Page 177 - Šolsko polje, XXX, 2019, št. 5-6: Civic, citizenship and rhetorical education in a rapidly changing world, eds. Janja Žmavc and Plamen Mirazchiyski
P. 177
book reviews
Rainie, L., Smith, A., Schlozman, K., Brady, H., and Verba, S. (2012) Social
media and political engagement. Washington, DC, USA: Pew Research
Center’s Internet, & American Life Project.
Plamen Mirazchiyski
doi: https://www.doi.org/10.32320/1581-6044.30(5-6)171-175
Strandbrink, Peter, Civic Education & Liberal democracy: Making Post-
Normative Citizens in Normative Political Spaces. San Jose: Palgrave
Macimillan; Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and
Democracy, 2017.
This book aims to deconstruct or at least gradually expose tension in civic
and citizenship education. This tension – which is approached from many
different angles by authors’ empirical, conceptual and normative analysis
– seems to be both inherent (conceptually) and (re)produced (inside spe-
cific national educational spaces and more generally as an effect of liber-
al democracies). Inherent, as understood here, is the tension ingrained in
concepts themselves: concepts of civics and citizenship, institutionalized
education, statehood, knowledge, values and worldview, normativity and
lastly (but most importantly) in the concept of pedagogical transferral of
knowledge, values and worldviews. In this book, while covering a wide ar-
ray of topics – one thing remains only briefly unarticulated: the fact that
it is not enough to specify values/worldviews, concepts of democracy, lib-
eralism, multiculturalism, tolerance, ... : but to provide (or specify) means
(curriculum, syllabus, textbooks, institutions), procedures (ways of peda-
gogical discourse that enable transferral, including time frames, the age
of student subjected to programme) and ends (educational goals, stand-
ardized national and international tests) of pedagogical transferral of civ-
ic contents. The same goes for ambiguities – conflict and inner conceptual
tensions are thus transferred alongside the curricular contents.
Inherent tension is, within itself, part of the building blocks for civ-
ic and citizenship education. And (re)produced tension is perceived dif-
ferently because it seems more dependent on narrow historical, nation-
al and international context – this “type of tension” is being (re)produced
on the level of states and specific educational systems. This tension seems
“optional”. It arrives from – in the authors opinion – unrealistic expec-
tations of institutionalized education. The perception of the educational
system as a “saviour” from backwardness, parochialism, chauvinism and
other (undesired) ideologies is not new. These (false) expectations derive
from some simple determinants of modern educational systems: the most
175
Rainie, L., Smith, A., Schlozman, K., Brady, H., and Verba, S. (2012) Social
media and political engagement. Washington, DC, USA: Pew Research
Center’s Internet, & American Life Project.
Plamen Mirazchiyski
doi: https://www.doi.org/10.32320/1581-6044.30(5-6)171-175
Strandbrink, Peter, Civic Education & Liberal democracy: Making Post-
Normative Citizens in Normative Political Spaces. San Jose: Palgrave
Macimillan; Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and
Democracy, 2017.
This book aims to deconstruct or at least gradually expose tension in civic
and citizenship education. This tension – which is approached from many
different angles by authors’ empirical, conceptual and normative analysis
– seems to be both inherent (conceptually) and (re)produced (inside spe-
cific national educational spaces and more generally as an effect of liber-
al democracies). Inherent, as understood here, is the tension ingrained in
concepts themselves: concepts of civics and citizenship, institutionalized
education, statehood, knowledge, values and worldview, normativity and
lastly (but most importantly) in the concept of pedagogical transferral of
knowledge, values and worldviews. In this book, while covering a wide ar-
ray of topics – one thing remains only briefly unarticulated: the fact that
it is not enough to specify values/worldviews, concepts of democracy, lib-
eralism, multiculturalism, tolerance, ... : but to provide (or specify) means
(curriculum, syllabus, textbooks, institutions), procedures (ways of peda-
gogical discourse that enable transferral, including time frames, the age
of student subjected to programme) and ends (educational goals, stand-
ardized national and international tests) of pedagogical transferral of civ-
ic contents. The same goes for ambiguities – conflict and inner conceptual
tensions are thus transferred alongside the curricular contents.
Inherent tension is, within itself, part of the building blocks for civ-
ic and citizenship education. And (re)produced tension is perceived dif-
ferently because it seems more dependent on narrow historical, nation-
al and international context – this “type of tension” is being (re)produced
on the level of states and specific educational systems. This tension seems
“optional”. It arrives from – in the authors opinion – unrealistic expec-
tations of institutionalized education. The perception of the educational
system as a “saviour” from backwardness, parochialism, chauvinism and
other (undesired) ideologies is not new. These (false) expectations derive
from some simple determinants of modern educational systems: the most
175
