Teachers, Citizenship, and Memory: Implications for

Post-Conflict SocietiesElizabeth A Worden, PhD

Associate Professor, American University

Fulbright Scholar, Ulster University

eaworden@american.edu21 January 2015

Setting the Stage▫Citizenship education▫Teachers▫Social memory

Northern Irish Context▫Current study▫Initial findings/ideas▫Implications▫Discussion

Citizenship Education•Key goal of mass/public schooling since

the 18th century▫“Imagined communities,” creating belonging in

a new social, political, and national landscape▫As subjects became citizens, education became

the vehicle for social order and cohesion•Different forms throughout history

▫From assimilation to diversity▫From patriotism to critical thinking▫From local to global

Explicit and Implicit

•Explicit▫Curriculum ▫Modules/Classes (history, civics, government,

politics & citizenship)▫Textbooks

•Implicit▫Extra-curricular activities▫“Benign nationalism”▫Atmosphere▫Relationships

Multiple Purposes & TensionsLogistics

1. Rights2. Responsibilities3. Procedures (e.g., voting,

taxes)

Values1. Public-spiritedness/

willingness to engage in public discourse

2. A sense of justice/ respect the rights of others

3. Civility and tolerance4. A shared sense of

solidarity or loyalty (Kymlicka 2001,

296)

Teachers•Most immediate link between most young

people and the government•Employed by the government but . . .

▫They close the classroom door▫Interpret and reinterpret curricula ▫Modify education polices to fit classroom

needs (or their own)

(see for example, Apple and Christian-Smith 1991; Luke, Luke, and Castell 1989; Mantilla 2001; Street 2001; Worden 2014)

Teachers as Experts

• Professionals • Use their judgment• Complex individuals (like

everyone else)• May or may not be acting in the

best interest of their students

Social Memory•“Memories can be images or stories

recalled. They can be ways of knowing, or acts embodied. Recollection, as a human practice, is as vast as its functions are varied” (Paxson 2005, 13).

•Collective memory is a social act and must be studied in the context of society – it is in society that people acquire, recall, recognize, and localizes their memories (Halbwachs, 1992, 38).

Studying Social Memory

•As practice (drawing from Paxson 2004)▫telling stories▫talking about the nation▫teaching

•Contrasted to representations▫memorials ▫museum exhibits▫textbooks ▫murals

Locating Social Memory

•May or may not be explicitly linked to historical events

•Understanding an individual’s world rather than asking direct questions about “remembering”▫Ask a memory question, get a memory answer

•Difficult (I don’t claim to have located memory in Northern Ireland yet!)

About the Present

•Shapes present day identities (Olick and Robbins 1998).

•Social memory can be malleable or persistent (Olick and Robbins1998). ▫Why does it change or stay the same?

•Memory also reflects society’s aspirations for the future. It is “both a mirror and a lamp—a model of and a model for society” (Olick and Robbins 1998, 124).

“The memory practices that take place in individuals’ everyday lives reveal which memories are salient, have meaning, and influence citizens’ actions and thinking. For some, practices of social memory might be considered as “culture” or “identity.” But these concepts, unlike social memory, do not adequately capture the act of remembering...” (Worden 24, 2014)

Social Memory

A positive force? A negative force? Or maintaining the status quo?

Social Memory and Education“If part of the state’s aim, therefore, is to create a sense of shared values and ideals, then it will

also be the state’s aim to create a sense of common memory, as foundation for unified

polis” (Young 2003, 6).

• Public schools can reflect social memory through official curricula and symbols yet not static spaces.

• Schools are an ideal place to study memory.

Northern Ireland

Fulbright Scholar Award with Ulster UniversitySeptember 2014 – January 2015 (5 months)Mapping the landscape

Data and Methods▫Interviews with 13 teachers (3 maintained

grammar, 2 controlled grammar, 2 controlled secondary, 1 maintained secondary, 1 integrated)

▫Approximately 28 hours of school observation not including time spent for interviews (classes, lunch with teachers, teachers' lounge, etc. )

▫Interviews with 5 curriculum specialists

Citizenship Education after Conflict

•Citizenship education (often aligned with history teaching) is used as a tool by governments and international organizations to establish and promote:▫transitional justice▫social reconciliation ▫tolerance, peace, and stability

(see, for example, Cole 2007; Cole and Baraslou 2006; Cole and Murphy 2011; Freedman et al. 2008; McCully 2010; Paulson 2009; Pingel 2008; Smith 2005)

Citizenship Ed in Northern Ireland

• Education for Local and Global Citizenship▫Part of Learning for Life and Work (LLW)▫Part of the Revised Curriculum▫How and when it is taught depends on individual

schools▫Teachers have great autonomy in choosing

materials

How have teachers’ responded to the new curriculum? And how might their everyday lives and attitudes affect how and what they teach in the classroom? And social memory?

VERY Initial Findings Across the separate schools, teachers had more in common than not1. Consistent feeling that the current political

and social structures undermine what they are trying to achieve in the classroom

2. Concern about current government stalemate3. Belief that Northern Ireland is not truly

democratic (yet?)4. Some felt that politicians are fixated on the

past

Factoring in Social Memory

•Is it social memory that makes teachers feel hemmed in by political and social structures?▫If so, why do they continue to feel this way? ▫What is it in their everyday life that reinforces

this feeling and/or memory?▫Or is it an excuse for inaction?

Implications & Discussion

Matters for the classroom because teachers transmit messages to their students.

• How can you teach citizenship (in the context of building social cohesion, tolerance, and understanding) if you think political and social structures undermine your work?

• How can you teach your students about democracy or to be democratic when you might not have clear models of it?

• How do you encourage healthy debate about government without cynicism?

Discussion

•Do the conditions need to be “right” for teaching citizenship in post-conflict contexts? ▫If not, how can teachers square what

happens outside the classroom with what happens inside?

Works Cited• Cole, Elizabeth A. 2007. Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation.

Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.• Cole, Elizabeth, and Judy Barsalou. 2006. “Unite or Divide? The Challenges of Teaching

History in Societies Emerging from Violent Conflict.” Special Report 163. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace.

• Cole, Elizabeth and Karen Murphy. 2011. “History Education Reform, Transitional Justice, and the Transformation of Identities.” In Identities in Transition: Challenges for Transitional Justice in Divided Societies, edited by Paige Arthur, 334-367. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Freedman, Sarah Warshauer, Harvey M. Weinstein, Karen Murphy, and Timothy Longman. 2008. “Teaching History after Identity-Based Conflicts: The Rwanda Experience.” Comparative Education Review 52: 663–90.

• Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. On Collective Memory. 1st ed. University Of Chicago Press.• Olick,J. and Robbins, J. 1998. Social Memory Studies: From "Collective Memory" to the

Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices. Annual Review of Sociology 24: 105-40.• ______. 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship.

Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Luke, Carmen, Suzanne de Castell, and Allan Luke. 1989. “Beyond Criticism: The Authority

of the School Textbook.” In Language, Authority, and Criticism: Readings on the School Textbook, edited by Suzanne de Castell, Allan Luke, and Carmen Luke, 245–60. New York: Falmer Press.

• Mantilla, Martha. 2001. “Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Participation in Policy Choices: The Bottom-Up Approach of the Nueva Escuela Unitaria in Guatemala.” In Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy, edited by M. Sutton and B. Levinson, 123–44. Westport, CT: Ablex.

Works Cited cont. • McCully, Alan. 2010. “What Role for History Teaching in Transitional Justice Process

for Deeply Divided Societies?” In Contemporary Public Debates of History Education, edited by Irene Nakou and Isabel Barca, 169–84. Charlotte, NC: IAP–Information Age Publishing.

• Paxson, Margaret. 2005. Solovyovo: The Story of Memory in a Russian Village. Indiana University Press.

• Smith, Margaret Eastman. 2005. Reckoning with the Past: Teaching History in Northern Ireland. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

• Street, Susan. 2001. “When Policies Become Pedagogy: Oppositional Discourse as Policy in Mexican Teachers’ Struggles for Union Democracy.” In Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy, edited by M. Sutton and B. Levinson, 145–66. Westport, CT: Ablex.

• Worden, Elizabeth 2014. National Identity and Education Reform: Contest Classrooms. New York: Routledge.