“Chinese core, global trend”: A critical discourse analysis of Chinese civics teachers’ perceptions on global citizenship education

ABSTRACT

Globalization has stimulated widespread reforms of traditional citizenship education. Regional sociopolitical and cultural circumstances substantially influence global citizenship education (GCE) discourse. A more in-depth examination of the recontextualization of GCE in educational institutions is required to comprehend its inner power tensions and potential dilemmas. This study investigates how GCE is recontextualized in China’s civics curriculum through a critical discourse analysis of 17 civics teachers’ perceptions, considering the expanding global perspective on national curriculum in recent years. The analysis revealed a nation-centric view of GCE dominated by sociopolitical ideology and Confucian norms, communicated in complicity with localized constructivist teaching and learning approaches that tend to be co-opted as a tool for dissimulating and euphemizing official knowledge standing for nationalism in educational practice. The study discusses the epistemological paradox in Chinese teachers’ perceptions, shedding light on repressed teacher subjectivity and limited educational initiatives in the nationalist-dominated GCE. It advocates a critical and reflective examination of the educational practice of GCE and a better way of speaking GCE that avoids equating it with teaching and learning techniques while ignoring the extent to which these methods have shaken educational relationships and value assumptions.

KEYWORDS:

• Global citizenship education
• pedagogic discourse
• China
• critical discourse analysis
• nationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Community of Common Destiny for Mankind, officially translated as community with a shared future for mankind (人类命运共同体 renlei mingyun gongtongti), is a political slogan by the CCP to describe a stated foreign-policy goal of China.

2. The Belt and Road Initiative, formerly known as One Belt One Road (一带一路 yidai yilu), is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted in 2013 by the Chinese government to invest in approximately 150 countries and international organizations.

3. Study and Make the Nation Great is an instant messenger, news aggregator, and social network that was introduced by the CCP.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Youth Project, National Office for Education Science Planning (China) [CEA220277]

Notes on contributors

Xi Wu

Xi Wu is a postdoctoral fellow at Institute of Moral Education, Nanjing Normal University. She holds a PhD in Education from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include moral education, civic education, and textbook study.

Thomas Kwan-Choi Tse

Thomas Kwan-Choi Tse is Associate Professor at Department of Educational Administration and Policy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include moral education, civic education, family and mass media as socialization agents, and youth studies.