Citizenship education in Singapore: controlling or empowering teacher understanding and practice?

Teachers understand and apply citizenship education differentially in traditional western democracies. But what of Asian countries where democracy is more recent and treated differently and where countries have traditions of highly controlled education systems? Do teachers have and demonstrate indep...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oxford review of education 2009-12, Vol.35 (6), p.705-723
Main Authors: Sim, Jasmine B-Y., Print, Murray
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case Studies
Citizen participation
Citizens
Citizenship
Citizenship Education
Civic education
Civil society
Classroom Observation Techniques
Curricula
Democracy
Education
Educational Practices
Educational research
Empowerment
Foreign Countries
Government
Individual development
Interviews
Nationalism
Professional autonomy
Secondary education
Singapore
Social justice
Social Studies
Social studies education
Social studies learning
Teacher Attitudes
Teacher Empowerment
Teacher evaluations
Teachers
Teaching
Units of study
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Summary:Teachers understand and apply citizenship education differentially in traditional western democracies. But what of Asian countries where democracy is more recent and treated differently and where countries have traditions of highly controlled education systems? Do teachers have and demonstrate independence of thought in civic matters? This article reports on a study of social studies teachers' understandings of citizenship education, and how these understandings influence their teaching. We found that teacher understandings and practice of citizenship education were located in three distinct groupings, characterised as nationalistic, socially concerned and person oriented. This reflected a citizenship education landscape in Singapore that, despite tight controls, was not as rigid, prescriptive or homogenous as literature on the Asian region suggests.
ISSN:0305-4985
1465-3915
DOI:10.1080/03054980903141549