Session Information
23 SES 13 C, Examining Western Traditions, Theories, and Epistemologies for Curriculum, Leadership, and Evaluation Policy Amidst the Recent Globalization Movement
Symposium
Contribution
The goal of reconciliation is the transcendence of an impasse that has capacity to destroy. - Charles Villa-Vicencio This paper explores the ways in which a Critical Geography approach might bring to light issues of power and ethics in curriculum work attending to issues of global citizenship. Focusing on space, place, power, and identity as congruent concepts (Massey, 2005; Harvey, 2001; Soja, 1996), Critical Geography provides a powerful lens with which to address the rapidly changing global context impacting educators and citizens alike. Forces of global economics, culture, and politics have always been at work but with the rise of Information Technology and intricately connected financial systems these relations rapidly emerge, change, and impact lives all over the world in new ways. Indeed, these new forces and resulting spatial relations bring into question such fundamental concepts as sovereignty, democracy, and citizenship itself. This is not to say that these concepts do not mean anything in the present but that we should at least entertain the idea that they might, in the present, mean differently. Curriculum work that takes seriously the places and forces at work on the educators involved provides both unexpected contingencies and what can be seen as “spaces of possibility” in the hopes of empowering educational work (Helfenbein, 2012; Segal & Helfenbein, 2008). Thinking through spaces of possibility might prove helpful in terms of, in the words of Villa-Vicencio, transcending an impasse but also in working towards peaceful, sustainable relationships in curriculum work. Drawing from research experiences in Macedonia, India, and Malawi and urban schools in the United States, the author reflects on the notion of ethical citizenship both in the practice of curriculum workers and in civic education curriculum itself. In the larger field of geography, questions have arisen in thinking through what a concept of “spatial justice” might mean and efforts at rethinking citizenship within global sets of forces gives rise to considering differing notions of democracy and identity. In thinking in terms of globalization, we are reminded that “the social spaces of contemporary capitalism are being increasingly politicized; space is no longer merely the theatre of political conflict but its principle stake” (Brenner, p.152). Tensions around place and identity in particular are explored and offered for consideration—a curriculum of reconciliation—by/for the field of curriculum studies writ large.
References
Harvey, D. (2001). Spaces of capital: Toward a critical geography. New York: Routledge. Massey, D. (2005). For space. London: Sage. Soja, E. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and- imagined places. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Helfenbein, R. (2012). New Meridians: Social education and citizenship in a critical geography. In T.Kenreich (Ed.). Geography and Social Justice in the Classroom. New York: Routledge. Segal, A. & Helfenbein, R. (2008). Geography education. In L.Levstik & C. Tyson (Eds.), Handbook of research in social education. Erlbaum Publishing.
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