Cultivating sprouts of benevolence: a foundational principle for curriculum in civic and multicultural education

Abstract

A central goal of civic and multicultural education is preparing young people to participate in deliberatively informed action on important social issues. In order to achieve this goal, educators need to cultivate young people's innate but partial 'sprouts' of benevolence, which are rooted in feelings of empathy and compassion. Without a sense of benevolence, students are unlikely to be motivated to deliberate and take action on the needs of others. Consequently, curriculum related to public issues should begin by engaging students with knowledge of other people's lives and concrete circumstances. By encountering rich and emotionally compelling accounts of the lives of others, students' sense of benevolence can be extended beyond the people and situations they know best. This forms the basis for subsequent curriculum encounters with differing perspectives and worldviews, as well as with structural causes of social issues and potential implications of civic action taken to address them.

Implementation of Multicultural Islamic Education Values

“…It is in line with the findings of Raihani's research that through student activities, both in and extracurricular programs, students can gain knowledge, skills, and multicultural values [12]. Civic and multicultural education has a very important role in the world of education in producing young people who are sensitive to social issues and willing to take action on the needs of others [44].…”

Talking about rights without talking about rights: on the absence of knowledge in classroom discussions

“…In this section we consider whether the tendency to start with personal responses, which seems to make pedagogical sense, might ultimately restrict students' ability to frame the issue from different perspectives. We suggest this may both limit their capacity for genuine engagement with the other (Barton & Ho, 2020;Osler, 2016) because they essentially project their own emotional response onto others. This in turn could limit their political understanding of the case(s) being discussed because conflicting points of view are sidestepped.…”

“…It may also involve deliberately teaching about different contexts, from the local to the national and international, in order to help students think consistently about the enactment of human rights principles (Kim, 2019). This process may be made more compelling if learners encounter detailed authentic accounts of other people's lives (Barton & Ho, 2020). These forms of knowledge tend to focus on additional factual information (e.g.…”

The ethics of care as a pedagogical approach: Implications for education for democratic citizenship

“…Nevertheless, several scholars have argued that citizenship education's emphasis on mere logic is often insufficient to motivate learning, particularly about difficult and complex topics. Inspired by the work of the Confucian philosopher Mencius, Barton and Ho (2020) points out this weakness of the rational and abstract learning approaches to citizenship education, and suggest the importance of cultivating 'sprouts of benevolence' through encounters with concrete and tangible accounts of others in order to motivate learners to develop a deeper sense of solidarity with others. In addition, Osler and Zhu (2011) discuss the emotional impact of narratives as pedagogical tools for enabling a deeper understanding of both the self and others.…”