirty years. What is common to these social studies documents is that Alberta Education (now Alberta Learning) was confident that its programs of studies engaged in citizenship education for a democratic society. Its approach to the concepts of citizenship and identity might have evolved, but they both remained an integral part of the social studies. They evolved in terms of scope, influencing each program's rationale and philosophy. While the early 1970s represented a promising era of challenge in the what ought to be, it was quieted by an era of conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s. And although responsible citizenship does not necessarily symbolize a return to effective citizenship, it does encourage students for responsible participation in a changing society where multiple cultural perspectives were now recognized as important and legitimate by the 1990s.

To sum up, a review of the position of citizenship in the Alberta social studies curriculum from 1971 to 1991 indicates that citizenship is a contested concept at many levels. First, the political nature and educational purpose of the teaching of 'national' citizenship is questionable. A clearly articulated definition of Canadian national identity does not currently exist; in fact, it remains unresolved. Second, the teaching of 'national' citizenship is problematic because it does not acknowledge difference, but rather creates a hegemonic vehicle by which national consciousness is disseminated regardless of class, culture, and gender (Osborne, 1997). Third, and finally, identity - as a subtopic of citizenship in the area of the social studies - becomes a problematic concept when defining what constitutes the social studies differs from one educational stakeholder to another. Thus, the complexity of citizenship and identity can mean different things to different groups of people. Nevertheless, in an era of globalization, Durrigan Santora (2001, p. 462) reminds us that the goal of the social studies is to help develop students who are to become active participants in cross-cultural communities of learners and empowered citizens in a cultural democracy. Houser Kuzmic (2001, p. 453) also remark on the importance of divergent perspectives: Rather than independence, isolation, and domination, we must begin to recognize and embrace the interdependence, reciprocity, and contingency of our postmodern world. Furthermore, from a Canadian perspective, Osborne (1997, p. 48) reminds us that [d]espite its attempt to distance itself from the United States, and despite its acceptance of diversity and limited identities, Canadian citizenship education has never effectively come to terms with the English-French duality of Canada. It is perhaps for historical and constitutional reasons along with the need for social cohesion in an ever-changing world that the 2002 and 2003 drafts of the Alberta social studies curriculum expand the notions of citizenship and identity. A final look at contemporary definitions of citizenship, identity and social studies informed by postcolonialism will help situate the multiple perspectives approach of the new provincial social studies curriculum.

Reframing identity and difference within the new Alberta social studies curriculum

In Canada, much like Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States (James, 2001; Grosvenor, 1999; Merryfield Subedi, 1997), recent approaches to citizenship education seek to facilitate a more open framework of the concept of national identity. The 2002 consultation draft and the 2003 validation draft of the Alberta social studies curriculum are examples of how curriculum documents now promote ideals of social cohesion in general and encourage the development of an active and responsible citizenship in particular.

Questions about citizenship and identity formation, in the plural sense, have captured the interest of social studies educators and curriculum developers in Alberta. Central to the 2002 Alberta social studies curriculum is the development of active and responsible citizens. It is defined in broad terms: Citizenship is the understanding of relationships among needs, rights, roles and responsibilities, governance, and an awareness of one's capacity to effect change (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 6). In this regard, students are seen as active learners when they engage in the multifaceted experience of citizenship and civic participation. The vision of the 2002 document states that the program of studies will ultimately contribute to a Canadian spirit a spirit that will be fundamental in creating a sense of belonging for every student as he or she engages in active and responsible citizenship locally, nationally and globally (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 1). By exploring the various factors and processes that shape their identity, students are encouraged to develop and value their individual and collective identities and better fulfill their role as active and responsible citizens in society (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 6). Therefore, in an era of complex and rapid change in local, national and global contexts, the notion of active and responsible citizenship would appear to be entirely appropriate for the development of positive self-esteem and a strong sense of identity in young citizens.

Moreover, the concepts of citizenship and identity in the Canadian context are at the core of the vision of the Alberta social studies program. They are inextricably linked because individual and collective identities influence citizenship and civic participation, while the latter has an impact on the development of individual and social identities in an increasingly pluralistic world (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 1). In responding to Canadian diversity, the renewed vision of social studies in Alberta also recognizes the pluralistic and evolving nature of Canadian society (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 2). Central to the multiple perspectives approach is the recognition that students bring multiple perspectives to citizenship and identity, that these perspectives are shaped by the diverse experiences and backgrounds that make all individuals unique, and that they are also grounded in students' collective identities that are formed by their own culture, heritage and history (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 2). Therefore, the revised social studies curriculum problematizes the notion of a single Canadian identity.

Modernist notions of national identity that emphasize the existence of common understandings of the nation are inadequate in understanding, valuing and fostering diverse viewpoints and perspectives. Although the Alberta curriculum clearly states its intent of building a strong and united Canada, it does so in the context of recognizing and respecting the diversity of Canadians in hope of fostering a sense of inclusion (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 2). A sense of national consciousness is developed along with a dynamic concept of Canadian identity. For example, language is generic and open, for example, with the use of such expressions as Canada's evolving realities, Canadian spirit, diverse viewpoints and perspectives, and sense of belonging. A fluid definition of Canadian citizenship and identity is required to explore the social studies through a multiple perspectives approach. Under a section on Canada, Grade 7 students will acquire an understanding of the challenges that arise from living in a bilingual, pluralistic and diverse society, and how citizenship and identity are affected (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 75). Recognizing the dynamic nature of Canada and its peoples will encourage students to appreciate the flexibility necessary to fully comprehend a pluralistic society such as Canada. Because students are seen as actors within the expanding space of civic action, it is crucial that they appreciate the discourse of active and responsible citizenship within a rapidly changing Canadian context. Therefore, modernist frameworks of national identity are outmoded, and the proposed Alberta social studies curriculum illustrates that a shift towards a model of multiple perspectives values students' identity and contributions to a pluralistic and evolving Canada. In doing so, the new social studies curriculum supports a postcolonial orientation that necessitates the examination of key historic and contemporary issues through a multiple perspectives approach and the recognition of a national fabric interwoven with cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 2). Perhaps the greatest outcome this social studies curriculum can offer its 21st century learners is the development of active and responsible citizenship through multiple viewpoints and perspectives for the benefit of foster[ing] a sense of inclusion and a commitment to building a strong and united Canada (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 2).

Reading the Alberta social studies curriculum from a postcolonial perspective

The development of a seemingly totalizing globalization is having a dramatic impact on education, including curriculum. During the past thirty years, educational sites have had a variety of reactions to the questions of citizenship and identity, whether they be at local, national or international levels. In this regard, academics and curriculum developers have proposed theoretical frameworks and pedagogical models to reconsider citizenship and identity in a variety of contexts. Multicultural education, anti-racist education, global education, and peace education have been some of the more popular models embraced in North America. Although these responses affect the question of difference among citizens and among students in a world environment, it is crucial to make visible the postcolonial condition of the world. And because identity, representations of identity and citizenship have become part of the postcolonial world, it is increasingly vital to reflect on different perspectives of curriculum theory and practice.

A postcolonial reading of the forthcoming Alberta social studies curriculum is appropriate on three fronts. First, it is important to consider the current structure of curriculum in terms of postcolonial theory. While mainstream curriculum discourse can provide one frame of reference, it can also seem detached from a personal understanding of curriculum and pedagogy in a world of rapid change and increasing difference. Perhaps this is why the program vision of the proposed Alberta social studies curriculum, which is still undergoing revision, currently emphasizes the students' need to develop a sense of personal and collective belonging and to accept others as they develop an understanding of who they are, what they want to become and the society in which they want to live (Alberta Learning, 2003, p. 1). Put another way, what it means to be Canadian is put into question both on personal terms and on provincial, national and global levels.

Second, it is vital to understand the complexity of the colonial and devote attention to how our current worldview has been shaped by colonialism and imperialism. As Willinsky (1998, p. 3) explains, much of the knowledge achieved through conquest and colonization was understood to legitimate the political and cultural domination of imperialism. The resulting perspective on the world formed an educational legacy that we have now to consider. This might explain why the concept of imperialism is introduced as early as Grade 7 in the new Alberta social studies curriculum. If the overall purpose of social studies is to provide learning opportunities for young Albertans to appreciate and respect how multiple perspectives, including Aboriginal and Francophone, shape Canada's political, socio-economic, linguistic and cultural realities (Alberta Learning, 2003, p. 2), then they must be prepared to reconsider the complexity of historical, constitutional and contemporary issues surrounding notions of identity and citizenship in a pluralistic society like Canada. For example, Grade 7 students will examine how European imperialism impacted the social and economic structures of Aboriginal societies and how it was responsible for the development of Acadia, New France and British settlements (Alberta Learning, 2003, p. 81). Following a study of Confederation, students will explore and reflect upon the consequences of Mtis uprisings and the Manitoba School Act, and will be asked to critically assess how such changes have posed challenges and presented opportunities for individuals and communities (Alberta Learning, 2003, p. 83). The concept of imperialism continues to shape issues studied in Grade 8, as general outcomes focus on intercultural contact and historical worldviews. Through an examination of societies with different worldviews, students are provided with more specific outcomes that allow them to reflect on their own worldviews and assess the influence that the past has on the present (Alberta Learning, 2003, p. 91). By highlighting the notions of imperialism and worldviews, the new Alberta social studies curriculum offers learning opportunities for junior high students to delve into the complex world of Canada's origins, histories, opportunities, and challenges.

Third, and finally, it is crucial to bridge the work of postcolonial theory and educational theory in hope of transforming curriculum, notably the concepts of identity and citizenship in the 21st century.

Thus, the interplay of race, culture, and nation vis--vis identity should be the concern of every student and teacher today. But to what extent is a postcolonial approach appropriate for a provincial context such as Alberta? Creating a curriculum of openness and inclusivity is key when discussing possibilities of enhancing personal and collective identity(ies) of social studies students in Alberta classrooms. The fluid concept of identity becomes critical when studying encounters in race, ethnicity, language, culture, religion, and so on in a colonized and marginalized relationship to the Anglophone majority. The importance of diversity, with particular attention to social cohesion, can be explored in two ways: first, moving towards a program of studies of pluralism and respect for differences in a broad sense, and second, promoting a sense of belonging and acceptance. In both cases, it is vital to reflect upon Aboriginal and Francophone perspectives in order to examine the concepts of citizenship and identity in the Canadian context. For instance, studying the concept of assimilation in Grade 7 will require a deeper understanding of economic, social, cultural, historical and political issues and questions that have influenced ways in which Canada has evolved (Alberta Learning, 2003, p. 79). Overall, the proposed Alberta social studies curriculum reminds educators of the importance of opening students to otherness. By reflecting Canada's Aboriginal heritage, bilingual nature and multicultural realities, the new program of studies helps students develop a sense of belonging and acceptance in a diverse Canadian context.

Both drafts of the Alberta social studies curriculum (2002, 2003) open up the parameters of citizenship and identity for members of both the majority and the minority. Postcolonialism, too, intends to create educational sites where the possibility of creating a new ethnicity exists because fluidity and hybridity are embraced. Indeed, the field of postcolonial studies is not coherent and uncomplicated, but rather an opening of a field of inquiry and understanding of the social, political, economic, and cultural practices which arise in response and resistance to colonialism. While the postcolonial perspective recognizes the historical terms of colonialism, it also considers 'historical continuity and change.' McLeod (2000, p. 5) thinks about postcolonialism not just in terms of strict historical periodisation, but as referring to disparate forms of representations, reading practices and values. In this way, it is not important to look for clarity, but rather to discuss historically situated experiences that circulate across the past and the present. Postcolonial theory, like the new Alberta social studies curriculum, is fluid and engaging about new ways of seeing the contemporary postcolonial world. The curriculum draws upon the historical and current issues framework to explore the multiplicity of contexts. In this new curriculum document (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 2), it is stated that the social studies will help all Alberta students recognize and understand the values and experiences of one's own heritage and history in order to develop an understanding of cultural diversity, pluralism, official bilingualism and intercultural understanding. Fundamental to this vision of the social studies is a postcolonial approach to legitimately address these goals in an era of global interconnectedness.

Furthermore, a postcolonial approach embraces the act of decolonizing the mind in which new modes of representation are produced. Social studies educators who teach from a global perspective attempt to decolonize students' understanding of their world in order to examine the interaction of power, culture, and knowledge from different viewpoints. Merryfield Subedi (1997, p. 285) support infusing the social studies curriculum with skills in perspective consciousness and knowledge of alternative histories in order to contribute to decolonizing the mind:

In Alberta, the forthcoming social studies curriculum provides students with the opportunity to learn from multiple viewpoints and perspectives, including Aboriginal, Francophone, and culturally diverse groups in Canada. It is by recognizing all of Canada's peoples that students will examine and reflect on the concepts of citizenship and identity in a Canadian context within the discourse of diversity. Through the social studies program, students' understanding of Canada's pluralism will be enhanced. On the one hand, the new program of studies is committed to actively promot[e] and recogniz[e] culturally diverse, culturally relevant, culturally sensitive and culturally responsive content of Aboriginal perspectives in order to provide insights into ways of knowing that increase knowledge and understanding of the complexities and evolving nature of the First Nations, Inuit and Mtis (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 3). On the other, it will introduce and instill an appreciation of the multiethnic and intercultural nature of the Canadian Francophonie (Alberta Learning, 2002, p. 4) because if all Alberta students are to understand the relationships across language, culture, identity, and power, they must experience the different traditions and histories of Canada's diverse Francophone peoples. Like the proposed multiple perspectives approach in the new social studies curriculum, postcolonialism offers a critical framework from which to problematize colonialism and traditionally Western views of colonial ideals. Simply put, it provides a critical framework to understand the world - both past and present and explore new ways of seeing.

Moreover, postcolonialism, like the field of social studies, is a complex and rapidly changing field lacking consensus and clarity. Intellectual debate lies in the term itself. The 'postcolonial' is problematic because many different theorists take up their own critical position within a conceptual framework that is at once temporal, geopolitical, and sociological (Slemon, 2001). When the prefix 'post' is added to 'colonial,' postcolonialism describes a reformulation of the imperial centre to the colonial periphery and, in the process, a development of new structures for group identification and collectivity (Slemon, 2001, p. 102). As Dimitriadis McCarthy (2001, p. 7) make clear, the 'post' in postcolonialism is not to be understood in temporal terms, but as a marker of a spatial challenge of the occupying powers of the West by the ethical, political, and aesthetic forms of the marginalized. In both definitions, the centre and the periphery are inseparable. Indeed, postcolonialism goes beyond the centre because its purpose is to rechart complex understandings of the local and the global. Central to the new Alberta social studies curriculum is to move the centre within Canada and the world.

Finally, some of the most contested and complex issues in both social studies and postcolonialism include ethnicity, race, resistance, power, identity, and nationality. The critical texts of Said (1978), Spivak (1995) and Bhabha (1994) remain the monumental ones in postcolonial theory. They bring attention to modes of Otherness, agency and hybridity, which are vital to postcolonialism. The field of postcolonialism is by no means homogeneous or unitary: there is no single post-colonial theory, and no one critic can possibly represent, or speak for, the post-colonial critical field (Slemon, 2001, p. 101). By invoking theories of colonial discourses, the umbrella-term 'postcolonialism' perpetuates a sense of difference and ongoing debate. Therefore, a postcolonial approach to the social studies curriculum must involve the reading and re-reading of texts if it is to aspire to the contestation of colonialism and to the development of perspective consciousness and knowledge of alternative histories.

Revisiting social studies education in a plural society

Given the historical roots and evolution of national identity and citizenship in the Alberta social studies curriculum, it is perhaps time to consider postcolonialism as a way of addressing the absences and amnesia of the past (Ghandi, 1998). Mainstream educational thinkers still insist on a project of homogeneity, normalization, and the production of the socially functional citizen despite curriculum reform such as multicultural education framework (Dimitriadis McCarthy, 2001, p. 2). Although multiculturalism has sought to bring into the field of social studies education critical discourses of multiplicity and difference, educators have not engaged in postcolonial interpretations of teaching and learning. Therefore, current pedagogical practices are not being problematized, while mainstream curriculum, especially in the area of social studies, attempts to address topics of cultural identity, national and global communities, and multicultural distinctions. It is my hope that this discussion will invite teachers

Fundamental to the vision of the forthcoming Alberta social studies curriculum is a sound postcolonial approach to broaden students' and teachers' representation and understanding of pluralism in a Canadian context. The multiple perspectives approach of the new social studies curriculum is, therefore, an excellent starting point for considering postcolonialism in action.

References

Alberta Education (1971). Program of Studies for Junior High Schools of Alberta. Edmonton: Department of Education.

Alberta Education (1975). Program of Studies for Junior High Schools of Alberta. Edmonton: Department of Education.

Alberta Education (1981 [1978]). Program of Studies for Junior High Schools of Alberta. Edmonton: Department of Education.

Alberta Education (1989). Social Studies Junior High. Retrieved April 8, 2003 from http://www.learning.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/

Alberta Learning (2002). Social Studies Kindergarten to Grade 9 Program of Studies, Consultation Draft August 2002. Retrieved March 31, 2003 from http://www.learning.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum

Alberta Learning (2003). Social Studies Kindergarten to Grade 9 Program of Studies, Validation Draft September 2003. Retrieved April 30, 2004 from http://www.learning.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum

Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. New York London: Routledge.

Dimitriadis, G. McCarthy, C. (2001). Introduction and Conclusion. From Reading and Teaching the Postcolonial: From Baldwin to Basquiat and Beyond. New York London: Teachers College Press, pp. 1-13 and 117-119.

Durrigan Santora, E. (2001). Interrogating Privilege, Plurality and Possibilities in a Multicultural Society. From Stanley, William B. (ed.) Critical Issues in Social Studies Research for the 21st Century. Greenwich, Connecticut: Information Age Publishing Inc., p. 149-177.

Ghandi, L. (1998). Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press.

Grosvenor, I. (1999). 'There's no place like home': education and the making of national identity. History of Education 28(3): 235-250.

Houser, N.O. Kuzmic, J.J. (2001). Ethical Citizenship in a Postmodern World: Toward a More Connected Approach to Social Education For the Twenty-First Century. Theory and Research in Social Education 29(3):431-461.

James, C.E. (2001). Making Teaching Relevant: toward an understanding of students' experience in a culturally 'different' Sweden. Pedagogy, Culture and Society 9(3): 407-426. Retrieved February 1, 2003 from Pedagogy, Culture and Society Web site: http://www.triangle.co.uk/cus/index.htm

McLeod, J. (2000). Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Merryfield, M. Subedi, B. (1997). Decolonizing the Mind for World-Centered Global Education. From The Social Studies Curriculum: Purposes, Problems, and Possibilities, Ross, E. Wayne (ed.). Revised edition. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 277-290.

Osborne, K. (1997). Citizenship Education and Social Studies. From Trends Issues in Canadian Social Studies, Wright, Ian Sears, Alan (eds.). Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, pp. 39-67.

Richardson, G. (2002). The Death of the Good Canadian: Teachers, National Identities, and the Social Studies Curriculum. New York: Peter Lang.

Said, E.W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

Sears, A. (1997). Social Studies in Canada. From Wright, Ian Sears, Alan (eds.) Trends Issues in Canadian Social Studies. Vancouver: Pacific Educational Press, pp. 18-38.

Slemon, S. (2001). Post-colonial Critical Theories. From Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology, Castle, Gregory (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 99-116.

Spivak, G. (1995). Can the Subaltern Speak? From Post-Colonial Studies Reader, Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth Tiffin, Helen (eds.). London New York: Routledge.

Willinsky, J. (1998). Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire's End. Minneapolis London: University of Minnesota Press.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

J. Bradley Cruxton, W. Douglas Wilson and Robert J. Walker. 2001.

Close-Up Canada.

Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Pp. 322, $46.30, hardcover.
ISBN 0-19-541544-2
website: www.oupcan.com

Sam Allison
Centennial Regional High School
Greenfield Park, Quebec

The Canadian market for school history textbooks is fragmented because we have no standard national curriculum or examinations. The grade level to study history varies widely as does course length. Arguably, Quebec's French language Canadian history texts are the best in Canada because such texts are based upon standardized factors that create a market. In addition, schools divert money from books to computers, and school textbook writers are difficult to find. Provincial subsidy rules often favour poor textbooks printed inside a province, thus restricting the market even for the very best of books printed elsewhere.

Close-Up Canada displays some of the virtues and many of the vices found in French language school textbooks. There are thoughtful, stimulating illustrations and activities throughout the book. Care has been taken with reading levels, about grades 8 and 9, while there are sufficient vocabulary and computer activities to satisfy both traditional and progressive teaching methods. Materials on Black Canadians and Jewish Emancipation fill gaps all too present in Canadian schoolbooks. Every Canadian history teacher would benefit from reading the vast range of teaching and learning activities in this work.

This book has many eye-catching, colourful side-bars, appealing to the video generation, however, sections non-continuous to the main narrative are difficult to edit using modern, electronic printing. Sadly, editorial difficulties mar the book. An ambitious book such as this requires editorial and writing teams larger than the market can support. Be that as it may, basic pedagogy also requires accurate dates, numbers, and place names in a textbook. Close-Up Canada has some obvious typos and inaccuracies such as 1740s Louisbourg flourishing in the 1840s (p. 105) and the claim that James Wolfe arrived with 39 000 soldiers and 25 warships (p.114). One can imagine Freddy raising his hand to ask how big the ships were. In reality, Wolfe had approximately 9 000 soldiers and 225 ships. Another example has Ezekiel Hart contesting Trois Rivieres (p. 277) rather than Three Rivers, the official name of the riding and the town at that time. This illustrates a major difficulty in writing Canadian history textbooks. Various federally funded agencies and projects such as Heritage Canada, Canada Post, and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography have taken to replacing official, historical English names such as Three Rivers in order to use more politically correct French ones. Does one write for historical accuracy or for political correctness in a Canadian textbook?

Close-Up Canada encompasses a three hundred year period from 1539-1849 and is consequently not a good buy for provinces teaching all of Canadian history in one year. New France blends into Upper Canada in this version of history so it is probably designed for the Ontario market. There is a skewed distribution of space. Approximately 20% of the 322 page book is devoted to the 12 years from 1837-1849. Topics are also skewed. Western and Lower Canada are conspicuous by their absence and the fur trade stops at 1763. For example, William Lyon MacKenzie, the 1837 Rebel, has 7 pages whereas Alexander MacKenzie, the First across the Continent, and arguably one of the greatest explorers in North American history, is absent from this book. We Canadians complain that Americans glorify Lewis and Clarke yet ignore MacKenzie. So do we.

Skewed intellectual balance is the largest problem with the overall content of this book. As in French language books, by measurement of space distributed to him (7 pages), Papineau is now the most important figure in Canadian history. Canadians are no longer sturdy fur traders, we are sturdy rebels in this version of history. Our rebellions of 1837 are to be compared and contrasted to the American Revolution (p. 293). The Conflict and Change section (p. 247-300) has too much conflict and not enough change. While negative factors about Canada must be aired, positive factors such as the radical franchise rules for Lower Canada would throw a more balanced light upon Canadian democracy than is presented in this book.

This brings us to the necessity for balanced treatment. Children understand that issues have several sides. They actually like debating both sides of an issue and understand that history is not simple. Unfortunately, the often shallow, unbalanced, and anti-British tone so common in French language textbooks, is all too prevalent in Close-Up Canada. On page 283 we read, Papineau was not always a Reformer. In his early life he was an admirer of Britain. Tighter editing would have replaced Reformer with Rebel, a more intellectually accurate and defensible description. Rather than present a balanced account of the 1837 Rebellion (for instance, there are no biographies of Chateau Clique members such as Richardson: founder of Canadian banking; supporter of Jewish Emancipation; opponent of slavery); the book presents what can only be called a Quebec nationalist perspective. For instance, the book asserts that the British cut out Chenier's heart and displayed it in a tavern for several days(p.293). There is little contemporary evidence that this took place. Rather than explain that this incident was probably Patriote propaganda, or, alternatively, balance the incident with the fact that the Patriotes murdered British prisoners such as Jack Weir, a one-sided viewpoint is stated as truth.

It is difficult to review a book such as this. Textbooks are important because they promote knowledge and literacy. While textbooks should be free to discuss any point of view they should not promote one, debatable point of view. We are losing, perhaps even have lost, the pool of talent needed to produce school history texts. The United States has a vast market, and teachers often choose from a range of books and adapt their curriculum to the book. The British have their National Curriculum and a range of history examinations for 16 and 18 year olds. British teachers can choose the exam and a textbook for that exam. Canada has neither the market size nor the standardization to create a history textbook industry. We produce the textbooks we deserve.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

George J. Sefa Dei and Agnes Calliste (Eds.), with the assistance of Margarida Aguiar. 2000.

Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education: A Critical Reader.

Fernwood Publishing, Pp. 188, $16.96, paper.
ISBN 1-55266-030-3
website: www.fernwoodbooks.ca

Gulbahar H. Beckett
College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education: A Critical Reader is a volume edited by George J. Sefa Dei and Agnes Calliste. As the title suggests, this book is indeed a critical, informative, and thought provoking reader on power, race, gender, and education. The book includes eight chapters plus an introduction and conclusion that address questions of racism and schooling practices in a variety of educational settings in Canada, a country that practices multiculturalism and is considered to value and promote diversity. Most Canadians believe that the country's multicultural policy was established with good intentions and has served the country and its people well. As such, we rarely ask ourselves questions such as: Who is benefiting from the policy and who is not? Why and why not? What are the strengths and limitations of the multicultural policy in empowering people of all origins? What more can be done to ensure equality in education and the larger society? This very well written book asks and answers these and many other very important questions.

Specifically, Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education addresses critical issues such as multiculturalism, racism, equality, exclusion, and gender issues from theoretical as well as practical perspectives. It calls for a critical examination of and going beyond multiculturalism by challenging the status quo with critical anti-racist education. In Chapter 1, Dei contextualizes the book through his discussion of a critical anti-racist discursive theoretical framework that deals foremost with equity: the qualitative value of justice (p. 17). He is critical of multiculturalism arguing that it creates a public discourse of a colour-blind society and he calls for an acknowledgement of and confrontation with differences. According to Dei, confronting the dynamics and relational aspects of race, class, ethnic, and gender differences is essential to power sharing in colour-coded Euro-Canadian contexts.

In Chapter 2, Bedard continues the discussion of multiculturalism and anti-racist education through a deconstruction of Whiteness in relation to historical colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. He reminds readers of the complexity of the race issue as we still live with the legacy of colonialism. He asserts that through their ideological and intellectual ruling of Canada, as well as many other parts of the world (e.g., Africa and Asia), white people enjoy more privileges that are not afforded to people from other racial backgrounds. In Chapter 3, Ibrahim revisits tensions surrounding curriculum relevance and demonstrates how popular culture, especially Black popular culture (e.g., Hip Hop and Rap), can be utilized to carry out anti-racism education as it relates to students identity formation, cultural and linguistics practices, and sense of alienation from or relation to everyday classroom practice. In Chapter 4, James and Mannette address issues related to visible minority students' access to publicly funded post-secondary education. Through rich personal accounts from students, they illustrate how these students mediate systemic barriers, gain entry, and experience post-secondary education in Canada.

In Chapter 5, Henry presents a brief reflection of black teachers' positionality in Canadian universities and schools through three vignettes: her personal experience, two teacher candidates' experiences, and a veteran teacher's experience. Through these vignettes, Henry makes a case that black women in Canadian universities and schools were isolated and bore the responsibility of raising the awareness and consciousness of the White people in their work environment (p. 97). She calls on all of us to reflect on every day acts of power and subordination and to use them to develop theories and workable strategies to end inequality (p. 97). In Chapter 6, Tastsoglou discusses various types of borders and the challenges and rewards of cultural, political, and pedagogical border crossing. As a transnational person who crosses various borders daily, I found the discussion to be particularly interesting. Among others, I like the points Tastsoglou makes about otherness (i.e., how all of us can be othered sometime or another) and the detailed illustration of border pedagogy (Giroux, 1991) that can enable us to engage in socially and historically constructed multiple cultural experiences.

In Chapter 7, Wright addresses issues of exclusion and engages in an anti-racist critique of progressive academic discourse in general rather than Canadian multiculturalism per se, using post-modernist, post-structuralist, post-colonialist, feminist, and Afrocentricist discourses. What I found particularly informative in this chapter is Wright's discussion of what Afrocentricism and feminism are and how they can contribute to our understanding of inclusion and exclusion. In Chapter 8, Calliste presents and discusses some research studies on racism in Canadian universities. This chapter shows racism does exist in Canadian universities overtly as well as through hidden curriculum. As such, it supports Dei's argument that Canada is a colour-coded society where racism and inequality exist and need to be addressed.

In summary, Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education: A Critical Reader is a book that challenges us to be critical of the multiculturalism that has become part of Canadian social and public discourse. It reminds us that multiculturalism works with the notion of a basic humanness. As such, it downplays inequalities and differences by accentuating shared commonalities among peoples of various backgrounds. It advocates empathy for minorities on the basis of a common humanity, envisions a future assured by goodwill, tolerance, and understanding among all, but it also breeds complacency, creating the illusion that we live in a raceless, classless, and genderless society. For example, Dei points out that, while a raceless, classless, and genderless society is an ideal that we all aspire to and work towards, we must remember that, at present, such a society is a luxury that is only possible for people from a certain racial background, namely white people. He, therefore, urges us to acknowledge that while multiculturalism is an important first step in building an ideal nation, it is anti-racist education that seeks to challenge the status quo and aspires to excellence. According to Dei and Calliste, anti-racism education practice must lead to an understanding that excellence is equity and equity is excellence (p.164). I would recommend this book as a required text for undergraduate and graduate level sociology and educational foundations related courses.

References

Giroux, H. (1991). Post-modernism as border pedagogy: Redefining the boundaries of
race and ethnicity. In H. Giroux (Ed.). Postmodernism, feminism, and cultural
politics: Redrawing educational boundaries (pp. 217-56). Albany: State University of New York Press.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Elaine Ursel. 2001.

Discovering Canada's Trading Partners.

Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Pp. 80, $18.50, paper.
ISBN 0-19-541644-9
website: www.oupcan.com

K. J. Bradford
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario

A quick glance at the title of this Oxford Discovery Series text reveals that it was written specifically for the new (1998) Ontario elementary grade six social studies curriculum strand Canada and Its Trading Partners. Even with this understanding, some of the content in Ursel's Discovering Canada's Trading Partners appears at best confusing and at worst irrelevant. However, the topical incongruencies and slapdash manner of the Ontario curriculum are not solely to blame. As with all textbooks, authors make decisions about what to include and exclude and how to present the topics and information that are included. Limitations are placed on authors by editors and publishers and, considering that this textbook addresses one half of the grade six year yet is only 80 pages long, Ursel clearly had to make choices.

Ursel begins by explaining the idea of trade first through a short fictional story and then through a brief history of trade. The lemonade stand story is a fairly typical device in economics-focused books aimed at young people. The problem with continued reliance upon this idealization is that students are expected to make the considerable conceptual leap from understanding this summer pastime as trade to understanding that the complex and interrelated processes of national and international government rules and regulations, the commodification of non-renewable and renewable natural resources by government, industry and business, and the exchange of manufactured goods along with both practical and intellectual human services are also trade. It is simply too great a leap.

A history of trade is offered that is not only far too brief but is overwhelmingly eurocentric in perspective. Ursel includes a full-page world map and timeline to discuss and illustrate the history of trade. While all the continents of the world are included in the map, the written information is only about Europeans, early civilizations that have been claimed as part of Western Civilization, and the pursuit of worldwide European trade. The timeline begins with the Sumerians in 3000 BCE, moves through the Babylonians and Phoenecians to the Crusades and Marco Polo, and ends with Great Explorers in 1400-1600 CE. Due to this eurocentric geographical and ideological privileging, Ursel can make the following statements about the Crusades: Trade declined for 100 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Many luxuries of Asia were once again traded and brought to Europe (p. 13, emphasis in original). Notwithstanding the typographic error 1000 years would be more accurate and the poor wording which makes these sentences oppositional and therefore confusing, Ursel states that all trade everywhere in the world was impeded at this time. This is hardly the case. Another example of the author's eurocentric perspective comes in the few sentences explaining the trading time period called Great Explorers: As sailors set out to trade, they explored unknown lands. Their search for trade routes brought them to North America (p. 12). While these lands may have been unknown to the sailors in question, the representation of European explorers discovering already inhabited lands has long since been challenged and debunked. It was also disappointing to realize that North America is included in the trade timeline and map not to acknowledge the sophisticated trading that flourished between indigenous societies but as an addition to the established eurocentric storyline. To her credit, on the following page Ursel does acknowledge that aboriginal peoples engaged in trade with each other however, this is again set within the framework of how these alliances contributed to the European-focused fur trade. It is unfortunate that Ursel chooses to emphasize the history of trade from a eurocentric perspective; by doing so she effectively implies that the best purpose for trade, if not the only purpose, is to make profits and develop surpluses. She fails to acknowledge that trade can be a reciprocal, equitable and mutually beneficial relationship that meets needs as well as wants and that nomadic peoples as well as agricultural-based societies engage(d) in trade.

Ursel spends considerable time explaining the concepts of import and export before moving on to the largest component of the text: Canada's trading partners. This section includes continental maps and pictures which both reinforce stereotypes of particular geographic regions, such as a rice field in China, and pictures that likely challenge stereotypical images of places, such as the photograph depicting Nairobi as a modern city. Due to curriculum requirements, there is a heavy emphasis on the various geographic and economic regions of the United States. Ursel also includes sections on Mexico and Japan; again, the curriculum requires that students study a trading partner from a geographic region such as the Pacific Rim. What is missing from this textbook and it is a glaring omission in my opinion is comparable information about Canada's geographic and economic regions.

There are also several inaccuracies and confusing and overly simplistic explanations in the text that cause me concern. For instance, two of three pie charts are actually circular, horizontal bar graphs (pages 21 and 26). In her discussion of the American southeast, Ursel claims that New Orleans in Louisiana is the oldest city in the South, founded by the French in 1718 (p. 47). This is not true. The city of St. Augustine in Florida was founded by the Spanish in 1565 and has been continuously inhabited since then (http://www.ci.staugustine.fl.us/visitors/specialplace.html).

While Ursel makes some effort to explain why Canada belongs to trade groups such as La Francophonie and the Commonwealth, she makes no effort to explain the basis of membership in the G-8. Rather, she names the member countries while also explaining that the G-8, or the Group of Eight, meets regularly to discuss economic issues before they become sources of conflict (p. 74, emphasis in original). This example illustrates my biggest concern with this textbook. I appreciate that complex ideas such as international trade need to be simplified for young learners, however, I find this book leaning more towards simplicity rather than simplification. The conceptualizations and explanations of the processes of trade should be more thorough. For instance, Ursel could have more adequately explained that while it is governments who set the rules and regulations for trade it is usually companies situated within those nations that actually engage in capitalist trade.

Ursel glosses over the effects of trade agreements such as NAFTA in which trade disputes are ongoing and the roles played by organizations such as the G-8 in establishing and regulating inequitable global trade agreements. While the idea of cheap labour appears repeatedly throughout the text, for example, I think Ursel is less than honest with young learners about the real life repercussions of cheap labour on the lives of people like themselves and their parents. While she refers to cheap labour as a key component of economic success for companies, Ursel fails to explain that for those skilled and unskilled working class workers of the first world who have lost jobs or are continually threatened with job loss, loss of wages, working hours and benefits as well as for those workers in developing or poorer countries who may get those jobs but who have little or no job security, extremely poor pay, no benefits and terrible working conditions, cheap labour is not such a success story.

I also have concerns about the student activities called Something To Do included throughout the textbook. For example, in the International Trade Groups section grade six students are blithely encouraged to Role-play setting up a trade agreement between Canada and the United States to sell Canadian fresh water (p. 75). They are to practice their skills in setting trading rules and negotiating conflicts. What this exercise does not ask students to do is to think about and discuss who owns this resource; whether or not this renewable resource should be traded away or not; and how to ensure our own needs as Canadians do not become subservient to those of a larger market. It ignores the increasing dilemma of water shortages throughout the world and the glutinous North American overuse of this most precious and necessary yet vulnerable resource. As Ursel does mention environmental problems such as overhunting beavers during the fur trade (p. 16) and the devastating impact of overfishing on fish stocks (p. 23) connected to trade practices, I do not think it unreasonable to deliberately help students begin making real connections between the harvesting of natural resources in exchange for monetary profits and the ultimate consequences of these behaviours.

There is no doubt that the rushed manner in which the Ontario social studies curriculum was conceptualized has resulted in a fragmentary and knowledge-as-product perspective toward complex social processes. The emphasis on expediency rather than conceptual thoroughness in the curriculum reform process has directly resulted in substandard learning resources. Oxford University Press was not the only publisher to take advantage of the economic opportunity available in quickly supplying the school children of Ontario with textbooks. While the format of this book (photographs, maps, easily identifiable sections of information and sidebars) is appealing, the content falls short perhaps not of curriculum expectations, but certainly in terms of aiding substantive learning and understanding.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Harry Black. 2002.

Canada and the Nobel Prize: Biographies, Portraits and Fascinating Facts.

Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers. Pp. 120, $19.95, paper.
ISBN 1-55138-150-8
website: www.pembrokepublishers.com

Jon G. Bradley
Faculty of Education
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec

Designed to be an introduction to that rarefied arena of the Nobel Prize, this little book sets out to highlight those notables who have had some kind of connection with Canada. Structurally, the book is divided into three parts: (1) an introductory section briefly describing the life and times of Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel along with the creation of the prizes that bear his name (13 pages); (2) a much longer section, the heart of the book if you will, that describes the selected twenty-two individuals and one organization who have a Canadian connection and who have been honoured with a Nobel (88 pages); and (3) a small index and reference list (11 pages) that rounds out the publication.

In many ways, Canada and the Nobel Prize: Biographies, Portraits and Fascinating Facts is an uneven publication. In the first place, the overall orientation and selection criteria are problematic. The age-old question of nationality is raised and the author himself acknowledges some unease with this orientation. Designed to highlight those Nobel Laureates who have had a significant link to Canada (p. 9), the author seems to be really hunting at times to find these so-called significant Canadian links. I am somewhat surprised that those Nobel winners who may have visited the CN Tower, the Columbia ice fields, and/or traveled the Cabot Trail are not included in the text. Clearly, some liberties have been taken with the word significant such that just about any old connection will do. My guess is that a much slimmer volume would have resulted if a more stringent allocation had been made.

Some of the notables do indeed have a major and/or personal connection with Canada: John Polanyi (Chemistry, 1986) spent formative years at Canadian universities; Robert Mundell (Economics, 1999) was born in Ontario and schooled in British Columbia; and, Charles Higgins (Medicine, 1966) was born and raised in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, too many less secure connections abound. Other than being born in Vancouver, William Vickrey's (Economics, 1996) Canadian credentials are weak but may well be stronger than those of William Giauque (Chemistry, 1949) who is included in this stellar list simply by the oft-putting and totally unanticipated event of being born in Canada of American citizens who were on a short pleasure trip. Notwithstanding Ernest Hemingway's (Literature, 1954) brief sojourn at the Toronto Star, his inclusion in this so-called Canadian list seems questionable. Similarly, Saul Bellow's (Literature, 1976) few early years in Montreal seem tenuous, at best, as solid grounds for a meaningful Canadian connection.

The twenty-two biographies and one institutional history take up the bulk of the pages of Canada and the Nobel Prize. Arranged alphabetically, each biography opens with a clear and attractive pen and ink sketch by the author. This personal touch is nice and softens those all too formal and staged photographs that usually accompany such histories. Even here, unfortunately, the overarching unevenness of the book continues in that some winners, such as, Andrew Schally (Medicine, 1977), Ernest Rutherford (Chemistry, 1908) and David Hubel (Medicine, 1981), are allocated a page or so while truer Canadians, the likes of Frederick Banting (Medicine, 1923), Lester B. Pearson (Peace, 1957) and Michael Smith (Chemistry, 1993), get the royal treatment of four or more pages.

Even the individual biographies themselves contribute to this reviewer's sense of unease by a tone and word choice that can best be described as put-down ness. In other words, instead of using this opportunity to instruct, explain, and really make known the achievements of these notables, the author too often couches difficult topics in a jocular vernacular that does little other than confuse and confound. This reviewer finds statements such as Taube's discoveries may seem vague and somewhat esoteric if you are not a chemist or biochemist (p. 100) along with the description of William S. Vickrey as a saint (p. 109) somewhat lacking in focus. The use of such ill-defined and grandiose verbiage may titillate a word connoisseur but does little to educate the general public. Furthermore, what are middle and/or secondary school students to make of such observations? True, the discoveries of some of these folks can often be described as cutting edge and many of the science awards are indeed advanced, theoretical and a trifle difficult for the average lay person to comprehend. However, this challenging and instructional role should have been a major thrust of this book and, in this reviewer's eyes, a wonderful opportunity was missed by not attempting to communicate in every day language the achievements, accomplishments and impact of these many and varied discoveries.

In spite of my many reservations and concerns, I think that Canada and the Nobel Prize has a special place in every middle/high school library. This volume must be used by teachers and librarians for the simple reason that it highlights academic accomplishment and long-term intellectual investigations. It is a counterweight to all of those other volumes that depict physical prowess or artistic ability as the only worthy virtues in contemporary society. Our libraries are filled with biographies, autobiographies and novels (many of which are nothing more than self-serving renditions) depicting the accomplishments of those with little education, who do not even value formal education, and who are athletes, or sports super and even less than super stars, or others who have been temporarily elevated to an icon status through some questionable artistic ability based on hype rather than talent. Additionally, the contemporary fascination with such television shows as Canadian Idol strengthens the all too prevalent concept among too many young people that academic achievement and intellectual excellence are not worthy endeavors within our society.

This perceived imbalance has been partially rectified by Black's small polemic. He certainly describes and highlights the pinnacles reached by these giants of the academic world. It is a pleasure to read about people who made academic pursuits, in all forms, a life long goal. Canada and the Nobel Prize is needed! I wish that it had been stronger in certain areas and that it had taken on more of an educational orientation. Nonetheless, it fills a void and I hope that Harry Black will seek out other Canadians who have made meaningful long-term contributions to humankind and tell their stories.

References

Woodcock, George. (1970). Canada and the Canadians. London: Faber.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

S. G. Grant and Bruce VanSledright. 2001.

Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies.

Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Pp. 304, $59.56USD, paper.
ISBN 0-395-81121-X
website: www.hmco.com/

Jon G. Bradley
Faculty of Education
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec

Return to Book Reviews

It is always problematic when an American social studies text, specifically one designed to be used by pre-service teachers, is reviewed through Canadian eyes. For the most part, my own professional past experience has demonstrated that the typical historical examples cited (Mayflower landing, American Revolution, Civil War, Civil Rights Movement, etc.) along with picturesque geographic features such as the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, and the Mississippi River Delta have little relevance for a would-be elementary teacher anywhere in Canada. Additionally, detailed chapters dealing with the American Constitution, government and legal systems as well as issues related to state rights, are foreign to the practical educational realities of anyone north of the forty-ninth parallel. If nothing else, the narrow and specific foci of many of the diverse provincial and territorial elementary social studies programs in Canada are themselves out of synch and offer no commonality, level playing field, or any sort of pan-Canadian national program upon which major pedagogical and curriculum notions can be examined. Therefore, it was with some reluctance that I agreed to tackle a review of Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies [abbreviated hereafter as CPA]. This hesitation is further heightened by the fact that I am, deep down, a closet Canadian nationalist; use Kirman (2002) as a required text in my own social studies methodology course with second year education students; and periodically refer to Wright (2001) for additional collaboration.

Unfortunately, as if I did not already have enough reticence, CPA is accompanied by a sixty-seven page Instructor's Resource Manual (ISBN: 0-395-88788-7 supplement). This raises a whole new concern as I am always a tad insulted by those who feel that I am incapable of knowing, deciding, and discovering how to teach my own classes. The notion that I need an instructor's manual is, in my mind's eye, offensive. My memory harkens back to my beginning elementary teaching days when teacher's manuals were all the rage; especially in the mathematics and science domains where the obvious assumption was made that I (as an elementary school teacher) was incapable of solving grade 4 to 6 problems and needed an answer key disguised as a teacher's edition.

The following review, then, will treat the core text separately from the accompanying manual and will be divided into three sections: text, instructor's resource manual and summary.

Text: CPA is specifically targeted at budding pre-service elementary teachers-in-training as well as newly minted elementary classroom practitioners. The authors clearly note in the opening sentence that they wrote this book because we were dissatisfied with the elementary social studies textbooks we reviewed for our courses (p. xi). They go on to state that the other books that they did review (unfortunately not listed) failed to capture the vibrancy and power we see in school classrooms where the subject of social studies is well taught (p. xi).

With tongue in cheek and based on my thirty-five years of dealing with elementary schools, I also would certainly like to see social studies well taught. My own professional experience suggests that social studies/sciences is not a discipline that most elementary teachers (and pupils) rank as important. Let us not forget that in the majority of provincial and territory educational jurisdictions in Canada, the social studies domain is not even a part of the prescribed elementary curriculum! Additionally, based on field reports from my third and fourth year teacher candidates, most of their classrooms eschew the teaching of social studies. Even though it can be argued that Quebec is the only province that includes social studies in some meaningful and integrated manner at every grade level from one through to six, curriculum space is always decided in favour of 'the big three', namely, English language arts, mathematics and French as a second language.

CPA is a tightly written volume! The book is focused, visually sparse (thank God!), and stays away from unnecessary tangents. In some ways, the text is a solid classroom pedagogical voyage as many of the more practical and concrete planning and organizational notions can easily be applied to other academic areas within the elementary curriculum. Centering Joseph Schwab's common place concept, grounded in reliable research, and realistically placed within a total elementary curriculum environment, CPA provides a classroom blueprint for the neophyte teacher at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The strength of the volume is its philosophical grounding. This is not a low-level 'idiot-proof' kind of how-to workbook. There is no collection of ready to use on a Monday morning generic social studies lesson plans. There are no easily duplicated worksheets for a dreary Friday afternoon. Rather, this book forces the teacher to think of the place of his/her own educational philosophy and to ground social studies instruction within a much wider philosophical landscape. There is no question that this book was written for the professional educator, and is specifically designed to augment many separate orientations.

Instructor's Resource Manual: Oh God, a t-shirt handout for a class slogan! While I would strongly recommend the text, I must express many misgivings related to this so-called instructor's manual. Flimsily produced, its very structure screams 'cheap' and 'of no importance'. I am unsure why publishers feel that course instructors are to be treated in such a manner, but if the manual is so important, make the product of paper that does not rip at a glance, use a cover that will endure more than a couple of openings, and try not to make the manual appear to be something that was produced in the 1970's by a basement Gestetner and run-off as an after school program.

Instead of taking some of the exciting notions that are introduced in the text, the authors of the manual appear to have fallen back on the same old tired and misguided concepts that drove previous manual designers. The assumption is that the reader of the manual is slightly slow (in intelligence) and old (with dwindling eyesight); hence, large black print, lots of margin space, simple sentences, nothing controversial, and trite statements as guiding principles. For everything that is positive about the text, the reverse is true for the manual. While great care and energy was clearly put into the design and organization of the main volume this is evident in dealing with concepts such as the Treads Approach and Creating a Genuine Classroom Community the manual shows none of this enthusiasm and offers no additional insights. This reader can only assume that it was thrown together somewhat belatedly by an in-house staff that did not understand the concepts and originality of the textbook.

On the whole, Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies is a valuable volume. It is worth reading as its underlying philosophy is so appealing. Clearly, Grant and VanSledright have some understanding of the realities of the elementary practitioner and have grounded their particular social studies interests in a framework that would fit with many emerging trends. Further, the authors are to be congratulated for providing an overall structure that meets the student centered and individual accountable orientations that are being exhibited in many emerging curriculums. This book will appeal to classroom practitioners as well as those who instruct soon to be elementary teachers. The volume is grounded in time-tested research and not based on the limited experiences of a special group of teachers in a specific school with an abundance of resources. This is a professional book whose ideas and teaching strategies can be implemented by creative classroom practitioners.

References

Kirman, J. M. (2002). Elementary social studies: Creative classroom ideas, 3rd Ed.. Toronto, ON: Prentice Hall.

Wright, I. (2001). Elementary social studies: A practical approach to teaching and learning, 5th Ed. Toronto, ON: Prentice Hall.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Bruce H. Mann. 2002.

Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 344, $29.95USD, cloth.
ISBN 0-674-00902-9
website: www.hup.harvard.edu

Ron Briley
Sandia Preparatory School
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

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In Republic of Debtors, Bruce H. Mann, professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, offers an informative account of the role played by economic insolvency in the creation of the American republic. Nonetheless, most students at the secondary level will struggle with Mann's prose grounded in economic analysis. Teachers of American history, however, would do well to consult this volume and incorporate Mann's research into the historical narrative which all too often tends to uncritically celebrate the unfolding of American economic growth and prosperity.

In the midst of a major recession in which the economic gap between rich and poor continues to grow in the United States, it is worth recalling that these issues of economic and social inequality were present at the inception of the American republic. Americans who struggle under the burden of consumer credit card debt, while bemoaning the legal advantages awarded to corporate debt, will discover from reading Mann's volume that such conditions are hardly new to American capitalism. Indeed, Mann's attention to issues of class is crucial, for this is a topic which draws scant coverage in textbooks.

Mann argues that debt in the English colonies of North America was considered a moral issue and the failure to honor a debt constituted a character flaw. This situation, however, began to change in the mid-seventeenth century with the expansion of commercial capital activity. Yet, the devastation of the Seven Years War and the tightening of British mercantile regulations over the colonies resulted in an economic downturn, rendering many colonial businessmen and speculators unable to honor their financial obligations. Debtors called for relief, and insolvency was increasingly perceived as an economic failure, often due to market forces over which the individual exercised little control, rather than a moral lapse.

Essential to Mann's argument is that this evolving attitudinal shift regarding insolvency extended to commercial rather than consumer debt. Thus, Mann asserts that some colonial legislatures began to experiment with limited bankruptcy laws. Also, many began to question whether imprisonment for debt was a proper remedy for merchants who had fallen upon hard times. Reformers complained that in the two major debtors' prisons, the New Gaol in New York City and Philadelphia's Prime Street Jail, respectable middle class businessmen and their families were often incarcerated with common criminals.

Appeals for commercial debt relief increased following the American Revolution and the post war depression which disrupted traditional colonial trading relationships. The uncertain financial times led to the imprisonment of such prominent speculators as William Morris, William Duer, and John Pintard. The ensuing social unrest culminated in Shays's Rebellion and the belief that a stronger central government was necessary to protect property and maintain order. Accordingly, the Constitutional Convention of 1789 provided the national government with the power to create bankruptcy legislation.

During the 1790s popular perceptions regarding debt continued to evolve, and Mann devotes considerable space to newspapers, pamphlets, and reform journals in which debt was perceived as a threat to the independence of the new republic. Thus, Virginia planters complained that their British creditors were attempting to reduce them to the status of dependent slavery. The irony of such rhetoric, however, was apparently not recognized by the slave-owning planters. Some commercial debtors attempted to escape the reach of creditors by moving to the west, where they were able to reestablish themselves as entrepreneurs. Others were not as fortunate, ending up in the New Gaol where Morris, and others of his social background, attempted to maintain their status by orchestrating an elaborate self-governing procedure for the so-called Middle Hall of the New Gaol.

The debate over commercial debt in the new republic culminated in the Bankruptcy Act of 1800. Commercial debtors rejoiced in the passage of a law which, according to Mann, extended only to merchants, bankers, brokers, factors, underwriters, and marine insurers, who owed a minimum of $1,000 and who had committed one or more acts of bankruptcy (p. 222). Despite the class nature of this legislation and the fact that the bankruptcy process could not be implemented without the approval of creditors, the Bankruptcy Act of 1800 was unpopular with creditors. Accordingly, in 1803 the law was repealed, and a permanent piece of bankruptcy legislation was not enacted until 1898. While creditors continued to express some discomfort with debt relief for all social classes, Mann's main point is that the Bankruptcy Act of 1800 represented a national statement of the 'principle' that release from debts was a boon reserved for capitalistic entrepreneurs, while simpler debtors should, by implication, remember the sanctity of their obligations (p. 256).

Mann concludes that the American legal and economic system continues to grapple with these issues of dependence and independence. Students and teachers of American history should pay greater attention to the class origins of this debate which is well outlined in Mann's volume. The promise of equal economic opportunity in the United States remains an elusive goal.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Adam Kuper. 2000.

Culture: The Anthropologists' Account.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 299, $17.95USD, paper.
ISBN 0-674-00417-5
website: www.hup.harvard.edu

Jean-Guy Goulet
Faculty of Human Sciences
Saint Paul University
Ottawa, Ontario

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American academics are waging culture wars. (Not many dead.) Politicians urge cultural revolution (p. 1). Thus begins the introduction to a fascinating exploration of a recent chapter in the intellectual history that gave rise and prominence to 'culture' as a professional specialty and as a taken-for-granted concept in terms of which the citizenship at large discusses politics, economy, management, industry, media, and so on. One of the impulses from which this book has been written is the abuse of culture theory as a source of legitimization for apartheid in South Africa, where Kuper was an undergraduate in anthropology in the late 1950's. Culture then superseded race as the objective fact on the basis of which to argue that those who shared a culture ought to live and breed together. To this day Kuper is suspicious of arguments that deny individuals the possibility to associate with whom they choose and so develop in ways that are not determined by their ethnicity and ancestry.

To expose the historical roots of cultural theory the book is divided into two parts. The first consists of two chapters. The initial chapter presents particular traditions of thinking about culture as seen in the work of Lucien Fevre (1878-1956), Norbert Elias (1897-1990) and Raymond Williams (1921-1988). Whereas German intellectuals advocated Kultur above the artificial civilization of the cosmopolitan, materialistic French, British intellectuals tied their notion of culture to the processes of industrialization and its ensuing socio-economic transformations. The second chapter focuses on the American tradition. Kroeber and Kluckhone are credited for constructing a distinctively American genealogy of the concept of culture. Parson built on this foundation to divide the intellectual labour between sociologist, psychologist and anthropologist giving to the latter, as a specialty, the concept of culture as a system of symbols.

Part II of the book focuses on the central project in postwar American cultural anthropology as developed by Geertz (chapter 3), Schneider (chapter 4), Sahlins (chapter 5), and by Sherry Ortner, Renato Rosaldo, George Marcus and James Clifford (chapter 6). These scholars who were granted tenure in the 1980's promote a postmodernist anthropology born out of the recognition that the imperial project operated within the United States itself (p. 204). In a final chapter Kuper argues against the value of the concepts of culture and multiculturalism in discussions of identity. When difference becomes the basis for a claim to collective rights of those who share gender, race, ethnicity or disability (p. 224), Kuper sees a political agenda that constrains individuals to belong to the group to which they are assigned a priori..

In his criticism of the American project, Kuper operates from a number of vantage points. He chastises Geertz, who hails culture as the essential element in the definition of human nature and produces thick descriptions of local knowledge in Indonesia and Bali, for failing to understand local events in the light of what politicians, soldiers, and CIA operatives did when they not only shaped history but too often tortured and eliminated their enemies (p. 120). Kuper looks at Schneider through the psychoanalytical lens and identifies Schneider's choice of kinship as a subject for deconstruction that becomes a way to perpetrate not only parricide but a wholesale slaughter of the ancestors(p. 132). Kuper presents Sahlins as Leslie White reincarnated as Lvi-Strauss (p. 198), a view that effectively captures Sahlin's career path from Michigan to Paris and back to Chicago. In the end Kuper's objection to the American project as a whole is a moral one, for It tends to draw attention away from what we have in common instead of encouraging us to communicate across national, ethnic, and religious boundaries, and to venture beyond them (p. 247).

First published in 1999, Kuper's book was in its third printing in the year 2000, a clear indication of its importance. Against American anthropologists, Kuper argues that we ought to avoid the hyper-referential word culture altogether. Better, he claims, to talk more precisely of knowledge, or belief, or art, or technology, or traditions, or even of ideology (though similar problems are raised by the multivalent concept) (p. 10). This suggestion will not do. In the end, Kuper has not found a way out of the anthropological intellectual conundrum that he so elegantly explores. His book will remain, nonetheless, a masterpiece against which to measure the quality of other contributions in the enduring intellectual debate about the core business of anthropology.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

François Tochon. 2002.

Tropics of Teaching: Productivity, Warfare and Priesthood.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pp. 163, $35.00, cloth.
ISBN 0-8020-3685-6
website: www.utppublishing.com

Dr. Bryant Griffith
Texas A University
Corpus Christi, Texas, USA

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The Tropics of Teaching is not an easy book to read. In fact, it is a difficult text, full of intricate philosophical language and argument. It is not a book that I would recommend for recreational reading neither for teachers nor for students. However, is it important to the social studies education community? The answer is absolutely yes, and this is why. Tochon argues that educators have constructed a culture of niceness around the act of teaching that negates the ethical nature of what happens in good classrooms with experienced and caring teachers. This culture of niceness prevents teachers and students from understanding the problems associated with teaching and learning as they try to make meaning of the world of education.

In order to understand why Tochon believes this I'm going to take you on a brief, and I hope clear, description of what I understand to be his philosophical position. Tochon employs a semiotic analysis to teaching. Semiotics is, I think, another one of the inexact 'sciences'. It is inexact because there are many interpretations of what semiotics is; yet it is a science because it does have a definite set of precepts, or sets of precepts. The shortest definition of semiotics is that it is the study of signs and its most notable practitioner is Umberto Eco, who is probably most widely remembered for writing The Name of the Rose. Eco describes semiotics as being concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign (Eco, 1976, p. 7). I take this to mean that semiotics not only studies signs of everyday life, like language, but also anything which stands for something else, namely words, images, sounds, gestures and objects.

Another major figure in the field of semiotics is the anthropologist Claude Lvi-Strauss. I think it may be easier to understand how semiotics relates to teaching and learning if one thinks about how an anthropologist tries to make meaning of the world he or she happens upon. In each case understanding is constructed by making sense of signs presented to them in various textual forms.
Let me illustrate, Lvi- Strauss creates a dialogue with his materials and how best to use them. He asks how the process of discovery leads to making meaning, and then he tracks that process. What he does not do is lay down the path of what that meaning will be beforehand. So semiotics calls for teachers, anthropologists and students to construct personal meaning from actions. This is a reversal of the traditional curriculum process, and of traditional teaching and learning practices. In semiotics learning becomes a creative act shaped by the intentions of the learner and also by language and social and psychological factors. In Tropics of Teaching, Tochon describes semiotics as the ethical element of teaching. It is what good, experienced teachers do when they care for their students. They become flexible in their pedagogical practice. This ethical quality is highly prized by our society but for the most part it has not been addressed in faculties of education or in school classrooms. The reason for the split between theory and practice, Tochon says, is that we have forgotten that teaching is the mirror to the soul and not based upon the rational reflection of how to make things fit (p. 132).

Tochon says that we have further confused the meaning of such key concepts as word and actions, ideology and change, economics and education, and that we have lost touch with what is most important: contact. Contact occurs during a conversation between teacher and student when it is based upon a bottom-up discovery of the learning process. It is not a prescribed path to defined ends. Tochon is telling us is that teaching is the art of translating signs from art to poetry and beyond. This world is not just found in books, computers or audio-video material.

In the same way meaning is not simply transmitted to us. We actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes, of which we are unaware. I think this point is vital. University education, in particular, is often accused of not preparing students for the real world. Given my description above I think we could say that too often teaching does not touch base in order for us to understand signs. In many cases if signs are learned they are not made explicit and therefore no real meaning is made. Too often students pick up meanings implicitly and the pedagogical moment has been lost.

Tochon calls the process I have outlined Humanist reflection. So that we can understand how this differs from much of what we traditionally do in our schools, he has organized the book around three metaphors: 'productivity' or output and standardization, 'warfare' or strategy and expertise, and finally 'priesthood' or the enlightened subject. He argues that we can by-pass these three concepts by employing a semiotic methodology he calls his counter- methodology. This counter-methodology would be learning activities based upon lived experiences as opposed to top-down, plan oriented activities.

Tochon gives us an example of such an activity in action poetry. Tochon believed that the city of Geneva had lost touch with its soul and this was exhibited by the lack of public interest in poetry. He took advantage of a local grant and had students write original poems about matters of personal interest to them. Each of the twenty-seven original poems was then inscribed by hand in acrylic by a professional painter and then mounted on billboards all over the city. The reaction was just what Tochon had hoped for: a public conversation in all the media about the poems. This initiated new and giant poems on billboards; many are still visible in Geneva. Thus action poetry became a process whereby the people of Geneva made meaning from the poetry in acrylic on the public billboards. It began a shared public discussion of the value of poetry, art, civic pride and much more. This is how Franois Tochon conceives of the school curriculum and of the nature of teaching and learning.
Let me leave the last words to him:

It would be nice to think that educators could present such an argument about the nature of teaching and learning when asked for it by those who pay our way. Take some time and read this book. It is well worth the effort.

References

Eco, E. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Lvi-Strauss, C. (1972). Structural anthropology. Hammondsworth: Penguin.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Brent Bryon Watson. 2002.

Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry in Korea 1950-1953.

Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. Pp 256, $34.95, cloth.
ISBN 0-7735-2372-3
website: www.mqup.ca

Ernest LeVos
Grant MacEwan College
Edmonton, Alberta

Return to Book Reviews

There are certain elements in this book that one finds hard to fault where the author is concerned. It is well researched and well documented with thirty-seven pages of notes; a few notes have additional explanations. Secondary and primary sources are well integrated and the author effectively analyses and explains the diverse experiences of the 25th Canadian Regiment (the Royal Canadian Regiment, the Princess Patricia's Light Infantry and the Royal 22e Regiment) in the Korean War that was a sideshow for Canada (p. 96). A significant question that arises from this work is whether the Canadian government and military have learned any lessons from the Korean War. The contributions of the 25th Regiment have been overlooked and their participation in Korea was more than police action or a peacekeeping mission: it was a war.

What did members of this distinguished regiment face? The soldiers were inadequately trained for patrol operations, and were badly in need of Canadian kit and clothing(p. 38). The problems the soldiers faced with the 9mm Sten gun conjure up bad memories of Col. Sam Hughes and the Ross Rifle fiasco during World War I. The soldiers had an inadequate knowledge of all things Korean, from foods, smells, the lack of respect for life, and even language. Consequently, it was natural, like Jacques Cartier of old, to describe the newfound country as God-forsaken. Furthermore, as journalist Pierre Berton has pointed out, soldiers and military administrators were culturally insensitive.

The author also focuses on the nature of group dynamics (p. 68). The 25th Regiment worked alongside the Korean Service Corp (KSC), an esteemed battlefield ally, and the Korean Augmentation Troops, Commonwealth (KATCOM) who were viewed as interlopers at best, and dangerous battlefield liabilities at worst(p. 68). But there were other dangers, such as having to fight a highly capable Chinese enemy that fought and outgunned the Canadian patrols (p. 80). For the most part, Canadian soldiers were unable to conduct successful patrols. They faced a dismal battlefield performance, but despite casualties in the battle of Hill 355, battle exhaustion and self inflicted wounds, Canadian casualties in Korea were extremely light [when] compared with the carnage in the two world wars (p. 108). However, Watson does emphasize the fact that clearly, the fighting in Korea was far more lethal than the euphemism 'police action' suggests (p. 111). The injured, unfortunately, received appalling medical treatment. For many, the injuries sustained were very traumatic and deadly.

There were other dangerous challenges the soldiers faced. Diseases such as dysentery and malaria were a serious threat to the soldiers and the 25th Brigade found itself confronting a VD epidemic unparalleled in Canadian military history (p. 133). The author makes a humble admission at this point when he writes that it is difficult for the historian writing nearly five decades after the fact to express in print the fear induced in front line troops by the ever-present threat of contracting hemorrhagic fever (p. 131).
While the first eight chapters will spark rage and sympathy among readers, chapter 9, Forgotten People, was the chapter that caught my attention: the soldiers in the firing line lived like tramps without even the most basic comforts (p. 142). The rations were unappetizing and drinking water was unsafe. There were rats and snakes to contend with, and climatic conditions in the winter and the summer posed a formidable challenge to weapons maintenance (p. 150). Writing paper was a scarce commodity and there was inadequate and unsatisfactory entertainment.

While the Canadian soldiers faced numerous hardships, deprivations and an unhappy experience in Korea, it was the little things such as a turkey dinner for Christmas that made all the difference to lowly combat soldiers (p. 156). What eventually sustained the morale of the soldiers, and in many instances, turned out to be disastrous and fatal, was the love of rum and coke as the last chapter is entitled. Alcohol, a feature of military life, took its toll.

It is unfortunate that a regiment that made significant contributions under adverse conditions would not be greeted with a parade upon their return home, nor receive the concern of their government. It was a government that was more Eurocentric in its policies, with an army that was seriously overextended during the Korean War era (p. 179). Were any lessons learned from the Korean War experience? Perhaps not, if the larger picture is considered and if an individual reads chapter three (From the Great War to the Afghan War: Canada as Soldier) of Andrew Cohen's book While Canada Slept: How We Lost Our Place in the World.

Far Eastern Tour is more than a catalogue of pathetic situations encountered by the 25th Canadian Regiment in Korea. It solicits a greater respect and recognition for the Canadian soldiers who fought in the Korean War. While it is possible to criticize the government's policy makers and military administrators for their insensitivities, I came away from this well-written book with a greater respect for the contributions made by the Canadian Armed Forces.

This book will cater to a small audience such as high school students and university students interested in military history and in those distinguished soldiers who fought for Canada and are still living. There was a typo error on p. 39 (the word should have been mud). That aside, it would be beneficial to readers to view some photographs even wartime illustrations and posters and a map or two could have been included identifying such locations as Hill 355, Kap'yong, and the Jamestown line. For two good maps and sixteen pages of photographs, a reader should consult Ted Barris' book Deadlock In Korea: Canadians At War, 1950-1953.

References

Barris, T. (1999). Deadlock in Korea: Canadians at war, 1950-1953. Toronto: Macmillan Canada.

Cohen, A. (2003). While Canada slept: How we lost our place in the world. Toronto: McClelland Stewart.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Hildi Kang. 2001.

Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945.

Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Pp. 166, $25.00USD, cloth.
ISBN 0-8014-3854-3
website: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/

Ernest LeVos
Grant MacEwan College
Edmonton, Alberta

Return to Book Reviews

This is a book of many voices and it will appeal to a wide audience for many reasons. It is appropriately titled, well organized and published by a reputable press. The personal stories of suffering and the will to survive describe the existentialist existence of a nation under colonial oppression. These stories defined a people and eventually two countries: North Korea and South Korea. From another perspective, it is a set of stories that defined Japanese colonialism for thirty-five years. In this book the author skilfully weaves together a common experience of subjugation as told by fifty-one Koreans.

Six of the fourteen chapters are oral accounts by six individuals: a teacher cum businessperson, a bank manager, two homemakers and two students. Eight chapters contain oral accounts of varying lengths from groups such as farmers, fishers, peddlers and professional people. The story each person relates paints a picture of assimilation, accommodation, oppression, subjugation, and cultural and religious compromise under Japanese rule. Chaos, confusion and cruelty also figure prominently. While stories of victimization predominate, the book does include some accounts of compassion and mercy. There were a few Japanese colonial and military administrators who were kind to the Koreans but these Japanese were a handful that saw a bigger picture and shunned a narrow island mentality of which they were accused (p. 132).

While Kang does not admit using a specific definition of history, it is evident that she views history as the process of change over a period of time. Part I covers Change by Choice and Part II is Change by Coercion. In the coverage of both parts of the book, significant topics such as the Korean Independence Movement, the infatuation with Communism and the role of village schools called Sodangs, are acknowledged.

The Korean Independence Movement is addressed in Under the Black Umbrella. Koreans fought hard to preserve their individual and national identity since they were fighting a war against the dangers of becoming Japanese. Various weapons such as religion and the study of the Bible were used in this war against assimilation. For Christians, it was impossible to preach Christianity openly. In fact, a wide range of weapons were used in the program of passive resistance including hiding crops, feigning ignorance, conveniently disappearing singing songs with hidden meanings, taking part in labour strikes, spreading anti Japanese rumours, and, especially Christians, refusing to bow to Shinto shrines (p. 99). Koreans experienced the consequences of such passive resistance - for example, finding it disastrous to use a piece of the Independence newspaper to wrap a package!

Resistance continued during the Second World War. At a time when the Japanese wanted all the help they could get, Koreans kept up their passive resistance by hiding, ignoring the summons, or finding essential home-front jobs (p. 130). One person sought advice from a fortune-teller who was told to escape the draft since his lot, as a soldier would be a bad one. For those interested in the study of passive resistance, some of the latter accounts will remind them of similar movements in the history of Asia among the peasants who battled colonial rule.

There is no doubt that the author, perhaps inadvertently, prepares her readers to focus on mansei, independence. Mansei was the rallying cry, the song and statement of faith for freedom some day in the Korean future. The Japanese were devoted to controlling Korea, and the Koreans were determined to resist Japanese colonialism. In the pursuit of their own variety of manifest destiny, the Japanese military administrators introduced laws that required Koreans to recite the imperial pledge of allegiance, to speak only Japanese, to worship at Shinto shrines and to adopt Japanese names (p. 111). In short, Koreans were forced to assimilate. August 15, 1945 was a defining moment for Koreans for on this date the Japanese surrendered and Korea was no longer an imperial colony of Japan. They stopped becoming Japanese and it was a time for Korean communists and anti-Japanese nationalists to let out all their frustrations (pp. 143-144). Korea would never be the same again.

Oral histories are challenging exercises and the author does not ignore the element of accuracy where memory is concerned. Even though some of these individual stories are repetitious experiences, they will appeal to a wide range of readers - the general public, university and high school students. The latter will find the few experiences of Korean junior and senior high school students, some who worked in the fish cannery during the war, interesting. Part of their school day was given to forced labour. The author raises some pertinent issues that students could use for papers and discussions such as the influence of assimilation on Koreans and whether colonialism was a blessing or a bane for Korea.

There are other significant features of the book. The only map in Under the Black Umbrella is useful in locating some of the towns and regions in Korea. In addition, there are some appropriate photographs and a reprint of a post-card to celebrate liberation from Japanese rule. Also of interest to the reader is Appendix B, where the author briefly brought some of the individual stories up to date. Eventually, several of those she interviewed would make their home in the United States.

It is a truism that history is written by the victors. But it is understandable that many Japanese will not revisit the past, nor want to read or write about the ugly periods of their history. One is reminded of the article that Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall wrote for the Atlantic Monthly a few months after the Korean War was over: Our Mistakes in Korea. Nations may write on the ugly past, warts and all, but unfortunately, we may get very little of the Japanese perspective.

References

Marshall, S.L.A. (1953). Our mistakes in Korea. Atlantic Monthly, 192(3), pp. 46-49. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/53sep/marshall.htm

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Michel Chauveau (translated from the French by David Lorton). 2002.

Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth.

Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London. Pp. 104, $22.50USD, cloth.
ISBN 0-8014-3867-5
website: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/

E. Senger
Henry Wise Wood High School
Calgary, Alberta

Return to Book Reviews

In Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth, Michel Chauveau attempts, as far as possible, to set the record straight regarding the myriad myths and facts which have followed this ancient queen through the centuries. Perhaps one of its greatest traits is that it is a relatively short book, making a somewhat complex and intimidating subject accessible. He does an admirable job of such an arduous task, and I found this a compelling, engaging and titillating book that left me wanting to learn more.

Chauveau is a former member of a noted French archaeological institute in Cairo and, at press time, was director of studies at L'Ecole Pratique in Paris. While this lends a great deal of credibility to his work, the extensive list of citations, in French, German, Italian and English, further demonstrates a wide and varied research base for his subject. This book may be useful as a secondary text by college professors, or as a supplementary resource at lower levels. Maps are provided on a front overleaf and following the Translator's note which helps to orient the reader as to the time and place covered by this work. A small note of caution should be considered as this is a translation, and some of the nuances of the subject may have been lost or altered in that translation. The book is made up of straight text with a Chronology of the Ptolemies and a few selections from Ancient Texts, as well as excellent notes, bibliography and index.

Chauveau explains early on that the ancient accounts of Cleopatra's life are limited. He notes that Egypt at that time was a satellite of Rome, and that it is likely, in part, due to her stormy affairs with both Julius Caesar and Antony that we know as much as we do. He also states from the beginning that he is trying to sift truth from fiction and provide a somewhat more accurate understanding of this complex woman.

Woven throughout Cleopatra are a great many details about the functioning of Roman society which was so entwined with Cleopatra's rise, rule and eventual demise. It is largely through Roman documents that many of the facts about her have been verifiable. Some knowledge of this period of history is definitely beneficial, and makes the understanding of events much easier.

Cleopatra's family history is detailed and her birthright to the Egyptian throne is established through a long line of powerful women of the Lagide family. Chauveau does, however, raise the question of her legitimacy when he describes her as daughter of the royal couple, fruit of a morganatic union, or even illegitimate (p. 9). From the very beginning, her life is shrouded in mystery and unanswered questions. What is not in doubt, however, is her intelligence and the fact that she must have had a considerable and extensive education. She spoke at least seven languages Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopian, Median, Parthian, and Latin at a time when even royal women were not usually extensively educated.

The future queen's formative years were filled with conflict and intrigue as her family tried to come to terms with Roman aggression and she learned many ruthless lessons regarding power and alliance during this period. It is also suggested that once her father had died, she may have displaced her brother on the throne, overthrowing the dying king's wishes. Then, through a series of intrigues, Cleopatra ultimately became victorious and took her place as sole ruler of Egypt. Part of why this was possible is that she came to power during the Roman Civil War. Caesar went to Egypt to plunder its riches in order to support Roman military exploits, and it was at this time that one of the famous myths of Cleopatra occurred. Chauveau maintains that she slipped through enemy lines, persuaded a friend to wrap her in a carpet and deliver her to Caesar's private quarters, where she used seduction, intelligence and compassion to win him over. This verifies one of her well-known adventures, and clearly demonstrates a great deal of audacity and creativity on her part. Her relationship with Caesar is also authenticated by this as he describes their close relationship, her travelling to Rome and staying in his house, and eventually Caesar's acknowledgement of Cleopatra's son as his own.

That this famed Egyptian queen was ruthless and manipulative is beyond question. Chauveau insinuates that she had her 15-year-old brother killed so that she could usurp total control. In another instance Caesar called for her help and while she publicly refused aid, one of her generals sent a fleet to assist him. By these means she could await the outcome of the battle and denounce or support Caesar's actions whichever served her purposes best. While these traits are not unique to Cleopatra, they are more often attributed to male rulers, but since she was a ruler and acted as such, was she really any more remarkable than her male contemporaries?

Once Caesar was killed, Antony became a strong force in the Roman Empire, and he too turned to Egypt to see what support he could garner from it. To that end he summoned Cleopatra and her arrival at Tarsos and lavish display flattered him immensely. Clearly she knew how to manipulate powerful men. When he visited her at Alexandria and stayed for months it was clear that he too had fallen for her romantically. Chauveau clearly states that they were lovers (p. 46), and Antony also later acknowledged two of her children as his own.

Perhaps one of the most noted legends about Cleopatra is about how she met her end. Her army had been defeated and her rule was clearly at an end, so friends helped her to seal herself up in her mausoleum with her treasures. Chauveau presents it as fact that Antony was told she was dead and so committed suicide. He was, however, hauled up by ropes to where she was concealed and died in her arms. Octavian, a long time enemy, captured her and her treasure and confronted her with her past errors. Whether Octavian gave consent, or whether Cleopatra's friends managed to help her without his knowledge, she did commit suicide. Literature and Hollywood perpetuate the myth of her inducing snakes to bite her, but it is more likely that she used poison. So ended the life of one of the most fabled, and perhaps misunderstood, women of history.

The legacy which Cleopatra left, regardless of the truth of the myths, is quite significant. According to Chauveau, she had reconstituted in large part the Lagide Empire of her forbears, which had dominated the Mediterranean world in the third century (p. 52). Using her considerable intelligence, beauty and ruthlessness, she accomplished what many men before her had done. Perhaps because she was a woman in a time of male dominance such exploits became the stuff of speculation, and were embellished through the ages.

While Chauveau's work clears up many discrepancies, it also raises more questions. For example, did Cleopatra really commit suicide or was she murdered by Octavian's minions? What would her role have been in a new Egypt had she survived? Was she merely a lusty, adulterous manipulator, or where her actions truly designed to assure the greatness of Egypt? Perhaps these questions are precisely that part of Cleopatra's mystique that will live on forever.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education

Hope-Arlene Fennell (Ed). 2002.

The Role of the Principal in Canada.

Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd. Pp.141, $29.95, paper.
ISBN 1-55059-236-X
website: www.temerondetselig.com

Caroline J. Thompson
Faculty of Education
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario

Return to Book Reviews

In recent years much has been written about the responsibilities of school administrators and how they understand their role. Escalating educational costs and shrinking resources have precipitated demands for more accountability by principals and greater corporate involvement in our schools. The impact on principals has been challenging and may be contributing to the growing shortage of school administrators. It was with great interest that I read Fennell's book, The Role of the Principal in Canada, in which she presents the research of scholars from Alberta, Nova Scotia and Ontario who looked into the concerns of principals and make recommendations for how they can be better prepared for what lies ahead.

In To Be or Not To Be: Factors Impacting on the Decision of Teachers to Move Into the Principalship, Bnard and Vail surveyed administrators in Ontario to compare their current role perceptions with their motivations for becoming principals in the first place. Although the return rate of surveys was only 41%, a substantial number reported that stress, increased workload and increased accountability (p. 18) made their work less appealing than they had expected it to be. I would have preferred to see elaboration in some of the sample responses under the headings Additional Comments or Feedback Shared, and Obstacles to Accessing Principals' Qualification Courses because such items as changing role of the principalship (p. 18) and course content (p. 19) are unclear as to whether they are positive or negative factors. However, Bnard and Vail's interpretation of the findings as they pertain to the leadership crisis in Ontario are useful, and their alternative to the standard principal certification program commendable.

Castle, Mitchell and Gupta's work highlights the negative effects of restructuring by the Ontario government in 1996 without consulting principals and allowing them time for reflection. In their chapter, Roles of Elementary School Principals in Ontario: Tasks and Tensions, these authors imply that the mandated changes did not take into consideration how individual principals would cope with resulting role ambiguity and the fragmentation of responsibilities. The 1990s vision of principals as transformational leaders is so blurred by managerial tasks that one wonders whether government now believes that schools need principals at all.

Macmillan and Meyer used a survey in Nova Scotia to investigate the impact of external agendas on the instructional leadership role administrators used to perform. In The Principalship: What Comes with Experience, they recommend grant writing training in principal certification programs to reflect the new realities. They list administrative duties under three headings: Instruction, Monitoring and Communication, and Management (p. 42), but one wonders if these categories may be too broad. Also, it is not clear whether principals regard these duties as positive or negative, and the meaning of all the statistics reported on pages 44-48 is unclear. Such broad groupings and numbers may obscure what might have been captured using a qualitative methodology.

The chapter I felt most comfortable with was Fennell's own, titled Living Leadership: Experiences of Six Women Principals. In her research, Fennell used a narrative inquiry methodology to share the visions of professional commitment, care and respect of her six study participants. While many of her findings are not new in reporting the role perceptions and styles of women principals, her research makes a strong case for studying leadership from a phenomenological perspective. Through conversations with and observations of her respondents, she found their discomfort with authoritarian, hierarchical management styles had led them to their current view of leadership. All six women reported that prior to being principals they had experienced too much management and too little leadership to promote student learning. Furthermore, their desire to create a nurturing school climate of shared decision-making, evolved out of their former feelings of inadequacy when they were involved in power struggles with males. These principals were committed to improving the lives of others within an ethos of dignity and appreciation. Fennell states that each participant in her study felt it was important to build trust and support students and staff to deal with problems in their own way. Consequently, the need for time to reflect cannot be overstated.

Sarbit's examination of what happens when a principal in Alberta changes schools contributes greatly to our knowledge of educational administration at a time when there is tremendous principal turnover. In Principal Succession: The 'Reel' Story, her research shows that while the administrator brings along the qualities and skills possessed at the former school, there are many adjustments required in the new context. Using a narrative inquiry methodology Sarbit cast herself as a movie director and was able to capture multiple layers of meaning through her camera lens. She recommends that succession be a topic in principal certification programs.

The chapter by Goddard, Placing Community Before Efficiency? A Social and Cultural Analysis Concerning the Amalgamation of Rural Schools, on the effects of rural school closures in the name of political expediency shows how an economic efficiency model based in a corporate mentality hurts both students and staff. He applies priorities of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (U.S.A.) for students and teachers to our Canadian educational landscape. Goddard maintains that the forced assimilation of rural students into larger, geographically distant institutions does not yield improvement in student achievement; on the contrary, the closures of small neighbourhood schools reduces student participation in governance and many school activities. While this chapter raises many issues of concern to students, parents and teachers, I wish it had been more explicit in how the pressures of school consolidation affect the principal's role.

In the final chapter, Inclusive Leadership for Diverse Schools: Initiating and Sustaining Dialogue, Ryan discusses the challenges administrators face in responding to increased diversity in student populations. He uses terms like intelligence assessment, disability and minority culture to advocate for more inclusion and recommends that principals use a reciprocal, participatory stance to encourage dialogue. The author does not acknowledge that schools have historically had diverse populations and that cultural and gender discrimination are not new phenomena in Canadian schools. The relation of dialogue to improving inclusion is hardly a new idea. Inviting principals to come out of the office and walk the halls (Ryan, p. 129) reflects a historically male-centred approach to leadership while concurrently failing to address the current economic and political pressures that are driving them back there. By stating that the principal establishes school climate from a position of power and needs to handle (Ryan,
p. 126) multiculturalism by engaging in dialogue, one wonders what changes really need to be made.

I found this book interesting and informative. The title is a bit misleading, since it suggests to the reader that there will be a cross-section of perspectives from each province and territory. I was unable to apply some of it to my experience as a principal in an Aboriginal community, but related to the challenges of change and bureaucracy. I found it compelling to know that the authors were reporting on the realities of current principals and making recommendations that might help. The comparative aspect of accounts from contributors in such diverse areas leads one to appreciate the commonalities of administrators' collective experience and their dedication to a cause larger than themselves.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
(The History and Social Science Teacher)

CANADA'S NATIONAL SOCIAL STUDIES JOURNAL
VOLUME 38, NUMBER 3, SPRING 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css

Special Issue: Graduate Work in Social Studies Education.

Canadian Social Studies is an indexed, refereed journal published quarterly on-line at the University of Alberta. It is a journal of comment and criticism on social education and publishes articles on curricular issues relating to history, geography, social sciences, and social studies.
Canadian Social Studies is under copyright. Unless otherwise designated, permission is granted to download and distribute individual student copies of anything in this journal as long as it is for non-profit educational use in the classroom. Copyright permission includes the requirement to include the following on the first page of any duplicated material: "Canadian Social Studies, www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css Canada's national social studies journal - by permission." All other duplication or distribution requires the editor's permission.
George Richardson - Editor

| | |

From the Editor

Articles

The Pressure Cooker in Education: Standardized Assessment and High-Stakes
Loren Agrey

Embracing Ambiguity in the Artefacts of the Past: Teacher Identity and Pedagogy
Lisa Barty

Globalization and Peace Education
Brenda Basiga

Global Awareness and Perspectives in Global Education
Laura Burnouf

Social Studies and Service-learning: The Aleph of Democratic Citizenship?
Andrew Foran

National Identity in Korean Curriculum
Hyo-jeong Kim

Making Connections: Wholistic Teaching Through Peace Education
Kris Simpson

Identity and the Forthcoming Alberta Social Studies Curriculum: A Postcolonial Reading
Laura A. Thompson

Book Reviews

J. Bradley Cruxton, W. Douglas Wilson and Robert J. Walker. 2001.
Close-Up Canada
Reviewed by Sam Allison.

George J. Sefa Dei and Agnes Calliste (Eds.), with the assistance of Margarida Aguiar. 2000.
Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education: A Critical Reader.
Reviewed by Gulbahar H. Beckett.

Elaine Ursel. 2001.
Discovering Canada's Trading Partners.
Reviewed by JK. J. Bradford.

Harry Black. 2002.
Canada and the Nobel Prize: Biographies, Portraits and Fascinating Facts.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley.

S. G. Grant and Bruce VanSledright. 2001.
Constructing a Powerful Approach to Teaching and Learning in Elementary Social Studies.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley.

Bruce H. Mann. 2002.
Republic of Debtors: Bankruptcy in the Age of American Independence.
Reviewed by Ron Briley.

Adam Kuper. 2000.
Culture: The Anthropologists' Account.
Reviewed by Jean-Guy Goulet.

Franois Tochon. 2002.
Tropics of Teaching: Productivity, Warfare and Priesthood.
Reviewed by Dr. Bryant Griffith.

Brent Bryon Watson. 2002.
Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry in Korea 1950-1953.
Reviewed by Ernest LeVos.

Hildi Kang. 2001.
Under the Black Umbrella: Voices from Colonial Korea, 1910-1945.
Reviewed by Ernest LeVos.

Michel Chauveau (translated from the French by David Lorton). 2002.
Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth.
Reviewed by E. Senger.

Hope-Arlene Fennell (Ed). 2002.
The Role of the Principal in Canada.
Reviewed by Caroline J. Thompson.

Editor
George Richardson
Guest Editors: Loren Agrey and Laura Thompson
Manuscript Review Editors
Robert Fowler, University of Victoria
Alan Sears, University of New Brunswick
Columnists
Kevin Kee, McGill University
Penney Clark, University of British Columbia
David Kilgour, M.P., Edmonton Southeast
John McMurtry, University of Guelph
Ken Osborne, University of Manitoba (Emeritus)

Features Editors
Kathy Bradford, University of Western Ontario
(Book Reviews)
Jim Parsons, University of Alberta
(Classroom Teaching)

Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life and by the Canadian Education Association; Corpus Almanac Canadian Sourcebook; Ulrich's lnt. Pedcs. Directory; ERIC; Canadian Education Index, Micromedia Limited; and H. W. Wilson Company.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
(The History and Social Science Teacher)

CANADA'S NATIONAL SOCIAL STUDIES JOURNAL
VOLUME 39, NUMBER 1, Fall 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css

Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools.

Canadian Social Studies is an indexed, refereed journal published quarterly on-line at the University of Alberta. It is a journal of comment and criticism on social education and publishes articles on curricular issues relating to history, geography, social sciences, and social studies.
Canadian Social Studies is under copyright. Unless otherwise designated, permission is granted to download and distribute individual student copies of anything in this journal as long as it is for non-profit educational use in the classroom. Copyright permission includes the requirement to include the following on the first page of any duplicated material: "Canadian Social Studies, www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css Canada's national social studies journal - by permission." All other duplication or distribution requires the editor's permission.
George Richardson - Editor

| | |

From the Editor

Articles

Don't Forget About Law: A Case For Law-Related Education In Elementary Social Studies
Wanda Cassidy

Teaching Human Rights in Elementary Classrooms: A Literary Approach
Linda Farr Darling

How Can Social Studies Teachers Best Use The Internet With Young Learners?
Susan E. Gibson

Historical Thinking in the Elementary Years: A Review of Current Research
Amy von Heyking

Book Reviews

Bruce VanSledright. 2002..
In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley.

Ian Wright. 2002.
Is That Right? Critical Thinking and the Social World of the Young Learner.
Reviewed by Ron Briley.

Katarina Tomasevski. 2003.
Education Denied: Costs and Remedies.
Reviewed by Linda Farr Darling.

Ruth Cohen, ed. 2001.
Alien Invasion: How the Harris Tories Mismanaged Ontario.
Reviewed by Larry A. Glassford.

Yvonne M. Hbert, ed. 2002.
Citizenship in Transformation in Canada..
Reviewed by Larry A. Glassford.

Jonathan Marks. 2002.
What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes.
Reviewed by Jean-Guy Goulet.

Niki Walker. 2003.
Life in an Anishnabe Camp. AND
Kathryn Smithyman and Bobbie Kalman. 2003.
Native Nations of the Western Great Lakes.
Reviewed by D. Memee Harvard.

J. Bradley Cruxton & W. Douglas Wilson. 1997.
Challenge of the West: A Canadian Retrospective from 1815-1914.
Reviewed by Todd Horton.

Livy Visano and Lisa Jakubowski. 2002.
Teaching Controversy.
Reviewed by Kevin Kee.

Robert Adamoski, Dorothy E. Chunn, and Robert Menzies (eds). 2002.
Contesting Canadian Citizenship: Historical Readings.
Reviewed by Tom Mitchell.

Carlita Kosty. 2002.
History Fair Workbook: A Manual for Teachers, Students and Parents.
Reviewed by E. Senger.

Editor
George Richardson
Guest Editors: Loren Agrey and Laura Thompson
Manuscript Review Editors
Robert Fowler, University of Victoria
Alan Sears, University of New Brunswick
Columnists
Kevin Kee, McGill University
Penney Clark, University of British Columbia
David Kilgour, M.P., Edmonton Southeast
John McMurtry, University of Guelph
Ken Osborne, University of Manitoba (Emeritus)

Features Editors
Kathy Bradford, University of Western Ontario
(Book Reviews)
Jim Parsons, University of Alberta
(Classroom Teaching)

Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life and by the Canadian Education Association; Corpus Almanac Canadian Sourcebook; Ulrich's lnt. Pedcs. Directory; ERIC; Canadian Education Index, Micromedia Limited; and H. W. Wilson Company.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools.

From the Editor

This issue of Canadian Social Studies focuses on social studies research and teaching in elementary schools. The four articles that make up this special issue cover a variety of topics ranging from an examination of the use of technology in the early grades to an investigation of how legal studies and the processes of jurisprudence might be incorporated into elementary social studies. Taken together, I think these different pieces represent two complementary trends in contemporary social studies scholarship in elementary education.

On one hand the articles in the issue are a confirmation of the diversity and quality of the scholarly work currently being undertaken by researchers in elementary social studies. On the other, this same diversity of approach, coupled with the authors' appreciation for the multi-faceted and complex ways in which elementary students engage issues and understand concepts in social studies challenges traditional learning theories constructed on the linear and limiting expanding horizons model of the discipline.

As evidence of the two trends I note above, in this issue Linda Farr Darling examines how children's literature can be used to help to teach about children's rights as they were declared at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Wanda Cassidy's article proposes innovative strategies for addressing social studies topics and promoting critical thinking objectives using law. In her piece on the use of the Internet in elementary social studies, Susan Gibson suggests that the use of such activities as WebQuest can help students develop the critical thinking and analytic skills that are fundamental to the aims of social studies. Finally, Amy von Heyking's exploration of new research on historical thinking asks us to reconsider how we approach teaching history in elementary education.

George Richardson

Return to Contents Page

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Teaching Human Rights in Elementary Classrooms: A Literary Approach

Linda Farr Darling
University of British Columbia

Abstract

This article presents elementary social studies teachers with examples of children's literature that can be used to teach about children's rights as they were declared at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Five books are summarized for younger audiences, and four are reviewed for older readers. The author also describes a recent informational book on fifteen children's rights appropriate for all elementary classrooms.

This article joins the ongoing, but often muted conversation about teaching human rights that has taken place in schools and classrooms almost since the Universal Declaration was signed. The question, Why teach human rights to elementary students? has been answered by educators with compelling rationales for the subject's inclusion in classes. Much of contemporary social studies curriculum would seem almost incomprehensible to us if it were not silhouetted against the backdrop of human rights, including multicultural and antiracist education, law-related education and aspects of First Nations Studies. The question classroom teachers find more important to answer is, not why, but, How can we teach human rights to elementary students?

Many teachers are committed to bringing the subject into social studies through community, societal or global issues, and strive to match good resources with sound pedagogy. Their focus is often on teaching about children's rights, based on the belief that these will best engage young children's imaginations and their growing sense of empathy and connection with others. I agree. These teachers also want to find the right balance between realism and hope in teaching a subject that can overwhelm young audiences. In this article, I present ten examples of children's literature that may be unfamiliar to teachers as vehicles for teaching about rights. I also provide a few ideas for using these books to enrich students' understandings of what rights mean, and, importantly, what their absence means to the daily lives of children across the globe.

Introducing the Rights of Children

The book I would recommend for all elementary classrooms is, For Every Child: The rights of the child in words and pictures, published in association with UNICEF, with a foreword by Desmond Tutu. It addresses fifteen of the rights articulated at the first UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It's a stunning example of the way rights can be powerfully described and illustrated with children and youths in mind. Each right is simply, yet poetically expressed in text by Caroline Castle. Each is interpreted in a double page illustration by an artist whose brief biography and photograph appears at the end of the book. The fifteen artists are from several continents and many artistic traditions, and are all award winning children's book illustrators. I immediately recognized John Burningham, who delighted many of my own students with Mr. Gumpy's Outing. The right he pictures is from Article 13, freedom of expression, interpreted here as, Allow us to tell you what we are thinking or feeling. Whether our voices are big or small; whether we whisper or shout it, or paint draw, mime or sign it- listen to us and hear what we say. The watercolour sketch shows a boy leaning toward his father's ear while off to the side an alligator calmly chomps on the boy's bicycle.

The illustrations are themselves lessons on diversity's worth. Right No. 3, ensuring protection and care, is a dreamy, surreal painting of a child sailing through stormy skies and about to land in a woman's arms, household objects floating all around. It's rendered in muted shades by Henriette Sauvant from Germany. In contrast, Rights No. 28 and 29, the rights to education and to its aims, are depicted by Satoshi Kitamura in a collage of cartoon-like characters engaged in games, telescope gazing, reading or making music. Young students will discover children involved in ten or more activities. The text reads in part: Teach us all to read and write and teach us well so we grow up to be the best we can at whatever we wish to do. Right No.30, freedom of minority and indigenous peoples to enjoy their culture, is illustrated by Rabindra and Amrit K.D. Kaur Singh. Their tapestry echoes traditional Indian motifs and styles, but replaces classic figures with a colorful variety of international ones, each singing and dancing, in the ways of our own people.

One way to approach the book might be to take several related rights at a time and compare the various ways these are interpreted verbally and visually. Because the relevant convention articles appear at the back in their original form, teachers have the opportunity to examine rights in more depth and detail with their students. Illustrating their own versions of selected rights using different mediums and styles, could also engage students. A classroom mural would allow for collaborative and independent artistic endeavors. Older students might be asked to distill each right to its most elemental imperative, for example, Right No. 24, Wrap us up against the cold and rain, and give us shade from the hot sun. Make sure we have enough to eat and drink and if we are sick, nurse and comfort us. Or upper elementary students could expand on the narrative that's presented, for example, what could the right to, a land to call our own, mean for the three boys who are building a small sand village on a deserted beach? For Every Child is a treasure on its own, and as a general introduction to literature devoted to specific rights, such as the examples highlighted here.

Books for Younger Readers

Marianthe's Story One: Spoken Memories and Marianthe's Story Two: Painted Words by Aliki are two tales in the same book. The first is the story of Mari starting a new school in North America after her family immigrates. The second is her description of life in the village where she was born. Not only are the two cleverly presented, but Mari's first story is a touching account of a frightened yet eager newcomer trying to understand an unfamiliar culture. Her second story gives insight into the closeness of family and community as well as the power of tradition that exists in the unidentified country she has left. This is a wonderful book for enhancing empathy in young children. It also beautifully illustrates several rights of the child, including the right to education, opportunity, and a homeland. Its double format would serve as a lovely model for students to replicate with their own stories and illustrations about family and school experiences, including immigration.

Galimoto is a delightful read-aloud story about a creative and determined boy who wants to make a special and quite complicated toy from wires he finds. The setting is a small village in West Africa, and the people and daily activity there are wonderfully portrayed in gentle watercolors. Elementary students may be surprised to know that several children's rights relate to play and movement, and Kondi's travels through a day collecting scrap materials to construct his galimoto introduce readers to an imaginative and resourceful young boy, as well as the sights and sounds of his village on the sea.

The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi is the story of a young Korean immigrant arriving in a new school where she is worried no one will be able to pronounce or remember her name. She decides to pick a new one, though her decision is soon complicated by a number of factors. The story is a lovely introduction to the right of every child to have a name. As well, it is a fine example of children's rights to express their particular cultural beliefs and traditions. For Unhei, the sensitive protagonist who wants desperately to fit into her new surroundings, bringing two worlds together is not always easy. Young students could investigate the meanings behind their own given names or nicknames and explain to classmates how they were chosen for them.

A Days Work, by veteran storyteller, Eve Bunting, introduces students in a compassionate and realistic way, to the experience of many Mexican Americans in Southern California. Francisco is told to help his Grandfather (who can't speak English) find work. As in many immigrant situations, it is the child in the family who helps the adults to cope with new surroundings. But Francisco, in his eagerness, lies about his Grandfather's abilities as a gardener and it gets them both into trouble. This is a poignant story of integrity and the wisdom of elders. It underscores the importance of family ties and promise keeping. The rights of children to love, belonging, and to learning, especially related to important values, are addressed with simplicity and warmth.

Be Good to Eddie Lee, is a story of a gentle boy with Down's syndrome and the ignorant attitudes and prejudices he endures from local children, and sometimes members of his own family. The elements that stand out are the evocative details of the rural setting including woods and ponds as painted by Floyd Cooper, and author Virginia Fleming's ear for the authentic sound and rhythm of children's conversation. Eddie Lee himself is endearing, and in the end teaches everyone a powerful lesson in acceptance and understanding. The right of every child to be treated with dignity and to be given the resources to flourish, even when he has limited mental capacity, is treated seriously but not didactically. Passages could be turned into wonderful role plays in the classroom, especially since the dialogue between the children rings so true.

Books for Older Readers

Many teachers are familiar with Deborah Ellis' contemporary portraits of an adolescent girl in Afghanistan named Parvana. Both her novels about life in a war-torn and desperately poor country, have won awards and both are compelling if emotionally difficult reading. The Breadwinner chronicles Parvana's life before her family is lost to her. Parvana's Journey is the story of her brave search for her mother and siblings across the northern tip of Afghanistan. Seen through the lens of children's rights, Parvana's Journey and The Breadwinner take on particular poignancy. Mature upper elementary and middle school students will be able to see Parvana's plight and her courageous response as more than an individual struggle against the odds. Parvana's Journey highlights the absence of a number of human rights, and especially rights of children, that most Canadian adolescents are fortunate enough to take for granted. Among the most salient are the right to education (as a girl under Taliban rule, Parvana is forbidden any opportunity for schooling) the right to special care during crises, and the right to be protected from conscription (she is dressed as a boy who could easily be seized for military duty). Instances of rights denied assert themselves throughout both stories. Early in her journey, Parvana comes across a stricken woman who is wailing incessantly. Stop that noise! Parvana screams. You're a grown-up! You have to take care of me!(p. 28) Later, upon adopting an abandoned infant, Parvana decides to call him Hassan, (p. 36) because everybody has to have a name. Students could be asked to identify passages in both novels in which human rights are alluded to, and match incidents in the stories to rights described in the articles drafted at the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

A different sort of story is Yolanda's Genius by Carol Fenner. Set in modern day Chicago and later suburban Michigan, the novel looks at diversity in a uniquely appealing way. It dramatically illustrates the right of all children to express themselves as individuals and to be loved and respected for who they are. It also illustrates the right of disabled children to receive the care and education that will allow them to flourish in life. Yolanda's little brother hardly ever speaks, even at home, and at six he is already enrolled in special classes. Learning to communicate with others through language is proving to be a difficult task, and learning to read, an impossible one. But Yolanda believes that James is a gifted musician with talent that should not go unrecognized by the world. Her faith in what's possible carries the story. Students could rewrite passages from the novel in order to highlight special rights of children with disabilities. They could also write essays deliberating about the meaning of genius. (Yolanda finds a dictionary definition she believes perfectly describes her brother.) Was there really a genius in the story? Who was it? Was it Yolanda? Was it James? Students could also write plot synopses for sequels. Now that James' gift has been recognized by a famous blues musician at the festival, what will happen to him?

The Whispering Cloth: A Refugee's Story may at first look like a picture book for young children, but as a heartbreaking representation of refugee experience, it belongs with books for older readers. Its setting is a camp in Thailand, where Hmong were housed between 1976 and 1995 (after which those who had not been able to flee were dispersed to other camps or repatriated to Laos). Mai and her grandmother work together on pa'ndau, traditional embroidered tapestries that earn them a meager profit from traders. Mai creates her own pa'ndau that tells her personal and frightening story of loss and violence. The end of the story, Mai's dream for the future, is a hopeful one. Many human rights can be fruitfully discussed in light of this refugee story: the right to religious and cultural expression, the right of children not to be exploited as laborers (Mai has to work at many hard jobs in the camp) and the right of human beings to move and live freely without persecution. Students could contrast the Hmong tapestries with other folk arts that tell political stories, particularly stories of rights denied. South American arpilleras, the colorfully stitched banners whose images have vividly depicted the lack of social justice for Chilean citizens, would be powerful examples for comparison. Students could create their own felt or burlap tapestries to illustrate children's rights by using scraps of fabric and simple cross-stitches.

Books Cited

Aliki (1998) Marianthe's Story One: Spoken Memories and Marianthe's Story Two: Painted Words. New York: Greenwillow Books, William Morrow.

Bunting, Eve (1994) A Day's Work. New York: Clarion Books, Houghton-Mifflin.

Castle, Caroline (2002) For Every Child: The rights of the child in words and pictures. New York: Red Fox Books in Association with UNICEF.

Choi, Yangsook (2001) The Name Jar. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Random House.

Ellis, Deborah (2000) The Breadwinner. Toronto: Douglas MacIntyre.

Ellis, Deborah (2002) Parvana's Journey. Toronto: Douglas MacIntyre.

Fenner, Carol (1997) Yolanda's Genius. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, Simon Schuster.

Fleming, Virginia (1997) Be Good to Eddie Lee. New York: PaperStar Book, Penguin Putnam Berkley Group, Inc.

Shea, Peggy Deitz (1996) The Whispering Cloth: A Refugee's Story. Honesdale, Pennsylvania: Boyds Mill Press, Inc.

Williams, Karen Lynn (1990) Galimoto. New York: Lothrop, Lee Shepherd Books, William Morrow.

Linda Farr Darling is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of British Columbia, where she teaches social studies and philosophy of education courses to pre-service teachers.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

How Can Social Studies Teachers Best Use The Internet With Young Learners?

Susan E. Gibson
University of Alberta

Abstract

The most effective integration of technology for enhancing learning in social studies has been found to engage students in inquiry centered around authentic, complex, real world problems in order to develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills. These technology enhanced learning environments allow for student control over the learning activities, provide opportunities for students to think critically and analytically about information, provide a variety of information resources and tools for constructing knowledge to solve these problems, and engage students in representing and creatively applying the resultant new knowledge. While such learning experiences have been found to be very successful with older students, young children need to begin building an understanding of how to navigate in these student controlled learning environments. A good place to begin developing that understanding with primary children is to use a more structured online learning approach such as a WebQuest.

A frequently asked question regarding technology use is how to most effectively integrate computers into the teaching of social studies in order to enhance children's learning. The research literature is quite clear about what encompasses effective use of computer technologies. According to David Staley, what is needed in classrooms are technology uses that help to develop students' higher order thinking and problem solving skills by providing opportunities for them to think critically and analytically about information and represent their new understandings in multiple ways.1 David Jonassen, Kyle Peck and Brent Wilson add that we need technology uses that engage students in inquiry centered around authentic, complex, real world problems. This inquiry should begin with students' prior background knowledge and experience, allow for student control over the learning activities, provide them with a variety of information resources and tools for constructing knowledge to solve these problems, and engage them in creatively applying the resultant new knowledge.2

These are admirable goals for technology integration; however, setting up a learning environment that addresses each of these goals does not necessarily guarantee success. It is imperative that children be taught the skills to work successfully in these environments beginning at the primary level. Over time and with experience, students can build up to being able to independently engage in higher level thinking and problem solving. Initially, however, a more structured type of online learning environment such as a WebQuest can provide young learners with a guided process for developing the requisite skills. There is a growing body of literature on the value of WebQuests as an instructional approach for integrating structured inquiry and the use of technology.

What are WebQuests?

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to efficiently use learners' time, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.3 Through a WebQuest, students can actively explore issues and problems from a number of different perspectives in a guided and meaningful manner, as well as search for solutions and make moral and ethical decisions about real world contemporary problems. In an authentic WebQuest there is no single correct answer. While engaged in inquiry using a WebQuest, students are constructing their own personal meaning about the problem under investigation. The thinking skills associated with WebQuests include comparing, classifying, inducing, deducing, analyzing, constructing, abstracting, and analyzing perspectives.4

WebQuests can also enhance students' communication skills as many involve working in co-operative groups and role-playing. Some WebQuests have the students take on roles that help to make the group work together more efficiently and effectively. These roles might be group leader, recorder, communicator, encourager and evaluator, among others. The most authentic WebQuests also engage students in perspective taking on a particular problem or issue. The goal is for students to use the information collected to construct an argument based on evidence. They then publicly share their findings with the class and the class tries to come to some kind of resolution to the problem under investigation. Role-playing can be particularly beneficial for teaching students the importance of perspective taking when problem solving.

The first part of a WebQuest, the Introduction, lays out the task or the problem to be investigated, provides some background information and acts as a motivator to get the students interested in the activity. The Task outlines the overall challenge the students will be engaged in and explains what they will be doing to represent what they have learned at the completion of the WebQuest. The Task also usually provides the focus questions that frame the investigation and facilitate the learning process. The Process provides a description of what needs to be done in order to accomplish the task in a step-by-step fashion. Here, students are usually assigned roles or provided with differing perspectives on the issue or problem being investigated. The Resource section provides information sources that are needed for solving the task. Most of the resources used for the inquiry are other websites that have been vetted by the teacher and linked directly to the WebQuest. Many WebQuests provide direct access to individual experts, current news sites and searchable databases for information sources. The Evaluation section provides information for students on how they will be assessed on their work while engaged in the WebQuest. The Conclusion brings closure to the WebQuest by reviewing and summarizing the learning from the experience and often challenges learners to extend their learning in new ways.

For young learners, the average WebQuest is designed to take one to three classes to complete. Throughout the WebQuest, the teacher acts as the facilitator checking to see that students understand the process and the role they are to take and that they stay on task.

Where do I find WebQuests?

There are numerous collections of predesigned WebQuests available on line that are organized by grade level and subject area which makes it easy for a teacher to locate an age and topic appropriate site. [See http://webquest.sdsu.edu/ or http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/]. The following three examples found in various online databases are all designed for young children to address the theme of life on a farm that could be used as part of a unit on Communities in social studies. The first one called With an Oink Oink Here [http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/edis771/98webquests/student/samand... ], presents the children with the following problem: You have just inherited a farm! You want to raise three types of animals on your new farm. You have 2 barns, one lake, and one field on your land. What animals are you going to raise? The children are challenged to use the web resources provided to come up with a solution that they present to their class.

A second WebQuest called Farmer Brown's Backwards Farm [http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/edis771/98webquests/student/srober...] presents the following problem:

In a third example called Farmers, Farmers Everywhere [http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/hawthorne/farm], the children are told that they have been selected to become a farmer and to better understand their job they will need to investigate these questions:

What kind of farmer would you like to be? What does it take to be farmer? What would your farm look like? How could you encourage others to become farmers?

Using the findings from their investigation into these questions, they are to prepare a commercial about the type of farming they would choose and why.

Teachers can also design WebQuests to meet their own personal needs which allows for more active student involvement in deciding what problem they might like to investigate. Numerous templates are available to help teachers in their construction of their own WebQuests [For examples see http://webquest.sdsu.edu/LessonTemplate.html or http://www.ozline.com/templates/webquest.html].

Once children have some experience with using WebQuests, they too can be encouraged to try developing their own WebQuests and sharing them with classmates. A database of sample student developed WebQuests can be found at the ThinkQuest Library site [http://www.thinkquest.org]. Having students create their own WebQuests challenges them to explore a topic, summarize what the most important events or facts are in relation to the topic, and then put together the links and questions or other students to follow.5 When students engage in creating their own WebQuests, it can also enhance the development of their critical, creative and higher level thinking skills. The two websites noted in the previous paragraph also provide templates that students can use for designing their WebQuests.

How do I decide if a WebQuest is a good one?

The WebQuest approach is intended to capitalize on the possibilities provided by the Internet for guided inquiry learning while eliminating some of the disadvantages such as time wasted looking for resources, accessing inappropriate resources and lack of sufficient experience with the research process.6 However, there are some drawbacks to using WebQuests that teachers need to be aware of. For example, many WebQuests are merely designed as fact-finding exercises that do little to engage students in problem solving. No attempt is made to engage students in role taking or learning to view problems from multiple perspectives. Fewer still actually engage students in learning the important problem solving skills of conflict resolution, compromising or agreeing to disagree. Others lack clear direction to the user that can detract from the ability of students to take control of the learning experience.

Teachers need to carefully examine any WebQuests that they plan to use with their classes in order to ensure that their students are going to be engaged in an authentic learning experience. There are rubrics available online that can be used for determining the quality of WebQuests. [See for example, http://www.ozline.com/webquests/rubric.html, http://bestwebquests.com/bwq/matrix.asp, http://webquest.sdsu.edu/webquestrubric.html or http://www.todaysteacher.com/WebQuestIntroduction/assessing_webquests.htm]. Some of the criteria for determining the effectiveness of a WebQuest include: engaging opener, clear question and task, roles provided that match the issue/problem being investigated and the resources provided, higher level thinking required, opportunities for feedback built in, and conclusion allows for demonstration of students' learning, suggests how this learning could apply to other situations, and offers suggestions for further learning.

Another caution for teachers is to be aware of is that when using predesigned WebQuests students are generally removed from the process of selecting resources on which to base their investigation. This can be an advantage initially for working with young children in order to ensure some level of control by the teacher over the appropriateness of the sites being accessed. However, as current information becomes easily accessible online, it is increasingly important that students have the opportunity to develop their own critical analysis capabilities.7 As well, teachers should not simply rely solely on Internet filtering software as there are always inappropriate sites that slip through the cracks. It is a better idea to start with young children to teach critical viewing skills so that they can learn to make informed decisions and judgments about the information they encounter on the Internet.8 Children need to be instructed in and have opportunities to practice how to critically examine and make appropriate, ethical and informed choices about the information they are accessing. They need to be taught to recognize that the information on any website represents a particular viewpoint and that it is important to examine several points of view on any issue. They also need to be taught how to distinguish fact from opinion.

The Media Awareness Network [http://www.media-awareness.ca/] is one resource that can assist teachers in developing students' critical viewing skills. Under the Games section there are activities such Privacy Playground: The First Adventure of the Three Little CyberPigs where young children (ages 7-9) can learn about protecting their privacy on the Internet and CyberSense and Nonsense: The Second Adventure of the Three CyberPigs where children ages 9-11 can learn to distinguish between fact and fiction, and to detect bias and stereotyping in online content.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of WebQuests is to lead students through a structured and scaffolded inquiry experience that specifies the task, the roles and perspectives to be taken, the resources to be used and the guides for organizing the learning, with little opportunity for the students to set the direction and plan for the investigation. While these initial scaffolds are very important for helping young children to develop problem solving strategies, there eventually needs to be opportunities for releasing some of the control into the hands of the learners. As children's experience with more structured WebQuests increases, teachers can begin to release some of the control over the inquiry to students. Philip Molebash suggests fading the support of the WebQuest by gradually allowing more flexibility in how and what student are to produce in the task, by gradually providing fewer URLs and expecting the learner to find more, by gradually moving the scaffolding of note taking, information organizing, writing prompts, etc. from required to implicit, and by putting more resources in the conclusion for learners to explore on their own later.9

Concluding Remarks

The most effective technology uses for enhancing learning are those that help to develop students' higher order thinking and problem solving skills through engagement in inquiry centered around authentic, complex, real world problems. However, young learners need to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that help them to be successful in these inquiry environments. Beginning in the primary grades with web-based learning strategies like WebQuests can help young children to develop these requisite skills in a structured, scaffolded fashion. With experience, the amount of structure can be faded so that students become more confident and independent inquirers who are able to learn more effectively with the support of computer technologies.

References

1Staley, David J. Technology, Authentic Performance, And History Education, International Journal of Social Education, 15 No. 1 (2000), 9.
2Jonassen, David, Kyle Peck and Brent Wilson. Learning with Technology: A Constructivist Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999.
3Dodge, Bernie. Active Learning on the Web (K-12 Version) (presentation, Faculty of La Jolla Country Day School, La Jolla, CA, August 20, 1996), http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/active/ActiveLearningk-12.html.
4 Norton, Pamela and Karen Wiburg. Teaching With Technology: Designing Opportunities to Learn. Thomson Wadsworth: Belmont California, 2002, p. 180.
5Whitworth, Shelli and Michael Berson. Computer Technology in the Social Studies: An Examination of the Effectiveness Literature (1996-2001), Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 2, no. 4 (2003): 472-509.
6 Milson, Andrew J. The Internet and Inquiry Learning: Integrating Medium and Method in a Sixth Grade Social Studies Classroom, Theory and Research in Social Education 30, no. 3 (2002): 330-353.
7 Mason, Cheryl, Marsha Alibrandi, Michael Berson, Kara Dawson, Rich Diem, Tony Dralle, David Hicks, Tim Keiper, John Lee, Waking the Sleeping Giant: Social Studies Teacher Educators Collaborate to Integrate Technology into Methods' Courses, Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference, 2000: 1985-1989.
8 Whitworth and Berson. Computer Technology in the Social Studies. 480.
9 Molebash, Philip. Web Inquiry Projects: Inquiring Minds Want to Know,
Fall CUE Conference, 2002. Available from the World Wide Web: (http://edweb.sdsu.edu/wip/WIP_Intro.htm).

Susan E. Gibson is an associate professor in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Bruce VanSledright. 2002.

In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School.

New York: Teachers College Press. Pp. 189 pages, $24.95USD, paper.
ISBN 0-8077-4192-2
website: www.tcpress.com/

Jon G. Bradley
Faculty of Education
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec

The first thing that caught my eye regarding VanSledright's volume was the title. Not the bold title but, rather, the secondary or subtitle. Specifically, the notion of learning to read history appealed to my own orientations and resonated with my professional sensibilities. Too often, in my own experiences, charged and channeling words such as 'learn', 'know', and 'teach' (and their various conjugations) have dominated the professional social studies landscape, particularly at the elementary levels. Here was a volume, at least by its cover, that offered a glimpse of another avenue and dared to go beyond the apparent acceptable norm by venturing into a more complex and multi-layered landscape.
In the last couple of years, a growing number of respectable investigations have been reported that generally challenge the oft-repeated myth that children and/or young adolescents do not like, do not understand, and really have no interest in history. The practical professional experiences of elementary and middle school classroom practitioners clearly indicate that children have an unbending interest in and a connection with history (their own, their families, their cultural group, for example). It is perhaps one of those unexplained educational paradoxes that those who tend to design curricula and those who actually produce the supposed learning materials do not seem to be in communication with the front line professionals regarding what is and is not of interest to children. In a nutshell, history matters to children!

Similar to recent investigations by Seixas (1993), Levstik and Barton (1997), as well as Barton (2001), to cite only a few, VanSledright continues this evolving investigative avenue of really studying in detail via actual classroom participations how elementary students deal with, confront, and narrate history. This is important work especially as the totality of the data being disseminated demonstrates how curriculum decisions might and ought to be made. Furthermore, these studies most pointedly illuminate how elementary teachers might reconfigure their own classrooms (physically and educationally) in order to take academic advantage of what the study of history has to offer.

In Search of America's Past may be divided into three major segments. In chapters one and two, VanSledright chronicles a variety of contemporary pedagogical and historical threads that have a bearing on his specific study. Chapter two, in some colourful detail, describes the pupils and the classroom in which the author practiced his history teaching. As a former elementary school teacher, I found chapters three through five most illustrative in that they represent a sort of personal/professional narrative of VanSledright's historical experiences with his fifth grade charges.

The final couple of chapters of the book contain both general and specific conclusions. The author is careful to note what can be absolutely taken from the experience and what might be more generally inferred. An interesting set of appendices complete this wonderful little volume as the various primary sources, documents and materials used throughout the whole of the in-class experiences are reproduced or clearly and carefully referenced.

As might be expected, VanSledright arrives at a number of conflicting or, at least, messy conclusions. Recognizing that the elementary classroom is a place best avoided by the faint hearted as well as those who demand neatly executed plans of action, the author's narrative is a wonderfully honest sketch of the chaos, missed opportunities, constant interruptions, and lack of resources that is the real world of the North American elementary classroom. The author paints a scattered landscape which highlights the honesty of the pupils as well as the hard-nosed reality of that special place inhabited by pupil and teacher. In analyzing his own classroom observations within the historical and pedagogical framework that exists, VanSledright perhaps best sums up his own growth in noting:

In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School is an important book that should be read by anyone who is in the least interested in elementary education. The author carefully documents a case for the reading of history as opposed to the memorizing of history. VanSledright is cognizant of the historical narratives that the children have already acquired through association with the outside world (home, family, friends, televisions, for example) and he captures their intense interest in learning more about the history that impacts upon them and their environment. More generally, this volume is important because of the questions that are raised concerning teacher preparation and curriculum development. VanSledright offers the reader a realistic glimpse into that special world of the eleven/twelve year old pupil and how these budding individuals deal with the learning and internalizing of that unique subject called history.

References
Barton, K. (2001). I just kinda know: Elementary Students' Ideas About Historical
Evidence. Theory and Research in Social Education, 29(4), 407 - 430.

Levstik, L. Barton, K. (1997). Doing History: Investigating with Children in
Elementary and Middle Schools. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Seixas, P. (1993). Historical Understanding Among Adolescents in a Multicultural
Setting. Curriculum Inquiry, 23(3), 301 - 327.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Ian Wright. 2002.

Is That Right? Critical Thinking and the Social World of the Young Learner.

Toronto: Pippin Publishing. Pp. 144, $20.00, paper.
ISBN 0-88751-094-9
website: www.pippinpub.com

Ron Briley
Sandia Preparatory School
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Is That Right? is a useful volume for any teacher who would like to introduce critical thinking into the elementary and middle school curriculum. Although Ian Wright is currently a professor of social studies education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, his years as a classroom teacher are most evident in this book. The practical lesson plans included in the volume provide concrete examples for teachers. The book is addressed to the everyday concerns of teachers and does not become overly bogged down with theoretical concerns. For example, Wright defines critical thinking as making judgments about what to believe and what to do in situations that are problematic that is situations where we do not know initially what to believe or do (p. 56).

Wright acknowledges that he has not always practiced critical thinking in the classroom, but he has become an enthusiastic convert. Nevertheless, the environment in both the United States and Canada is increasingly hostile to critical thinking. High stakes standardized testing, which determine grade placement and faculty retention, have placed considerable pressure upon teachers to focus upon more rote memory of factual material. In the United States this educational approach is embodied in the No Child Left Behind Act and standards movement.

It is a fallacy, however, to assume that critical thinking is not about standards and excellence. As Wright points out, not all opinions are equally valid. Critical thinking is all about developing measurements and assessment tools, for both students and teachers, to ascertain which arguments or opinions are most valid and best supported. The ultimate goal for an educated community is not memorizing or regurgitating information, but learning to become intelligent citizens who are capable of making informed choices.

Critical thinking provides the foundation for such a citizenry by developing practical tools for evaluating evidence. Teachers seeking more concrete means of evaluation in the classroom might consult the critical thinking rubrics developed by Wright. But the bottom line for those who obsess upon objectivity should be recognition that in our daily lives we must deal with ambiguity, and the classroom under the guidance of a caring teacher is an appropriate laboratory to begin this process. Our best students and citizens are those who develop a healthy respect for the roles played by ambiguity and paradox in historical causation and human motivation.

While Wright asserts that critical thinking skills may be employed in most academic subjects, his experience and examples focus primarily upon the field of social studies. And here we encounter another level of controversy. Some in the discipline of history assert that the social studies are too present minded and expect too little from children. Indeed, many of the sample lessons provided by Wright deal with such issues as what makes a good friend or what to do about garbage. Groups in the United Sates such as the National Council for History Education maintain that young learners are capable of historical understanding and that the social studies approach is ahistorical and lacking substance or context. But in many ways this debate between history and the social studies is a tempest in a teapot; for the critical thinking approach fits well into the history classroom.

In evaluating a primary document or actions taken in the past, the skills of analyzing which argument is best supported still applies. And this works just as well for a classroom mock trial as a more traditional research paper. Was John Brown a terrorist who murdered innocent people or was he a freedom fighter against the tyranny of slavery? Or is reality too complex for such bipolar thinking? The key point is that critical thinking provides an approach to historical inquiry which accounts for the complexity of the past and demonstrates how the past may shed light upon the present.

Those who may really challenge the critical thinking approach are individuals and groups who assert that history should simply be about patriotism and indoctrination rather than the questioning of ideas and even values. Some argue that in the age of terrorism our children might learn to unquestionably embrace Western Civilization against threats from alien ideologies. Yet, as fewer and fewer media conglomerates control mainstream access to information, real security flows from an electorate trained to critically evaluate ideas and resist political or corporate manipulation.

Thus, as usual, teachers are on the front lines of dealing with a complex world. Critical thinking should make this heavy responsibility a little less onerous; for teachers who embrace critical thinking techniques are not authority figures who must always provide the right answer. Instead, the teacher is an intelligent guide working alongside the students to develop and foster the tools necessary to make critical distinctions.

Wright's book is both inspirational and practical. His ideas may be applied to the university as well as the elementary school classroom. The inclusion of sample lesson plans and a bibliography, complete with appropriate web sites, make Is That Right? a volume which should find a place on most teachers' bookshelves. More than just a teaching tool, critical thinking is essential to the preservation of a democratic ethos.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Katarina Tomasevski. 2003.

Education Denied: Costs and Remedies.

London and New York: Zed Books. Pp. 205, $25.00, paper.
ISBN 1-84277-251-1
website: www.palgrave-usa.com

Linda Farr Darling
Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC

It is difficult to imagine a person in a better position to write a book on the immense, complex, and heart wrenching matter of the denial of children's rights to education. Katarina Tomasevski is presently the UN Special Rapporteur on rights to education and she is charged with the exhausting task of cataloguing and assessing the impact of abuses and violations across the globe. Her latest book (adding to her full length treatments of several other human rights issues) is a penetrating analysis of a persistent and perplexing problem that affects millions of children, their families, their communities, their societies, and ultimately, she would argue, the future direction of human civilization. Tomasevski has documented a powerful narrative about what could be called a worldwide social and political epidemic.

The book is divided into three sections, each intended to frame, and then answer a different set of questions. Part 1, Why the Right to Education? presents philosophical and historical contexts and important background material, including the initial intergovernmental blueprint for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Importantly, this section also addresses the question, What is education for? from several perspectives, including the author's own. She carefully notes the difference that can exist between education and schooling, and between brainwashing and teaching, as she puts it, for freedom. She believes that by protecting the right to education, other human rights can be guaranteed to children, including the right not to be exploited as laborers or soldiers. Part 2, called Rupturing the Global Consensus, is a discussion of the enormous obstacles (including corruption) that prevent change on an international scale, even when governments have repeatedly promised action on human rights. Here, Tomasevski is at her fighting best, arguing passionately that we pay an unacceptable social price by allowing the impoverishment of education to continue at the expense of the world's children. The title of the third section is Putting Human Rights Back In. For Tomasevski, this is a threefold demand: the topic of children's rights needs to move from the margins of public consciousness back into the center of public dialogue about discrimination and assaults to freedom, back into decisions about school curriculum and school policies, and finally, back onto the main stage of national and transnational agendas. In this final section, she sketches what she calls mobilization for change. It is based, in part, on examples of remedies from around the world that have effectively ensured children's rights to education, even against enormous odds, such as culturally entrenched attitudes about girls and women.

This is a gripping account. It is one thing to be aware that all human rights are violated daily and in vast numbers; it is another thing to be boldly confronted with multiple cases, figures and tables that tell this story with such intensity, authority and detail. Especially because children are the victims, it is, at times, overwhelmingly shocking and sad. There are occasional triumphs for the right to education, including those of the human spirit, and less often triumphs of public policy and government enforcement. But as Tomasevski writes in her introduction, progress in protecting the right to education moves at glacial speed, it is a matter of chipping away (p. 1). Tomasevski never gives up on the possibility that the world could be a better place, but one wonders how she can retain any sense of hope given the struggles and defeats she daily witnesses. In fact, part of the book's value is that it chronicles a chapter in the lifework of a truly remarkable, perhaps indefatigable champion of human rights. Her contribution has been important, and our students should know about her. In her key roles as advocate, witness to violations and abuses, and policy analyst, Tomasevski has watched the world history of children's rights unfold. With this book, she extends her commitment to education and human rights by explaining their relationship to each other, to all of us, and to the eventual realization of global social justice. By so doing Tomasevski further demonstrates her belief that education transforms lives. If we learn what she knows, we cannot help but act.

Teachers can act on this knowledge in significant ways. Human rights education continues to be a core component in social studies curriculum aimed at developing a global perspective, and Education Denied presents important lessons for classrooms. While the book is probably best used as an authoritative background resource, secondary and some upper elementary students could capably work with a number of concepts central to Tomasevski's argument about rights-based education, as well as work with the data she presents in the form of graphs and charts. Students could also engage in independent research about positive education initiatives in Canada and around the world using examples from the last chapters as starting points. Although Tomasevski places her discussion within the context of human rights history, she does not set her arguments within the even larger political frame of democratization movements since WW II. Teachers will recognize that this larger context may provide students with richer understandings of the right to education and its relationship to the realization of social justice, everywhere in the world.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Ruth Cohen, ed. 2001.

Alien Invasion: How the Harris Tories Mismanaged Ontario.

Toronto: Insomniac Press. Pp. 240, $75.00, cloth, $19.95, paper.
ISBN 0-8020-0850-X (cloth); 0-8020-78354 (paper)
website: www.utpress.utoronto.ca

Larry A. Glassford
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario

When the Ontario PCs captured the provincial election of 1995, their platform was encapsulated in the suggestive slogan The Common Sense Revolution. A combination of anti-bureaucratic populism and economic neo-conservatism, it had been cobbled together in the early Nineties by a klatch of aggressive young backroom boys (and one girl) connected to the Tory leader, Mike Harris. To the surprise of some, and chagrin of many, the newly elected Conservative government proceeded to implement its revolution of program cutbacks, tax reductions and intra-governmental restructuring. Both the breakneck speed of implementation and a ham-handed insensitivity toward democratic process accounted for some of the widespread public opposition to the Harris government's reforms. More to the point, however, was the accumulating impact of the legislated changes themselves.

Taken together the new policies were beginning to alter the fundamental nature of the Ontario political economy. Ruth Cohen's edited collection of articles and speeches is entitled Alien Invasion because in her opinion, and that of many other Ontarians, the stridently neo-conservative tone of the Common Sense Revolution put it outside the boundaries of the province's traditional political culture. Regardless of their political stripe and Ontario had experienced governments of NDP, Liberal and PC affiliation in the 15 years leading up to 1995 all Ontario administrations had subscribed to the view that the state could and would play a positive role in the lives of its citizens. As part of this vision, a mixed economy combining both private and public enterprise was widely seen as the Ontario norm. Political change, when it came, would be evolutionary and incremental, and preceded by meaningful consultation with all major interest groups. Not for nothing was the party which had ruled Ontario for most of the 20th century, and continuously from 1942-1985, named Progressive Conservative. The dialectic dialogue implicit in that apparent oxymoron of a title told the observer all one needed to know about Ontario's political traditions.

Opponents of the Harris government drew comfort from the fact that Bob Rae's New Democrats, and David Petersons's Liberals, had both been turfed out by the voters after five years in office. To their shock and dismay, the Ontario PCs rose from the ashes of controversy, and won a new majority in 1999. Masters of media spin, and rolling in donated dough, the Harris team waged a clever campaign that exploited the divisions in the opposition ranks to turn 40 percent of the popular vote into 60 percent of the seats. Now they had four more years to entrench themselves and their ideas. Thoroughly alarmed, the forces opposed to the Common Sense Revolution feared for the very survival of their kinder, gentler vision of Ontario. This book is one result of that renewed resolve to drive the alien invaders out of the province, once and for all.

The editor of this collection is a retired teacher and activist in the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. The OSSTF was among the most prominent of a wide range of organized interest groups arrayed against the Harris PCs. For two weeks in the fall of 1997, they and the other teacher unions shut down the province's elementary and secondary schools in an historic walkout protesting against Bill 160, a law that drastically revamped public education in Ontario. Characteristically, the PC government stood firm and talked tough till it got its way, but the victory may have been pyrrhic. Subsequent polling revealed that the tide of public opinion began to turn against the Harris regime partway through the strike and, notwithstanding the miraculous but temporary PC comeback during the 1999 election campaign, they were never as strong with the public again.

Some of the items in this edited collection are real gems. The detailed transcript of the rookie Education Minister, John Snobelen, spouting his convoluted and sophomoric ideas of transformational change, is alone worth the price of this book. He seriously counselled the creation of an invented crisis in the field of education, all the better to guarantee the success of his radical restructuring plans. Another prize is the transcript of a speech by Ian Angell, a British academic, delivered sometime in the Nineties to the Association of Manufacturers and Exporters of Canada. Angell painted a vivid picture of the Brave New World of global capitalism with more than the usual candor. Those lucky enough to be in work will have to work harder, for more hours each week, for less pay, in less secure jobs, he declared. And they had damn well better be grateful. In contrast to lowly labour, the Alphas would be in global seventh heaven. We are free to exploit workers, he continued. Management can finally get its revenge and kill off those damn trade unions (p. 174).

Not all of the thirty-plus items achieve this level of interest. There are newspaper articles, pundit columns, investigative features, even internet items, all loosely united by their connection either to the aims and record of the Harris government, or to the broader theory of global capitalism. Unfortunately, the editing is sloppy in places, both in terms of undetected typos, and by the fact that many articles are both undated and unsourced. These are quibbles, however, for anyone eager to find the materials from which to build a coherent critique of the neo-con mantras of free enterprise, free markets, and no free lunch. Susan George's A Short History of Neo-Liberalism (pp.184-193), and David C. Korten's The Global Economy: Can It Be Fixed? (206-216) are particularly insightful. For those eager to translate words into actions, Jane Kelsey's Tips On How to Oppose Corporate Rule (pp.217-221) provides a plethora of practical pointers for potential opponents of the New Right.

Although the title of this volume fingers the Harris PC government in Ontario as the villain, the articles in the second half of the book make it clear that the real adversary is a connected set of neo-liberal ideas articulated by a global network of influential and affluent disciples. It will not be stopped by a mere election defeat.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Yvonne M. Hébert, ed. 2002.

Citizenship in Transformation in Canada.

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, $75.00, Pp. 289, cloth.
ISBN 0-8020-0850-X
website: www.utpress.utoronto.ca

Larry A. Glassford
University of Windsor
Windsor, Ontario

Ideologically, the editor and contributing authors of this collection of thirteen essays on citizenship and citizenship education have written from the perspective of democratic pluralism. In this vision of utopia, equality trumps liberty and group rights take precedence over individual prerogatives. Equality itself is re-engineered as equity, a measured equality which seeks to factor in the negative effects of historic and systemic inequality, and then to alter the balance from the top down to ensure fairness. The intended result is harmony and social justice for all, and especially for new Canadians.

Implicitly understood as the antithesis of the authors' democratic pluralism is classic liberalism, variously described in our time as neo-liberalism (in Europe), or neo-conservatism (in America). Individual freedom is sacrosanct, and the ideal role for the community, as embodied in the coercive state, is simply to ensure that personal liberty is maximized. Equality is understood to mean equality of rights, and equality before the law. As much as possible of human endeavour is kept beyond the realm of state intervention. Individual citizens are free to sink or swim, to prosper or suffer, as their own merits dictate.

Somewhere in the middle of these two poles is a third position: democratic liberalism. Proponents of this perspective seek to harmonize liberty with equality, and likewise to balance the competing claims of individuals and groups. Rather than an either-or proposition, they see democratic citizenship as a both-and challenge. Freedom and equality are important; people are unique individuals and they belong to, as well as self-identify with, a series of groups

The book begins well. Inside the front cover, an abstract identifies two key questions as being the focus of the author team. First, what constitutes a 'good' citizen in today's liberal democracy? And second, what social and educational policies are needed to sustain the lives of these citizens, while not impinging on liberal democratic principles? (p. i). Had the book concentrated on these two questions, had the editor imposed a disciplined structure on her own and her colleagues' contributions, this volume would indeed be a valued addition to the shelf.

Although the essays seem to have been written over several years, the book in its final form still appears to be a rushed job. On page 4 we read Much of the citizenship debate is concern [sic] with four dimensions of citizenship. A few pages later we are told only within this century [sic] have women gained the federal vote (1918) (p. 7) despite the fact the book was published in 2002, well into the 'next' century. The appendix, a well-intended chart purporting to display a breakdown of key models of democratic citizenship, is flawed, almost worse than useless. In the first place, it analyzes fourteen historic governmental arrangements, far too many to be meaningful, without providing any rationale for their inclusion. Why was Machiavellian Florence analyzed, for example? More seriously, factual and conceptual errors abound. The prerogatives of the Emperor are discussed under the heading of Roman republican model (p. 250). Yet the institution of Emperors signalled the death of the quasi-democratic republic. Et tu Brut? Edmond Burke, famous for his liberal-conservative response to the French Revolution of 1789, is mysteriously identified with 17th-Century England (p. 252).

In too many places, the book's language is excessively turgid and jargon-ridden, serving to exclude from understanding all but the 'inside' experts - ironic, given the sincerely inclusionary aims of the authoring team. Here are two examples. From the opening essay, we read that policy and institutional goals are marked by a range of conceptual possibilities and affect lived Canadian realities (p. 14). The authors appear to be saying that, with the best of intentions, government policy can sure mess up the lives of ordinary Canadians. Half-way through the book, we are informed that teachers mediated the curriculum and could challenge official views and even generate a political space in the classroom by using a critical alternative perspective (p. 122). Presumably, the author is saying that conscientious teachers closed the classroom doors and taught their students what they needed to learn.

Still, the verdict on this book is only partly negative. Yvonne Hbert and a co-author, Michel Pag, nicely capture the overlap of history and citizenship, in their concluding chapter. across Canada, the teaching of history is controversial as soon as it touches upon the face of national identity, which is still under construction (p. 245). So true, despite the mixed metaphor. A very useful feature of the book is the collective (appropriate for democratic pluralists) bibliography at the back, which draws upon the combined sources of each author, as cited in their individual chapter Notes.

Predictably, the quality of the specific chapters is uneven. For example, Veronica Strong-Bag's contribution on the struggles of women, aboriginals and blue-collar workers is passionate, but vastly under-estimates the significance of multiple over-lapping identities. Romulo Magsino provides a very useful overview of three approaches to citizenship, which he classifies as liberalism, communitarianism, and republicanism, but how does critical pedagogy fit in? The article by Marie Battiste and Helen Semaganis is a fascinating, if one-sided, presentation of the hard-line First Nation perspective on treaties, culture and citizenship. The piece by Roberta J. Russel drones on in careful bureaucratese, piously informing us that The focus of citizenship education in a pluralistic society should be inclusive and should empower everyone to participate (p. 146). What else could an employee of the Department of Justice say? Nevertheless, her paper rewards a second reading, with good material on civics and citizenship, and insightful hints as to the federal government's role in promoting citizenship.

Harold Troper's article provides a sound historical overview of Canadian attitudes toward, and public policy about, the ideal of population diversity. For something completely different, try to follow the thread of Celia Haig-Brown's meandering post-modern musings on appropriate democratic educational research, written as an unedited stream-of-consciousness flow. Or not. Cecille de Pass and Shazia Qureshi capture our attention by interspersing dramatic first-person narratives of blatant racial discrimination into their essay, then throw it all away with a dated, almost obscenely careless, stereotyping of the 21st -century Canadian upper middle class as the sectors of the population who share an attachment to historic Anglo symbols like the Union Jack and who became [sic] misty eyed when they hear the anthems and songs associated with the British Empire (p. 180). Hello! Did you miss the great flag debate of 1964?

Only in the concluding chapter do we learn the underlying rationale for this book. These essays represent the work of a group of interested researchers, decision makers and practitioners who met in 1998 and developed a consensus around a pan-Canadian research agenda in citizenship education (p. 229). Known as the Citizenship Education Research Network (CERN), its primary task is the coordination of the research efforts of the founding members as well as of all others who wish to participate in the process (p. 232). In 1999, an elite national team of researchers was formed with responsibility for securing funding (p. 243). The mention of money brings us back to the conundrum of the democratic state. Is it (a) the likeliest threat to our freedom (classic liberal view), (b) the benevolent source of both our influence and our funds (democratic pluralist position), or (c) a two-edged sword to be watched, but wielded with cautious purpose in the interests of liberty and equality (democratic liberal perspective)? As every university student knows, the odds in a multiple-choice question ride with response (c).

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Jonathan Marks. 2002.

What It Means to be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes.

Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA & London, England: University of California Press, Ltd. Pp. 312, $27.50 USD, cloth.
ISBN 0-520-22615-1
website: www.ucpress.edu

Jean-Guy Goulet
Faculty of Human Sciences
Saint Paul University,
Ottawa, Ontario

Imagine a Planet of the Apes on which a single specie, over seven million years, evolves into three related but distinct species: Homo, Pan (chimpanzee and bonobo), and Gorilla. Unique among them are human beings who ask What does it mean to be 98% chimpanzee? The answer is found in Jonathan Marks's witty, insightful and critical essay.

In this book Marks accomplishes two important tasks. First, he convincingly argues that the reduction of important things in life to genetics is a recent cultural, non-scientific, phenomenon that calls for serious critical analysis. In a stance that some may find polemical he states unambiguously that technical sophistication and intellectual navet have been the twin hallmarks of human genetics since its origins as a science in the early part of the twentieth century (p. 2). Second, he challenges a wide range of taken-for granted views on race, inequality, sexual orientation, funding for research projects, and many other salient topics of public interest. In the process Marks offers refreshing insights into the fallacy of arguments put forward by authors, some of them scientists, who inappropriately use science to promote their social agenda.
While reading this book one comes to appreciate the kinds of questions and statements Marks come up with to get the reader to think. Consider the following: When a human skull encases 1400 cubic centimetres of brain, a chimp is luck to have a third of that. Is that 67% different? (p. 23); If we are similar but distinguishable from a gorilla ecologically, demographically, anatomically, mentally indeed every way except genetically does it follow that all the other standards of comparison are irrelevant, and the genetic comparison is transcendent? (p. 43); We are apes, but only in precisely the same way we are fish (p. 45); The overwhelming bulk of detectable genetic variation in the human species is between individuals in the same population. About 85% of it, in fact (p. 82); Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants are indistinguishable genetically, but they know who they are and who they are not, by virtue of their cultural difference (p. 87).

Observations such as these cut to the heart of the matter. In the same vein Marks reminds his readers that Races aren't there as natural facts, they are there as cultural facts, which overwhelm and redefine the relatively minor biological component they have (p. 136). He writes: I'm always astonished to find it asserted in the sociobiological literature that humans have a deep hereditary propensity for 'xenophobia,' fear or hatred of others, or more grandiosely, a genetic basis for genocide (p. 141). Marks, who notes that the simplest answer to such assertions is to point out that genocide policies are carried out between people biologically very similar but culturally very different, such as the Hutu and Tutsi, Bosnians and Serbs, Israelis and Palestinians, Huron and Iroquois, Germans and Jews, English and Irish (p. 142). It is cultural values and social agendas that shape human lives as historically situated humans strive to promote this or that social and political agendas to create a world more to their liking.

Of the twelve chapters in the book, four are based on previously published papers and three, chapters 6, 7 and 8, are based on published reviews of books. These are: Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It by J. Entine (2000); Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence by R. Wrangham and D. Peterson (1996); and, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity by P. Cavalieri and P. Singer (1993).

From one chapter to the next, Marks continuously keeps his sight on the ambiguous relationship between science and society. To illuminate the pitfalls of the uncritical and unwarranted misuse of poorly understood scientific knowledge he engages in lively discussions of the sociobiological view of males as naturally inclined to violence (chapter 7), of the Great Ape Project which promotes extending human rights to the great apes (chapter 8), of the Human Genome Project (chapter 8) and the Human Genome Diversity Project (chapter 9), of the controversy around the cloning of human beings (chapter 10), of the Creationist agenda (chapter 11), or of the eugenic movement (chapter 12).

In brief, this is a great book for all interested in contemporary debates in which claims are made about the social and cultural significance of genetic markers in humans and non-humans. The range of topics covered is wide. The writing is lively and thought provoking. The quest for sorting out science from pseudo science is relentless. In this way Marks accomplishes his purpose which is to challenge not science but scientism, an uncritical faith in science and scientists (p. 279).

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Niki Walker. 2003

Life in an Anishnabe Camp.

New York: Crabtree Publishing Company. Pp. 32, $19.96, reinforced library binding.
ISBN 0-7787-0373-8

AND

Kathryn Smithyman and Bobbie Kalman. 2003.

Native Nations of the Western Great Lakes.

New York: Crabtree Publishing Company. Pp. 32, $19.96, reinforced library binding.
ISBN 0-7787-0372-X
website: www.crabteebook.com

D. Memee Harvard
Faculty of Education
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
President, Ontario Native Women's Association

As I set out to write this review I am troubled. In the traditions of my people, the Anishnabek, one must never openly criticize another, to do so would cause a loss of face and is therefore strictly avoided. However, as an Anishnabe woman in the academy I must tread a fine line between the expectations of my ancestors and the demands of modern society. Although this path tends to be all uphill and full of stones, it is not without its rewards. This request to examine literature that may potentially educate innumerable generations of children about the ways of our First Nations people provides a rare, yet necessary, opportunity to add an Aboriginal perspective, which has so often been missing in the past. At this point it is important to clarify that this is indeed 'an' Aboriginal perspective, not 'the' Aboriginal perspective, for it would be sheer folly to suggest that all Aboriginal peoples would be like-minded. With this in mind I offer the following words.

Native Nations of the Western Great Lakes provides an excellent overview of the many Aboriginal nations living around the Great Lakes area. After much discussion with an Anishnabe elder who was herself a teacher almost 80 years ago, we concluded that this book would be an excellent resource for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal classrooms. The written text is clear and simple enough to be understood by early readers with some assistance, yet interesting and complex enough in content to still be of interest to more accomplished students. The numerous illustrations provide both stimulation and increased content comprehension for those who learn more visually, as is often the case for First Nations learners. I initially thought the book would have benefited from more Aboriginal artwork and illustrations, and less reliance on the portrayals of (undoubtedly biased) early European artists. However, Smithyman and Kalman's discussion of the abuse of Aboriginal peoples perpetrated by land hungry foreign invaders has softened my critique. Smithyman and Kalman address issues that are often overlooked, especially in juvenile literature, specifically the less than honourable history of a nation built on the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

The depictions of the Aboriginal nations are very informative and cover a broad range of distinct tribal groups. Smithyman and Kalman provide a good introduction to the diversity that existed among the various First Nations of this continent. This work will hopefully help to dispel the commonly held belief that all 'Indians' are the same, i.e., riding around on horses and hunting buffalo. Indeed, my people were traditionally more comfortable traveling by canoe and eating fish, a fact which often comes as a disappointment to many.

It is important however that such introductory lessons be followed up with literature that goes into the specific details of each distinct nation. Unfortunately, as is often the case with this genre of literature, the need for brevity can result in errors of omission. These are not inaccuracies as such, but rather simply a lack of the necessary depth of information. For example, in reference to the illustration on page 11, Smithyman and Kalman claim the Ho-Chunk decorated their clothing and baskets with the quills of the porcupine. While this is in all likelihood strictly accurate, the fact that it is mentioned with regard to only the Ho-Chunk leads one to assume it is unique to this particular nation. Porcupine quillwork is traditional to the Anishnabe people as well-they are well known for their beautiful quillwork-a fact that is clearly ignored by the text. Indeed, the work of both my grandmother and great grandmother has been on display in the Smithsonian.

As a compliment to Smithyman and Kalman's introductory text, Walker's book, Life in an Anishnabe Camp, provides an in-depth depiction and invaluable information about the way of life of the Anishnabe people specifically. In fact, I was originally skeptical of several claims made in the book especially with regard to recreation, yet upon further research, I was pleasantly surprised to learn something new about my own ancestors. Although lacrosse as we now know it is a direct descendant of the Iroquoian version of the game with the crooked stick with webbed triangular baskets, early missionary records describe the round closed pocket of the Great Lakes Indian lacrosse sticks as they engaged in competitions outside the missions. Apparently we all have much to learn when it comes to the history of our First Nations and the more we can promote quality literature such as these texts the better.

Unfortunately, the authors make fundamental mistakes very early on in both books which later lead to several contradictions. Specifically, both books claim Anishnabe refers only to the Ojibway people in all their various forms including Ojibwa and Chippewa (Smithyman Kalman, p. 6; Walker, p. 4) and that the Odawa and Pottawattomi are distinct from and most decidedly not Anishnabe. Indeed, Smithyman and Kalman go so far as to claim that the Odawa language is different from the Anishnabe language (p. 5). To the best of my knowledge, which I have confirmed with Rita Corbiere, an elder of the Wikwemikong First Nation of both Odawa and Ojibway descent and a fluent speaker of Anishnabemowin, the term Anishnabe refers to the Odawa, Pottawattomi, and the Ojibway peoples collectively. Furthermore, as was confirmed initially by Rita Corbiere and subsequently by Elaine Brant, a language teacher with the Toronto school board, although there may be slight variations of pronunciations or dialect among the three tribes mentioned above, all still speak Anishnabemowin. Indeed there is no distinct Odawa language that is different from the Anishnabe language.

Interestingly, on page 6 of the Smithyman and Kalman book we find that apparently Anishnabe means the people in Ojibway, while Weshnabek means the people in Odawa. What we see here is in fact different spellings of the same word (which is common as there is no standardized spelling for our mother tongue). Clearly the meaning is the same, even by the authors' account, and as any fluent Anishnabe knows the 'k' at the end of the word is simply the plural form: one Anishnabe, two Anishnabek. Although I generally hesitate to rely upon government publications for verification of my traditional knowledge, as I flipped through the pages of a business resource document in the office of the Ontario Native Affairs Secretariat I found their definition of the Anishnabe people includes not only the Ojibway, Pottawatomi, Chippewa, and Odawa peoples but also the Algonquin and the Mississaugas as well. While I may seem to be overstating my point here, this inaccurate definition becomes an important source of contradiction later on in both works.

The illustration of the Anishnabe summer village that is found on pages 18-19 of the Smithyman and Kalman work, as well as on page 9 of the Walker book, is fraught with inaccuracy if we adhere to Smithyman, Kalman and Walker's own, albeit mistaken, definition of Anishnabe as an Ojibway specific term. Indeed, this idyllic scene of happily working brown-skinned people depicts longhouse style dwellings and primitive agricultural activities, which are decidedly inconsistent with the northern Ojibway, but are in fact found among the southern Odawa as asserted by Smithyman and Kalman elsewhere (see page 17 for housing descriptions and page 7 for the depiction of Odawa crop planting). Thus we must conclude that either Anishnabe is indeed inclusive of the Odawa peoples, or that this illustration is mislabeled and therefore misleading. As I already have done, I personally argue for the former. Indeed, the Odawa are Anishnabe people and as a result of their alliances with the Huron in the mid-17th century they learned to cultivate maize.

Another illustration I find troubling in Walker's book is found on page 13. Inside the wigwam we see a young man laying next to the fire wearing a ceremonial breastplate. Such a thing would never have happened, such regalia was only worn during ceremony or battle. It is the garment of a warrior. Although I recognize this is only an illustration, and as such is not reality, the book presents itself as a resource book. It is not a work of fiction. Such misrepresentations can become the very source of future misconceptions.

Unfortunately for these authors it can be very difficult to keep abreast of the ever-changing terminology preferred by the descendants of North America's original inhabitants, i.e., those referred to in the literature as Native peoples. Political movements and increasing Aboriginal self-determination have lead to great uncertainty over acceptable terminology. Although many established Aboriginal organizations (such as the Ontario Native Women's Association) have chosen to continue using the term 'Native' for financial and legal reasons (if they were incorporated under such names), in contemporary circles when not using our specific tribal affiliations such as Anishnabek, we generally prefer to refer to ourselves collectively as Aboriginal or First Nations peoples. Such terms clearly establish our place as the original peoples, not to be confused with someone who was merely born here and is therefore considered native to the area. However, that being said, I do recognize the terminological consistency with Native Studies curriculum documents. Perhaps what is necessary for future works in the field is a brief comment on the rationale behind the choice of the particular terminology being used over the others available.

While these books are not without their faults, overall they are of exceptional quality. They were done in a positive and sensitive manner, and they are respectful of the Aboriginal traditions, something which was often not present in much of the previous literature. I can still remember the horribly demeaning depictions of savages that so often graced the pages of my school books (whenever some particular historian chose to remember that history in Canada did not begin with the arrival of the explorers). Overall they are an excellent elementary resource that will likely be the source of much discussion in my teacher education class next year.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

J. Bradley Cruxton & W. Douglas Wilson. 1997.

Challenge of the West: A Canadian Retrospective from 1815-1914.

Toronto: Oxford University Press. 182 pages, hardcover.
ISBN 0-19-541286-9
website: www.oupcan.com

Todd Horton
Faculty of Education
Nipissing University
North Bay, Ontario

Ostensibly a social studies textbook for high school (back cover), Challenge of the West is written and presented in a style that makes it suitable for a number of grades from junior high up to and including high school. As well, the content corresponds with several social studies and history curricula across Canada including the strand entitled The Development of Western Canada found in the grade seven history curriculum of Ontario.

The front cover of the textbook is a reproduction of Adam Sherriff Scott's The SS Beaver off Fort Victoria, 1846. The painting depicts two aboriginal persons in the foreground with their backs to the viewer. They are looking across the water to a British fort on the opposite shoreline. In the water between is a British ship and a smaller boat filled with, presumably, residents of the fort. As the two aboriginal persons are in the foreground, the viewer is encouraged to interpret the painting from their perspective. The dominant impression is one of watching from the sidelines. The aboriginal people are not participants but observers, surveying activities that will change their worlds.

Change is very much what this textbook is about. In the introduction, the authors encourage students to think about change, how it comes about in their worlds and how it has come about throughout Canadian history. As Cruxton and Wilson state in the Introduction, sometimes change just happens. Other times, we make a change happen. When we set out to make change, it can involve conflict or struggle (no page). These words are a foreshadowing of the conflict and struggle that has been a part of Canada's historical development.

The textbook is divided into six chapters: 1) Rebellion and Change in Upper and Lower Canada; 2) The Road to Confederation; 3) Exploring and Opening the West; 4) Manitoba and British Columbia Enter Confederation; 5) Preparing the West for Settlement; 6) Settling the West. Though the content is never extensively detailed, the chapters do cover what are often considered the main events in Western Canadian history from 1815 to 1914. The building of the CPR is captured in chapter four, the Red River Rebellion, Northwest Rebellion and the trial of Louis Riel are highlighted in chapter five while the Gold Rush is explored in chapter six.

However, as the chapter titles suggest and as is the pattern of history textbooks designed to meet the requirements of history curricula, the content focuses on the changing West from the perspective of Europeans whether British soldiers, French politicians or Mennonite settlers. Even the notion of the West is a reference to territory west of earlier European settlements in Newfoundland, the Maritime colonies and the Canadas. Rarely is the history told from the perspective of aboriginal peoples. Their voices are silent and their histories, separate from those that are entwined with European colonists, are absent. This is not to suggest that aboriginal peoples are missing. They are very much present in the historical narratives and biographical inserts provided. Almost the entirety of chapter three is devoted to the First Canadians, who they are and where they live. Nevertheless, their histories remain distant and aloof from the perspective suggested-forever illustrated as the other, standing on the outside watching as their worlds are changed by the main event which is the development of a nation called Canada. The painting on the cover is indeed metaphoric.

Liberally peppered throughout the chapters are charts, maps, timelines, paintings, photographs, poems, songs, cartoons and reproductions of original documents. There are also a number of inserts that are separate from the main body of text. These inserts offer interesting biographies of people such as Qubec political reformer Louis-Joseph Papineau and author Susanna Moodie. All of these features combine to give the textbook a sense of variety and offer students different ways of learning the content. One problem to note is the serious dearth of passages which permit the historical actors to speak for themselves. Though there are a few, offering students more opportunities to read what William Lyon Mackenzie, Sir John A. Macdonald, Catherine Schubert or Crowfoot actually said would bring an increased impression of humanity to the historical narratives and elevate the textbook's overall sense of credibility as a source of historical information.

Each chapter includes at least one developing skills section. The foci of the developing skills sections include creating a mind map, decision making, cause-and-effect relationships, interpreting political cartoons, interviewing, using maps as visual organizers, preparing a research report, debating, making oral presentations, and analyzing bias. These sections are divided into numbered steps that include easy-to-follow instructions and examples. The result should be the development of skills that are transferable to other courses of study.

Also included at the conclusion of each chapter are a series of activities. The activities sections are divided into three parts: Check Your Understanding; Confirm Your Learning; and Challenge Your Mind. The first part focuses on comprehension questions that refer to the chapter completed. The second part encourages the use of information in the answering of broader questions. The third part challenges students to analyze situations and consider questions and statements from a number of perspectives as well as synthesize information in the formulation of their own views. These parts are well written, progressive in complexity and offer teachers a range of choice to use in meeting the learning needs of students that have a range of abilities. One criticism of the developing skills and activities sections is that there needs to be better integration between them. Only occasionally are students expected to use the skills developed in one section to complete the activities in the other. Students need opportunities to refine the skills they learn. By explicitly and purposefully providing students with activities that encourage the use of newly developed skills there is greater possibility that the skills will be internalized and endure.

While the book may not be deemed adequate by some teachers as the sole text to use in their junior high or high school social studies or history courses, the authors must be given credit for hitting the high spots of the mainstream history narrative of the Canadian west, developing important skill sets and providing students with a number of interesting activities. Until the time when history curricula value aboriginal perspectives as much as they do Europeans, textbooks like this are meeting their mandate.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Livy Visano and Lisa Jakubowski. 2002.

Teaching Controversy.

Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing. Pp. 175, $24.95, paper.
ISBN 1-55266-074-5
website: www.fernwoodbooks.ca

Kevin Kee
Faculty of Education
McGill University

What is the goal of post-secondary education? While politicians and business leaders echo the familiar cant of marketable skills appropriate to the globalized economy, Livy Visano and Lisa Jakubowski offer a different response. In Teaching Controversy, a book that could have carried the subtitle: University Instructors of the World Unite!, Visano and Jakubowski call on educators to teach controversial issues that will motivate students to work towards social justice. The title's double entendre is deliberate. This is not a standard defence of university education, and it is bound to create controversy. The authors would welcome a lively debate on the subject. Visano, an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University, and Jakubowski, an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Brescia University College, affiliated with the University of Western Ontario, are troubled by what they view to be the increasing commercialization of post-secondary education. Continuing in this direction, the authors insist, will change the role of the university from a public to a more private 'for hire' enterprise with a more limited and highly compromised quest for knowledge (p. 139). Using the ideas of Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci as their compass, and of Henry Giroux and Paolo Freire as their guide, Visano and Jakubowski map out a different course for Canada's universities.

Many of Marx's theories are as relevant to twenty-first-century higher education as they were to nineteenth-century industry, the authors imply. Leaving aside Marx's rough outline of violent confrontation between capitalists and workers, Visano and Jakubowski gravitate towards Gramsci's more nuanced portrait of class struggle. Gramsci developed the notion of hegemony to describe the manner by which the dominant class in a capitalist society perpetuates its power through persuasion, and the subordinate class perpetuates its subjugation by offering its consent. According to Visano and Jakubowski, hegemony dominates all aspects of twenty-first-century Canadian society, including higher education.

Applying Marxist models to classroom life, they draw on educational theorist Paolo Freire's notion of banking an act of depositing in which students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor to describe what is wrong with contemporary university teaching (p. 31). By indoctrinating students, rather than communicating with them, the dominant class has used schools to elicit the subordinate class's consent. In this way, as Henry Giroux has pointed out, the principles of marketplace capitalism have been passed on from one generation to the next.

Visano and Jakubowski insist the cycle can be broken; what is required are educators willing to take risks in what they teach and how they teach it. Educators must reach in (acknowledge their own biases) and reach out (recognize their similarities and differences with their students). Rather than standing above and apart from students, an educator should create collaborative partnerships, becoming, in the words of Visano, a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage (p. 115). An educator can also challenge the dominant hegemony by teaching controversy and here the reader arrives at the authors' primary thesis sensitizing students to inequities, and providing them with opportunities to act on their new-found knowledge by working towards social justice.

What does this kind of teaching look like? Visano and Jakubowski devote their longest chapter to one example: teaching students about the subjugation of Canada's First Nations peoples. In the spirit of a Native sharing circle, in which each speaker tells her story while others listen, John Elijah of the Oneida Nation, Ursula Elijah of the Cree Nation, and Julie George, an Ojibway Indian from the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation, testify to the oppression of aboriginal peoples in the past and present. Visano and Jakubowski add their own voices, providing examples of classroom projects that move students beyond listening and towards action that will bring about justice for First Nations peoples.

In this, and many other ways, the authors weave together theory and practice in their defence of teaching controversy. They demonstrate how dialogue can lead to insight by including conversations with each other on difficult issues. References to classroom projects and field trips dot each chapter, even when these events do not turn out as the authors had expected. These examples from the authors' own experience form one of the strengths of the book, and at the same time one of the weaknesses. Visano and Jakubowski have drawn on their research and teaching about the plight of some of our society's most oppressed people to develop a thought-provoking thesis about the goals of post-secondary education. However, teachers of other disciplines may not be able to link content with action in as straightforward a manner.

The issue comes down not to whether their model is valid and admirable but to whether everyone should be expected to follow their example. Certainly there are powerful pragmatic disincentives for those who, unlike the authors, do not have tenure. Allowing course content to evolve according to the expressed needs of students conflicts with almost universal institutional expectations that a defined curriculum be given to students near the start of a course. Furthermore, the guide on the side needs to submit grades for each student at the end of the term. And in many cases students arrive to courses hoping to be captivated by a sage on the stage. In short, following the authors' lead may be a recipe for professional martyrdom: undoubtedly admirable, but understandably unpopular.

The authors, to their credit, recognize this difficulty, yet they insist on the need to resist. Their students, I am sure, would not want it any other way. Visano and Jakubowski appear to thoroughly enjoy creating a debate, and welcome responses of all varieties. One hopes that this is the beginning of a sustained dialogue about the goal of post-secondary education, and that they will provide readers with further insights into how their colleagues can bring controversy into the classroom.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Robert Adamoski, Dorothy E. Chunn, and Robert Menzies (eds). 2002.

Contesting Canadian Citizenship: Historical Readings.

Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Pp. 429, $29.95, paper.
ISBN 1-55111-386-4
website: www.broadviewpress.com

Tom Mitchell
Brandon University
Brandon, Manitoba

Citizenship lies at the heart of the liberal state and forms of political modernity. Defined variously as a relational practice, a set of personal rights and obligations, or as a cultural idiom unique to particular societies, citizenship is to a greater or lesser degree always fluid, plastic, and internally contested (Brubaker, 1992, p. 13; on citizenship see also T. H. Marshall T. Bottomore, (1992). Its analysis offers an opening to modern approaches to power and social control, to forms of modern nations and nationalities; conceptually, idioms of citizenship are deeply implicated in most debates of public policy in the liberal state. And, as Contesting Canadian Citizenship discloses, such has been the case since the beginning of modern Canadian history.

The various and diverse chapters contained in Contesting Canadian Citizenship tell us about how modernist discourses of class, gender, race and discursive idioms of human pathology have shaped how Canadians have imagined each other. Such discourse furnished the theory upon which forms of unequal citizenship have been cast, institutional life has been ordered, and relations of power and vulnerability have been forged. For some citizenship promised power and opportunity, full citizenship within the liberal state; for others liberal discourse on citizenship led to non-citizenship, shame, subordination, incarceration, even sterilization.

The readings open with a nicely tailored introduction to the contemporary debate and varied usages of citizenship as a practical - and almost always contested - political and social idiom. Here the Canadian debate is effectively placed within the context of a broader international literature. Janine Brodie's contribution to the introduction Three Stories of Canadian Citizenship focuses on three approaches to the development of citizenship in Canada: the legal, rights based and governance approaches. Under these headings Brodie moves from an account of the juridical nature of Canadian citizenship, to a discussion of the evolution of Canadian citizenship within a critical appraised account of T.H. Marshall's seminal theorization of citizenship, to a historical survey of citizenship under the general rubric of governance.

Beyond the introduction, Contesting Canadian Citizenship has five sections. Constituting the Canadian Citizen contains essays by Veronica Strong-Boag on the debate around citizenship central to the Canadian Franchise Act of 1885. Gender, race, and class are illuminated as central features of the construction of citizenship within the Canadian liberal state. Ronald Rubin tackles citizenship in the evolving cultural politics of Quebec sovereignty, while Claude Denis provides a thoughtful and provocative account of the Hobson's choice at the heart of the history of indigenous citizenship in Canada.

Under the heading Domesticity, Industry and Nationhood Sean Purdy relates a fascinating story of the implication of idioms of citizenship within debates over housing policy, while Jennifer Stephen considers industrial citizenship within the context of an account of employment, industrial relations and the creation of an efficient labour force during the era of crisis and reconstruction from 1916-1921. Deyse Baillargeon employs data from interviews with Francophone women in Montreal to provide a contextually specific glimpse into how women in Quebec, who possessed only a partial juridical citizenship, nevertheless made an important contribution to the maintenance of social stability during the Great Depression. Finally, Shirley Tillotson takes up the question of citizenship and leisure rights in mid-twentieth century Canada. In a nicely theorized account of the development of leisure rights sensitive to the implications of class, gender, race and rurality, Tillotson makes the argument that the imperatives of a moral economy of democratic citizenship in which the right to the prerequisites of health and culture led the liberal state to provide all Canadians not just the elite with access to leisure in the form of statutory and paid holidays and recreational programs.

Education has always been central to the Canadian debate on citizenship. This theme is treated at length under the heading Pedagogies of Belonging and Exclusion. Lorna R. McLean links the literature of class and masculinity with emerging forms of Canadian citizenship through an account of the adult education program of Frontier College. Katherine Arnup provides an illuminating account of the links between modernist discourses implicating motherhood with the manufacture of citizens. Here experts in child development typically, members of the medical profession cast a shaft of enlightenment on the benighted mothers especially those of non-Anglo-Canadian stock of future citizens of the country. Mary Louise Adams relates how the construction of citizenship was and remains implicated in the definition and policing of sexual identity and an orthodox sexuality. Bernice Moreau provides an account of the junction of race and citizenship in Nova Scotia. Here the shameful story of how Black Nova Scotians struggled to gain educational rights and civic equality against a state and civil society that denied them full citizenship is related.

Finally, four chapters address the theme of Boundaries of Citizenship. Here, Robert Adamoski relates the passage of children as wards of the state to productive citizenship. Adamoski argues that the philanthropic and child rescue movements that emerged in the late nineteenth century dealt with their charges within the class, gender and racial expectations of the time. Working class girls and boys would become solid working class citizens; only through assimilation could Aboriginal children enter the ranks of citizenship. Joan Sangster discusses the rescue of delinquents for the liberal state. In a chapter that considers developments from 1920-1965, Sangster provides illustrations and analysis of the changing and unchanging strategies used by the state and social experts to re-create model citizens. Dorothy E. Chunn deals with race, sex and citizenship through an examination how the criminal law in British Columbia was employed normatively to disseminate and sustain dominant conceptions of appropriate and inappropriate sexual and social relations. Her account illustrates how law worked to reinforce hierarchical social relations within the new settler society of British Columbia. Robert Menzies relates the story of mental hygiene and citizenship in British Columbia during the formative 1920s, an era in which the long shadow of eugenics discourse threatened dire consequences for those who for any number of reasons were deemed unworthy of citizenship. He develops a useful historical context for his account: relating how developments elsewhere from Ontario to Britain, Alberta to California shaped the course of the debate in British Columbia, and contributed to the shaping of social policy for some of Canada's most vulnerable citizens.

This is a very useful publication. It brings together a diverse body of literature that speaks to the complex and evolving ideological core of the Canadian liberal state: citizenship and prose rendered with a minimum of jargon. Of course, each reader of this book will find some chapters more literate, interesting and useful than others. Such is to be expected in a volume containing seventeen chapters and almost as many authors.

References

Brubaker, R. (1992). Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, London: Harvard University Press.

Marshall, T.H. Bottomore, T. (1992). Citizenship and Social Class. London: Pluto Press.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
VOLUME 39 NUMBER 1, FALL 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css
Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools

Carlita Kosty. 2002.

History Fair Workbook: A Manual for Teachers, Students and Parents.

Lanham, Maryland and Oxford: Scarecrow Press, Inc. Pp 171, $30.00, paper.
ISBN 0-8108-4487-7
website: www.scarecrowpress.com

E. Senger
Henry Wise Wood High School
Calgary, AB

This is a book about studying and delivering information about history. It guides parents, teachers and students through the fascinating and engaging process of developing a meaningful topic, proceeding through logical steps of research, and compiling the historical information into a format that will excite and interest students, and others who become involved in the project. While the book is based upon a program called National History Day that was developed by the University of Maryland at College Park, many features of it can be adapted to a regular Social Studies or History classroom at virtually any level.

For those American teachers who choose to follow the History Fair process from their local level to possibly regional and national levels, this text provides a clear and useful framework. The History Fair Project has been running for years, and Kosty provides seven years worth of past and upcoming themes:

2002 Revolution, Reaction and Reform in History
2003 Rights and Responsibilities in History
2004 Exploration, Encounter and Exchange in History
2005 Communication in History: The Key to Understanding
2006 Taking a Stand in History: People, Places, Ideas
2007 Triumph and Tragedy in History
2008 The Individual in History (p. 17).

Used in conjunction with the History Fair Project these themes furnish a solid basis from which to build the students' projects and focus their research. For teachers who do not wish to participate in the competitions, these themes could supply a focus for a unit or a whole program.

Through the use of samples, blackline masters and suggested resources in this book, any Social Studies teacher could enhance the delivery of her or his curriculum and engage students more fully in their learning. For example, online contact information is given for the official National History Day organization at www.nationalhistoryday.org. The Annual Curriculum Book and National History Day Rule Book are both available at this website and give easy access for teachers, parents and students.

The subtitle of the book is A Manual for Teachers, Students and Parents and specific sections are directed at each of these groups. A large focus seems to be empowering students to take more control of their own learning; as Kosty puts it The goal is to encourage, not discourage (p. 15). This is clearly sound pedagogical theory and practice, and the ideas, samples and classroom ready materials found in this book will make learning about history more enjoyable and meaningful for everyone involved. By clearly laying out how parents and teachers can help their kids, and how the students can help themselves, Kosty reinforces the goal of encouraging everyone to learn.
Many of the basics of planning, researching and teaching will already be familiar to experienced teachers. The greatest values are in the guidelines for working through a meaningful research process; worksheets, mini tests and samples to guide students; and the provision of lists of resources that will all enhance learning. There is, for example, a History Project Skills Profile on page 8 which lists sources and presentation, interpersonal and social skills which will enable students to be more successful with this project. There is a Library Research Vocabulary quiz on page 40 and a Research Skills Test is found on pages 49-51. These could be used by the teacher to evaluate student progress, or given to students to use for self-evaluation.

History Fair Workbook is a valuable tool for teachers. In addition to the materials already mentioned, it includes samples of the following documents to facilitate planning a history project and/or the delivery of regular Social Studies material: Letter to Parents (p. 21); Group Project Contract (p. 23); Timeline Rules Summary (p. 25); and Teacher's Checklist (p. 28). There is also an assortment of blackline masters for every step in the process: choosing topics, the research process, evaluation scoring sheets, referencing, writing thesis statements, and even certificates to recognize participation and achievement.

While the projects and themes in Kosty's book are based upon American state and district standards, they can be adapted to any school district. She has included specific chapters on using the internet (Section V), administering a Campus Fair (Section VI) and also one on Advanced Competition (Section VII) for students who will go on to regional and/or national levels. Since Kosty is an experienced Social Studies teacher as well as a coach and judge for History Fair events, she is well qualified to advise parents, students and teachers in this capacity.

The Appendices provide some sample papers, lists of possible topics, and a list of primary source collections which will be very useful for school libraries and also help teachers to direct their students' research. A comprehensive Glossary, Bibliography and index simplify referencing the book. On a final note, as with any good teaching material, items will need to be adapted to grade level, the experience students already have with research, each teacher's comfort level, and school and board policies. For anyone interested in expanding their understanding of and engagement with historical issues, this is truly a valuable resource.

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES
(The History and Social Science Teacher)

CANADA'S NATIONAL SOCIAL STUDIES JOURNAL
VOLUME 39, NUMBER 1, Fall 2004
www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css

Special Issue: Social Studies Research and Teaching in Elementary Schools.

Canadian Social Studies is an indexed, refereed journal published quarterly on-line at the University of Alberta. It is a journal of comment and criticism on social education and publishes articles on curricular issues relating to history, geography, social sciences, and social studies.
Canadian Social Studies is under copyright. Unless otherwise designated, permission is granted to download and distribute individual student copies of anything in this journal as long as it is for non-profit educational use in the classroom. Copyright permission includes the requirement to include the following on the first page of any duplicated material: "Canadian Social Studies, www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css Canada's national social studies journal - by permission." All other duplication or distribution requires the editor's permission.
George Richardson - Editor

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From the Editor

Articles

Don't Forget About Law: A Case For Law-Related Education In Elementary Social Studies
Wanda Cassidy

Teaching Human Rights in Elementary Classrooms: A Literary Approach
Linda Farr Darling

How Can Social Studies Teachers Best Use The Internet With Young Learners?
Susan E. Gibson

Historical Thinking in the Elementary Years: A Review of Current Research
Amy von Heyking

Book Reviews

Bruce VanSledright. 2002..
In Search of America's Past: Learning to Read History in Elementary School.
Reviewed by Jon G. Bradley.