Thinking citizenship as a cultural mythology? Contemporary good citizenship discourses at the heart of K-12 curriculum in Canada

Abstract

Following the keen interests in citizenship education across the fields of education, this study delves into the ways in which we conceptualize good citizenship. To do so, I focus on two theoretical concepts (i.e., imaginary and cultural mythology) and the provincial level of education policy(ies) and the K-12 curriculum contexts in Canada. Based on my theoretical ground and critical discourse analysis of the un/official documents for Alberta education, I indicate diversity as one crucial element of a cultural mythology: it, as a sign in a second-order semiological system, serves to disseminate a monolithic and depoliticized vision of good citizenship based within a particular imaginary of the idealized Canada. This study thus elucidates not only our inherited cultural biases about the popular meanings of good citizenship, but also their invisible onto-epistemological presuppositions perpetuating the unchanged institutionalized structures of privilege and their exploitations of poor and minority peoples (e.g., elimination of Indigenous peoples and their land sovereignty). Hence, this study offers critical insights to address unequal relations of power in our prevalent notion(s) of citizenship we as educators presume to teach. This work, by doing so, follows the decolonial imperative to rupture the social inequality and discrimination we all strive to resist.

Keywords:

• Cultural mythology
• good citizenship
• imaginary
• diversity
• citizenship education

Acknowledgement

I am deeply grateful to Kent den Heyer who always supports my work with his insights. I would also like to express my gratitude to jan jagodzinski, Alexandra Fidyk, and all anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback on this study.

Notes

1 Here, I intentionally use romanticized to spotlight two interrelated points: a) many Canadians’ idealized efforts/successes that rest on an English-Canadian capitalistic grand narrative and its teleological vision, and b) a gap between the popular mindset of many Canadians and the issues of systemic inequality intertwined with ongoing history of settler colonialism and (neoliberal) capitalism.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juhwan Kim

Juhwan Kim recently finished his PhD program at University of Alberta, and is working as a lecturer at Dongguk University in South Korea. His main research interests include citizenship, cultural mythologies, and various curriculum perspectives engaged with such in different locales such as Canada and South Korea. His work focuses on various ideologies, imaginaries, and cultural myths that shape and/or extensively influence dynamics of citizenship and education in/across the globe as well as each national community.