Identities and Agency: Culture, Gender, and Resistance

Identities and Agency: Culture, Gender, and Resistance

Purposes and Standpoints

            Fine-Meyer & Llewellyn examine the Canadian context of gender studies development from the 1960s to now, across both higher education and the Ontario Ministry of Education. They argue that despite the progress made in Canada towards gender equity, and despite the international perception of Canada as being a progressive country with regards to women’s rights, the Ontario education system still does not adequately address or integrate gender studies. Fine-Meyer & Llewellyn note that this deficit is particularly egregious in social studies education. Their review of Ministry policy over several decades reveals that must curricula do not represent women in any meaningful way, despite the fact that education policy since the 1980s has made this a requirement. One factor in this disparity is the “Common Sense Revolution” of the Mike Harris PC government, which removed equity officers from school boards and put the onus of representation on independent publishers. They note that the increase in networking of the 2000s has allowed women in education to connect, share resources, and raise awareness of intersectional issues in education; however, the authors indicate that there are still significant gaps in gender equality in social science curricula.

          

      Kubow uses the Xhosa term ubuntu as an epistemological lens through which to critique citizenship education, particularly in the context of Xhosa township schools outside of Cape Town, South Africa. She contrasts the Western tradition of citizenship as individualism with the Xhosa tradition of citizenship as communal responsibility and respect. Kubow’s interviews with Xhosa teachers in the townships, over a period of 10 years, leads her to posit the “hybridity” of citizenship – the cultural flows and interactions between globalism and nationalism, tradition and modernity, Western and non-Western.

       

     Pan’s research on university students in Hong Kong draws attention to the shifting concepts of citizenship before and after the Umbrella Movement. Mixed methods studies conducted before the civil unrest, and 2 years after it, show a marked decline in civic engagement and satisfaction. She notes that after the Movement, the Chinese national government more strictly monitored and enforced their prescribed, nationalistic and identity-based version of citizenship education. This ran counter to what Hongkongers wanted from their education; as a result, they felt more alienated from their government, less able to make informed decisions as citizens, and more willing to leave Hong Kong. From this, Pan surmises that concepts of citizenship cannot be imposed top-down, but can be socially constructed.

Theory and Evidence

            Fine-Meyer & Llewellyn review literature, policy, and public sentiment regarding feminism and gender studies from the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s to current postulations. Kubow interviewed 87 teachers at the primary and secondary levels, representing one-quarter of all 12 schools in the townships. These interviews ranged from 45-75 minutes, involved teachers with a range of experience from 1 to 30 years, and engaged teachers of all subjects. Pan’s mixed method approach used a qualitative hermeneutical study of policy documents combined with two sets of semi-structured interviews and surveys. The first survey, prior to the Umbrella Movement uprisings, had a return rate of 82% from the over 2,600 that were sent out. The second survey was conducted in a more limited fashion due to the increased pressure from the Chinese mainland government; as such, only 400 were given out, of which 75% were returned.

           

Comparison and Synthesis

            What struck me about the Fine-Meyer & Llewellyn and Pan articles was that they each, in their own way, addressed Kubow’s study of ubuntu in citizenship education. Kubow describes ubuntu as communal respect for race, culture, language, and generation, built in to the understanding of what it means to be a citizen in relationship to others – summarized by the phrase, “a person is a person through others”. Fine-Meyer & Llewellyn systematically showed the history of progression towards and regression from the inclusion of gender equity in the Ontario curriculum, outlining how women and people of non-male genders have been kept in the “outer domain” of citizenship that Kubow describes. Similarly, Pan’s research outlines the results of clashes between competing ideologies of citizenship. University students in Hong Kong attempted to move from the “outer domain” of exclusion to the “inner domain” of local – that is, mainland Chinese - culture through protest and demonstration; when met with resistance and defeat, they retreated even further than the “outer domain” towards not identifying as citizens at all. These authors show how the process of democratic exclusion, stemming from a fundamental lack of respect for those outside traditional positions of power, push those on the margins of citizenship even further away from meaningful participation. The actions of the state in the case of Ontario and mainland China both show what happens when ubuntu is not present in education policy.

Applications and “So What” ?

            In recent years there have been a variety of causes célèbres, given widespread platforms through social media, that reflect a deep-rooted disassociation between the state and its citizens – Black Lives Matter, Idle No More, March for Our Lives, the Arab Spring, the Yellow Vests movement, and the current Wet’suwet’en pipeline protests. These movements, and others, are enacted by groups who feel that they have either been ignored, victimized, and disrespected by the state for too long. I notice this macro-level instability on the micro-level of the school as well. As a teacher whose interests lie in student voice and mental health, I have heard countless students describe their high school experience as something more akin to a prison sentence than an opportunity to thrive. Years of anecdotal evidence shows me that students feel less and less connected to their school communities, their peers, and their teachers, and that this sense of disassociation results in feelings of disrespect. The idea of respect – whether framed as ubuntu, equity, social justice, culturally responsive pedagogy, or something else – needs to be visually and vocally embedded in our education system, from policy makers all the way through to classroom communities.

           

WORKS CITED

Fine-Meyer, Rose, & Llewellyn, Kristina. (2018). Women Rarely Worthy of Study: A History of Curriculum Reform in Ontario Education. Historical Studies in Education/ Revue d’histoire de l’éducation, 31(1), 54-68.

Kubow, Patricia. (2018). Exploring Western and non-Western epistemological influences in South Africa: theorising a critical democratic citizenship education. Compare, 48(3), 349-361. doi:10.1080/03057925.2017.1305881

Pan, Suyan. (2019). Identity, civic engagement, and learning about citizenship: university students’ experiences in Hong Kong. Compare([online first]), 20. doi:10.1080/03057925.2019.1687286