The reformulation of national identity in the new Taiwanese citizenship curriculum through the lens of curriculum reformers

Abstract

The national curriculum reformers, regarded as members of the social elites and intellectuals, projected their vision of identity onto the curriculum which they constructed and influenced the next generation’s national consciousness. In the tangled relationship between politics and education, the selection of the reformers in a sense dictates the direction of the new curriculum. This article interviewed 18 reformers, members of the latest citizenship curriculum of 2010, to investigate their individual views on identities and the monolithically-promoted Chinese configuration in the old curriculum. Although the new citizenship curriculum, renamed Curriculum Guidelines for Civics and Society, puts nothing in writing in favour of either a Chinese or Taiwanese national identity, according to the discovery in this research, the Curriculum Committee implicitly embedded a transformed inclusive and hyphenated Taiwanese national identity in the new curriculum in the hope of accentuating Taiwan’s exclusive sovereignty. The inner thinking of the reformers is uncovered to reveal their reasoning that a broadly constructed national identity can concurrently accommodate diverse personal identities and suits the society better than the previously prescribed Chinese identity. This article also records the evolution of the curriculum from the previous China-centred narratives to Taiwan-centred narratives, something that happened in line with the changes in Taiwanese society.

Keywords:

• Citizenship education
• national identity
• nationalism
• curriculum design
• social elite