NCSS presentation by Alan Sears

1. Reimagining
Communities: Meeting the
Challenge of Fostering
National Belonging in a
Globalized World
Alan Sears
University of New Brunswick
asears@unb.ca

2. The Cohesion Crisis
‘We have to face uncomfortable facts
that while the British response to July 7th
was remarkable, they were British
citizens, British born apparently
integrated into our communities who
were prepared to maim and kill fellow
British citizens irrespective of their own
religion.’
Gordon Brown

3. The Cohesion Crisis
Almost all democratic
societies are faced with
concerns about citizens
who have not integrated
well into either the generic
processes of democracy
or their particular national
expressions of it

4. The Cohesion Crisis
‘Multiculturalism is not a Quebec value.
It may be a Canadian one but it is not a
Quebec one.’
Louise Beaudoin
Parti Québécois Critic for Secularism
January 2011

5. Responses
Netherlands – strengthening of compulsory
history requirements in school around a new
cannon of Dutch history
China – the rehabilitation of traditional
Chinese values: Confucius comes to
Tiananmen
England – the teaching of ‘Britishness’
‘Young people understand less then they should about how our
democracy works, the forces which have shaped it and its
values, history and heritage; in short, what we understand by
“Britishness” in the contemporary world.’ Ofsted, 2007

6. The Challenge
‘We face a challenge unprecedented in our
history: creation of a powerful political ethic
of solidarity self-consciously grounded on
the presence and acceptance of very
different views.’
Charles Taylor, 2010
The Globe and Mail

7. Imagining and Reimagining
Community

8. Central Arguments
 We have abused national history as a vehicle for imagining
the nation in inherently conservative and assimilationist
ways.
 In our retreat from assimilationist approaches to history
education we have created a generic citizenship education
that pays insufficient attention to national context.
 The nation state remains a central context for civic identity
and action and therefore attention to it is essential in civic
education.
 New work in both history and citizenship education points a
way forward for an inclusive reimainging of national
communities.

9. Creating Canadians
‘The aim of public schools in English Canada was to
create a homogeneous nation built on a common
English language, a common culture, a common
identification with the British Empire and an
acceptance of British institutions and practices.’
Rosa Bruno-Joffre
‘Practically all students I tested, from Grade 11 to
the university level, used a narrative that is, in a
way, traditional. It refers to the timeless quest of
Québécois, poor alienated people, for emancipation
from their oppressors.’ Jocelyn Létourneau

10. Creating Canadians
Conquering Pioneers
The Bilingual-Bicultural Reality
The Pluralist Ideal
Alan Sears
Canadian history has been a British and French Fabric that has
been permitted to be decorated with diversity. We need a
reweaving of the fabric -- not the addition of new decoration.
Roberta Jamieson
CEO, National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation

11. Creating Canadians
Bad history, badly taught
Students were ‘bench bound listeners’
learning a ‘bland consensus version of
history.’
A.B. Hodgetts
‘The proper role for historians, Howard rightly says, is to
challenge and even explode national myths.’
Margaret MacMillan

12. Nothingness: Generic
Approaches to Citizenship
Education
‘Central to this is an activist conception of
citizenship in which every citizen, or group of
citizens, will have the knowledge, skills and
dispositions needed to participate in the civic life of
the country and feel welcome to do so. It is
important to note, that what citizens are being
included in is not citizenship in the ethnic or
sociological sense of belonging to a community but,
rather, they are being included in the community of
those who participate, who join in a process.’
Alan Sears, Ian Davies and Alan Reid

13. The Failure of Nothingness
‘Major international events, such as 11
September 2001 and the London
bombings in July 2005, have
contributed to the debate on community
cohesion and shared values. In the
wake of these events, community
cohesion is a key focus for the
Government’
Diversity and Citizenship Curriculum Review, England, 2007

14. The Educational Challenge
How can education foster a sense of
national belonging and social cohesion
without reverting to the assimilationist
approaches of the past?

15. The False Dichotomy
“Since its inception in school curriculum in the
late 19th century, history education has served
two very different purposes. On the one hand,
it has served to form and sustain a cohesive
sense of national identity and affiliation in the
citizens of the nation-states. On the other
hand, it has served to foster in citizens a
critical understanding of their society’s past
and present.”
Mario Carretero,Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

16. A Way Forward
We Must Pay Attention to the National
Context
1. ‘While there are common or generic aspects to
democratic citizenship that exist across jurisdictions, it is
most often lived out on the ground in specific contexts
that give it both form and function.’
2. Nation states ‘remain key sites for the formation of
identity and the exercise of citizenship.’
Theodore Christou and Alan Sears

17. A Way Forward
There must be a rapprochement between
history and citizenship education.
‘The war between history and citizenship education is in
many ways a false one. . . it is in every way
counterproductive to developing substantive and
demonstrably sound approaches to social education.’
Alan Sears

18. Reimagining Community
Together
We must engage students as co-authors of
the imagined nation.
‘We advocate involving students in the process of
constructing the meaning of democratic ideas for their own
time and place. In other words, not telling them what it
means to be Australian, Canadian or English but introducing
them, in an informed way, to the discussion of what those
identities have been, are, and might be in the future.”
Theodore Christou and Alan Sears

19. Reimagining Community
Together
‘Students overwhelmingly appreciated the
opportunity to study history that was
contested, changeable, and not restricted to
core national knowledge.’
Anna Clark

20. What Makes Our Time
Different?
The Scope of Consensus
Research Base: Cognitive Change; History
Education; Citizenship Education
Clear Delineation of Conceptual and Procedural
Knowledge
Development of Quality Materials to Support Good
Teaching
The Development of Substantive Assessment
Strategies
Development of Cross Boundary Collaborative
Partnerships

21. The Research Base
 How children and young
people understand the
history of their nations or
communities – Levstik,
Barton, Létourneau, Clark
 How teachers construct the
nation – Fadden
 How students’ identities
shape their understandings
of their nations’ histories –
Peck, Osler

22. Tools for Reimagining: Well
Delineated Concepts and Processes
Drawn from the work of
Peter Seixas, Carla
Peck, Penney Clark,
Mike Denos and
Roland Case

23. Tools for Reimagining: Well
Delineated Concepts and Processes

24. Tools for Reimagining: Substantive
and Useable Teaching Materials

25. Tools for Reimagining: Teaching
Approaches Focused on Cognitive
Change

26. Tools for Reimagining: Teaching
Approaches Focused on Cognitive
Change
http://historybenchmarks.ca/

27. Tools for Reimagining:
Substantive Assessments
Stanford History Education Group

28. Tools for Reimagining: Collaborative
Partnerships
http://www.thenhier.ca/

29. Thank You