Teacher education and the work of teachers in an age of globalization and cosmopolitization – the case in Sweden

Citizenship Education: Cultivating a Critical Capacity to Implement Universal Values Nationally

“…Therefore, it seems that for citizenship education to be successful, it needs to focus on creating a critical public culture which will not only hold the values of justice, equality and tolerance as ideals but have the tools to implement them in their attitudes, beliefs and actions. Roth and Rӧnnstrӧm (2015) state that this requires "a willingness to change the way or ways we understand ourselves, others and the world, and to create new ways of thinking and understanding" (p. 706). This involves an epistemological study to recognize "that knowledge contains both subjective and objective elements … in which the social location produces subjectivity and influences the construction of knowledge, [which we must be aware of in order to] interrogate established knowledge that contributes to the opposition of marginalized and victimized groups" (Banks, 1995, p. 15).…”

“…Instead of viewing immigrants as a means of enrichment, they are viewed as a "problem to nation-states, since they threaten ideologies of cultural homogeneity" (Castles, 2004). In this regard, traditional fears and methods undermine social cohesion, and do not cultivate the critical capacity to think anew (Roth & Rӧnnstrӧm, 2015), a skill which is necessary to support the ever-changing demographic of nations. For it is this ability to think anew using our imaginations which Nussbaum (2012) believes will help citizens recognize previously marginalized groups once -thought to be subhuman -as fully human, and in turn help protect their universal rights within the particularistic framework of the nation-state.…”