Citizens of the World

AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT in the

observed space of a
classroom, with the
acknowledged power of the
language of the dominant, who
are the tourists and who are
Creating Citizens of the
World…
 “The man (person) who finds
his homeland sweet is still a
tender beginner; he (she) to
whom every soil is as his
(her) native one is already
strong; but he (she) is
perfect to whom the entire
world is as a foreign land.”
 Edward Said, Representations of the
Intellectual
Becoming Citizens of the
World
 Nussbaum… “Becoming a citizen of the
world is often a lonely business. It
is, in effect, a kind of exile-from the
comfort of assured truths, from the warm
nestling feeling of being surrounded by
people who share one’s convictions and
passions. In the writings of Marcus
Aurelius (as in those of his American
followers Emerson and Thoreau) one
sometimes feels a boundless loneliness,
as if the removal of the props of habit
and convention, the decision to trust no
authority but moral reasoning, had left
 “If one begins life as a child who loves
and trusts its parents, it is tempting
to want to reconstruct citizenship along
the same lines, finding in an idealized
image of nation or leader a surrogate
parent who will do our thinking for us.
It is up to us as educators, to show our
students the beauty and interest of a
life that is open to the whole world…
 (continued)
 “…to show them that there is after all
more joy in the kind of citizenship that
questions than in the kind that simply
applauds, more fascination in the study
of human beings in all their real
variety and complexity than in the
zealous pursuit of superficial
stereotypes, more genuine love and
friendship in the life of questioning
and self-government than in submission
to authority. We had better show them
this, or the future of democracy in this
nation and in the world is bleak.”
 How do we as educators:
…challenge our students to think of themselves as
migrants, as exiles, as the dislocated, as the
‘other’

…challenge our students to read and view not

strictly as outsiders looking in OR as
privileged insiders

… challenge our students to think of classroom

spaces as the shared world, a space where we are
creating knowledge and sharing power, not a
space in which we are just reproducing the
existing social class “power” relations…
How do we as educators…

 …avoid aiding/empowering the

status quo?
 …avoid “celebrating social
injustice” by lending “approval”
to those with cultural capital?
(Julie Bettie - Women Without
Class)
 …avoid perpetuating symbolic
violence?
Power in the classroom…
 Gee, James Paul…think of cultural
models like movies or videotapes
in the mind…we all have a vast
store…we take these events and
consider them “normal” or “real”
 - (ex. bachelor)
 …these cultural models tend to
limit our perception of
differences and new possibilities…
Social Linguistics and Literacy
Power in the classroom…

 Gee (on Paulo Freire and literacy)

“No name is more closely
associated with emancipatory
literacy than that of Paulo
Freire. Like Bakhtin and Plato,
Freire believes that literacy
empowers people only when it
renders them active questioners of
the social reality around them”
(Social Linguistics and Literacies
Power in the classroom…
 Martha C. Nussbaum…people from diverse
backgrounds sometimes have difficulty
recognizing one another as fellow
citizens…actions and motives do not
always receive a patient effort of
interpretation….
 …the task of world citizenship requires
the would-be world citizen to become a
sensitive and empathic interpreter…
education at all ages should cultivate
this skill - Cultivating Humanity
Power in the classroom…

 Swartz on Bourdieu…”Bourdieu
maintains that the educational
system - more than the family,
church, or business firm - has
become the institution most
responsible for the transmission
of social inequality in modern
societies” (Culture and Power
190).
Power in the classroom…
 Lang on Bourdieu…“The role of
school in the reproduction of
social space has been closely
examined by Bourdieu…and
encapsulated in the formula ‘…
school transforms those who
inherit into those who merit’ …
linguistic capital plays a
principal role…those who possess
the linguistic skills required
(will be selected)
Power in the classroom…

 Gee… “In interaction with more

advanced peers and adults,
children learn to use language to
take new perspectives on
experience, but they may not
question those perspectives very
deeply…in dialogue with equals,
children appear to compare and
contrast perspectives more deeply
and reflectively” (Situated
Language and Learning 55).
Power in the classroom…
 Bauman…”Vagabonds are travellers
refused the right to turn into
tourists (93)…the vagabond is the
alter ego of the tourist…the
tourist’s most ardent admirer (94)
…the life of tourists would not be
half as enjoyable…were there no
vagabonds to show what the
alternative to that life…would be
like” (Globalization 98).
Power in the classroom…
 “According to Foucault, ‘Power is
everywhere; not because it
embraces everything, but because
it comes from everywhere (93)…
power and knowledge are joined
together (and exist in discourse
because knowledge represents the
values of those who are powerful
enough to create and circulate
them)” (History of Sexuality)
Power in the classroom…
 Bourdieu… “At the risk of feeling
themselves out of place,
individuals who move into a new
space must fulfill the conditions
that that space tacitly requires
of its occupants. This may be the
possession of a certain cultural
capital, the lack of which can
prevent the real appropriation of
supposedly public goods or even
the intention of appropriating
Power in the classroom…
 Bauman… “The old Big Brother was
preoccupied with inclusion -
integration, getting people into
line and keeping them there. The
new Bir Brother’s concern is
exclusion - spotting the people
who ‘do not fit’ into the place
they are in banishing them form
that place and deporting them
‘where they belong,’ or getter
still never allowing the to come
Power in the classroom…

 Bourdieu… “No one can deny

that the school plays a
crucial role in the
distribution of knowledge and
know-how…but it is equally
clear that it also
contributes…to the
distribution of power and
privilege and to the
legitimation of this
…What is visible and what invisible in the
texts?
a) electronic and print media
b) entertainment - television, film
c) visual arts
d) literature / “story”
e) across the disciplines
…Are we building an
“interculturalism” curriculum for world
citizenship?
Power in the classroom…

 …always in motion
 …may be positive
 …visible and non-visible
 …must be recognized and shared
in the “privileged space” of
the
classroom