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Introduction

The definition, framing, and implementation of global citizenship education varies significantly across different national contexts in large part because of the considerable diversity in how nation-states experience and respond to the forces of globalization. While some nation-states react in ways that seem to emphasize the convergent effects of the economic, political, and cultural impact of globalization, others have adopted a more selective and exceptional approach. These disparate national responses to globalization greatly influence how the discourses of global citizenship are articulated by the state, and this in turn affects the nature and structure of the global citizenship education curriculum. Consequently, conceptions of global citizenship education can vary significantly, and these can include developing the capacity to participate in different local and global communities, learning about global issues, taking social and political action , becoming globally competitive, and emphasizing information technology and global connectivity (Gaudelli 2016).

While there have been a significant range of research studies highlighting various approaches to global citizenship education in Europe, Australasia , and North America , relatively little attention has been paid to how East and Southeast Asian countries conceptualize and define global citizenship education. In this chapter, East Asia is defined as including China , Japan , South Korea , Hong Kong, and Taiwan, while the region of Southeast Asia is defined as the 10 ASEAN countries (Indonesia , Malaysia , Thailand , Singapore , Brunei , Vietnam , Cambodia , Laos , Myanmar , the Philippines , and East Timor ). Given the number of countries in these two regions, I focus my attention on several case studies that represent a range of historical, political, economic, social, and religious contexts found in these two regions, namely China , Japan, South Korea , Hong Kong, Indonesia , Malaysia, and Singapore .

In this chapter, I highlight some of the significant exogenous and endogenous conditions that help shape East and Southeast Asian countries’ responses to globalization, show how the different historical, cultural, religious, political, and economic contexts of these countries both frame and define global citizenship, and determine whether particular discourses of global citizenship education found in the curriculum are strong or marginalized .

Historical, Political, Economic, and Social Contexts

The diverse historical, economic, religious, and political circumstances of the countries in East and Southeast Asia pose a significant challenge to any scholar who seeks to make generalizations, draw parallels to, or identify trends for these two geographical regions . Indeed, the divergent experiences and historical settings of countries within each region further contribute to the complicated nature of the endeavor. For instance, South Korea , Japan , and Taiwan are East Asian states with advanced economies, shared Confucian heritage, relatively homogenous cultures , and moderately democratic systems. In contrast to Japan and Korea, however, Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s national priorities are particularly affected by their political relationships with China . Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia , Indonesia , the Philippines , and Thailand , on the other hand, are less economically developed, more religious, more ethnically diverse, and less democratic. A highly developed and ethnically diverse Southeast Asian country like Singapore , however, has political, economic, and historical characteristics that overlap with countries in both regions.

The countries within the East and Southeast Asian regions can be categorized using different ethno-cultural, geographical, political, and historical criteria. Politically, much of East and Southeast Asia (with the exception of Japan) has historically been shaped by what Diamond (2011) calls “developmental authoritarianism ” (p. 301). Similarly, Thompson (2004) identified different types of “developmental dictatorships” in countries such as South Korea, Thailand , Indonesia , Malaysia , and the Philippines . The dominant political parties from these countries derived their political legitimacy from rapid and sustained economic development and generally, these political regimes prioritized economic efficiency above democratic goals. More recently, however, countries in the region such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have established liberal democratic systems while other countries such as Singapore and Malaysia becoming “at least a mixed and progressing set of systems” (Diamond 2011, p. 301).

Economically, East Asian countries number among the most successful, technologically advanced, and industrialized nation-states in the world although in Southeast Asia, countries such as Myanmar , Cambodia , Laos , and East Timor still struggle economically. In terms of religious history , Malaysia , Brunei , and Indonesia have strong Islamic historical traditions, whereas the Catholic Church has historically dominated much of East Timor and the Philippines. Different variants of Buddhism , in addition, greatly influence two separate groups of countries: (1) Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia ; and (2) Vietnam , Singapore, Japan , South Korea , Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China . Notably, the latter group of countries is also deeply influenced by Confucianism and various forms of Chinese folk religion .

In spite of the significant differences highlighted above, the countries in the two geographical regions appear to share two approaches to the emergent pressures of globalization: (1) the appropriation of globalization for nationalist and economic goals; and (2) the (re)definition of national identity .

Appropriation of Globalization for Nationalist Economic Goals

A significant proportion of East and Southeast Asian research studies and publications on global citizenship education emphasize the importance of the nation-state’s ability to compete for and thrive amidst global competition for resources and technology . Because most of the countries in East and Southeast Asia have had historical experiences of authoritarianism and‚ in many cases, still maintain highly centralized political systems, these nation-states have sought to manage the impact of globalization by initiating top-down national strategic plans.

The use of national strategic plans and the resultant increase in focus on economic nationalism has manifested itself in distinctive ways in different countries. For instance, South Korea’s segyewha globalization drive initiated by President Kim Young Sam in the mid-1990s was an attempt to fundamentally restructure the country ’s institutions in order to display “national pride to the globalized world ” (Sung et al. 2013, p. 289). Notably , the policy of economic globalization , especially after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, also displaced previous national policies that emphasized national security issues and traditional Confucian values (Moon and Koo 2011), and focused more on achieving economic success while concurrently promoting Korean culture and values (Sun et al. 2013).

Likewise, the Malaysian government’s attempt to transform and modernize the country has resulted in new education philosophies, including one that would “produce and provide the right mix of human capital to meet market needs at all levels” (Malakolunthu and Rengasamy 2012, p. 153). Notably, the goal of the National Vision (Wawasan) 2020 articulated by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed in 1991 aimed to establish “a world-class education system that would be dedicated to producing a world-class workforce” (p. 154). More recently, the 2006 Ninth Malaysian Plan further emphasized the importance of human capital development for national dominance. The main purpose of the plan, according to Balakrishnan (2010), was to “stabilize the process of developing human capital comprehensively and continuously so that the output achieved is capable of fulfilling local and international needs as well as stabilizing Malaysia’s position in the global arena” (p. 92).

Other states such as Japan , Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines have also attempted to gain advantages in the global market by focusing on economic nationalism (Sung et al. 2013). Taiwan and Hong Kong, for instance , sought to incorporate global dimensions of citizenship such as the acquisition of English language skills and information technology knowledge (Law 2004). Similarly, within China , scholars such as Lee and Ho (2005) pointed out that the rise the socialist market economy , accompanied by significant economic reform, political shifts, and social upheavals, have required the Chinese state to reconceptualize the role, responsibilities , and moral qualities of citizens. In a similar vein, Zhu and Camicia (2014) called attention to several dominant discourses within China , including nationalism , cosmopolitanism , and neoliberalism . They argued that the discourse of neoliberalism, defined as the “cultivation of competitive producers and consumers,” has become a significant element of a conception of socialist citizenship (p. 48).

(Re)Defining National Identity: Inclusion or Exclusion

In this section, I explore how the pressures of globalization , especially global migration flows, have also compelled some of the East and Southeast Asian nation-states to redefine their national identities and to reconceptualize the fundamental nature of what it means to be a South Korean, Japanese, Singaporean, or Malaysian citizen. In general, countries with founding myths or constitutive stories that emphasize the fundamentally ethnically and culturally diverse origins of the nation-state respond in significantly different ways to the forces of globalization compared to countries with dominant historical narratives that highlight ethnic or cultural homogeneity.

South Korea and Japan , for instance, are examples of nation-states that face numerous tensions in terms of how they choose to define their national identities. For example, in South Korea, a pervasive founding myth articulated in social studies textbooks prior to 2007 stressed the homogeneity of the Korean peoples: “Korea consists of one ethnic group. We, Koreans, look similar and use the same language (Mo 2009, cited in Moon 2010, p. 4). The increasing number of transnational migrants workers and international marriages between Korean citizens and migrants especially from Southeast Asia, however, has compelled the South Korean government to move away from what Moon (2010) characterizes as “mono-ethnicism” and move towards incorporating ideas of cultural diversity and multiculturalism into the school curriculum. Similarly, Japan’s society has been transformed by a significant increase in the number of new immigrants from the Philippines , Brazil , China , and other countries in large part because of a declining birth rate and an aging society. As a result, citizenship education has been changed to place less emphasis on nationalism and the idea of an ethnically homogenous nation (Fujiwara 2011).

Unlike Japan and South Korea, countries such as Malaysia , Indonesia , and Singapore emphasize cultural pluralism in their constitutive stories and founding myths. In Singapore and Malaysia, for example, successive governments have promoted a “mosaic model ” through the development of what Hill and Lian (1995) call an ethnic-national identity (p. 95). This hyphenated national identity recognizes and accepts the cultural practices of diverse groups while concurrently instilling a common national identity premised on ethnic diversity (Hashim and Tan 2009). In order to develop a shared national identity premised on cultural pluralism , the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore established sets of national principles or values that define the nation-state called Pancasila , Rukunegara , and Our Shared Values , respectively. The ethnically inclusive nature of these national ideologies thus provides a significantly different political and social framework for countries such as Malaysia and Singapore to address the issues and tensions brought about by global cultural currents and transnational migration flows (Ho 2009).

Educational Contexts and Global Citizenship Education

In this section, I highlight several significant trends and discourses in global citizenship education, drawing particularly on examples from Singapore, Japan , South Korea , Taiwan, Hong Kong, China , Malaysia , and Indonesia . Taken together, these eight countries represent a range of historical, economic, religious, linguistic, social, geographical, educational, and political contexts that will help the reader better understand how countries have chosen to construct and enact global citizenship education.

Using frame and discourse analysis (Benford and Snow 2000; Wodak and Meyer 2001), I consider how particular discourses are especially dominant in different contexts and I examine how these discourses reinforce certain pedagogical or curricular practices while concurrently diminishing the impact of others. Benford and Snow (2000) define frames and collective action frames in the following manner: “Frames help to render events or occurrences meaningful and thereby function to organize experience and guide action… Collective action frames are action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and campaigns of a social movement organization” (p. 614). I employ these definitions to examine how political actors in each context articulate and utilize problem, solution, and motivational frames that resonate with certain audiences in order to advance their goals (Parker 2011). For instance, within the USA, Parker (2011) identified particular discourses that dominated the International Education movement including strong discourses such as national security. Advocates of International Education positioned the movement as a solution for an important problem caused by globalization —the need to maintain the country’s competitive edge in a globalized world. In this example, the maintenance of economic competitiveness was framed as a national security problem and a solution, International Education, was thus proposed. Concurrently, discourses such as global perspectives and cosmopolitanism were marginalized in the movement.

General Trends: Increasing Focus on Global Citizenship Education

In general, research studies seem to indicate an increasing interest in global citizenship education within school curricula in East and Southeast Asia. For instance, in Hong Kong, global citizenship education was first introduced in the 1998 secondary school curriculum guidelines and its aim was to promote consciousness of transnational issues such as global ecology , and to “help students think more globally… and produce citizens of the world” (Law 2004, p. 259). The education reforms of the 2000s also saw global citizenship themes included in subjects such as Integrated Humanities , the new Moral and Civic Education framework , and in Liberal Studies (Chong 2015). Similarly, the Taiwanese government has also sought to promote global citizenship within school curricula since 2001. Students are expected to develop values such as social interdependence and mutual trust, acquire knowledge of international issues, and see the world as a “global village” (Law 2004, p. 259). The government in China has also revised its citizenship curriculum in response to globalization. For instance, in the early 2000s, the primary and secondary curriculum shifted from its original focus on socialist collectivism to one that was multidimensional and comprised different domains including self, family, nation, and the world (Law 2014). Lee and Ho (2005) also highlighted a similar shift in focus within moral education and emphasized how the subject has gradually been oriented toward the development of a “global perspective” and preparing China to “become a more integrated member of the globalized world” (p. 428). This global perspective, according to the authors, consisted of several elements including global awareness (e.g., understanding interdependence, peaceful development), global knowledge (e.g., current international issues), global skills and values (e.g., human rights), and global behavior (participating in activities that to promote global justice ).

Likewise, research suggests that citizenship education in South Korea , especially within the school subjects of social studies and ethics , has become significantly less nationalistic. Moon and Koo (2011), for instance, conducted an analysis of social studies and civics textbooks at all grade levels starting from the Fourth National Curriculum (1981–1986) to the Eighth National Curriculum (2007–present). The researchers identified major national and global themes and counted the number of keywords mentioned. The researchers also classified themes as national or global depending on their context within the text. For instance, democracy was framed largely as a national value within South Korean civics texts in the 1980s because it was used to disparage the North Korean communist regime. In general, the researchers found that South Korean citizenship education has shifted from promoting loyal citizens of the nation-state towards a notion of a citizen that is “human rights-bearing, globally minded, (and) cosmopolitan… with a sense of collective responsibility as members of a common humanity” (Moon and Koo 2011, p. 394).

The same trends can also be observed in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia . In Indonesia , Kalidjenih (2005) observed that the Kurikulum 2004: Mata Pelajaran Kewarganegaraan (Curriculum 2004: Citizenship Education ) launched in 2004 included new topics such as human rights , globalization, and regional autonomy . Similarly, in Malaysia, the revised Moral Education syllabus introduced in 2000 accorded more attention to the Vision 2020 goal of “global community building” and aimed to develop “responsible individuals of high moral standards who are able to contribute to the peace and harmony of the country and the global community ” (Balakrishnan 2010, p. 98).

Human Rights Education as a Strong Discourse

Overall, human rights appears to be a strong discourse within global citizenship education in East and Southeast Asian countries, albeit with several notable exceptions particularly in countries with less democratic political systems. In South Korea, researchers observed that the use of global citizenship education themed words including human rights increased significantly from the 1990s and 2000s, potentially signifying a “fundamental change in the nature of civics education in Korea ” (Moon and Koo 2011, p. 587). Even though social studies and ethics textbooks are still dominated by national citizenship themes, researchers found that global citizenship themes were accorded more attention in the later iterations of the textbooks, especially after the mid-1990s. Interestingly, the authors attributed the strong discourse of human rights within South Korean citizenship education to local developments such as the efforts of South Korean civil society groups to introduce human rights education especially after the presidential election of Kim Dae-jung. These non-governmental organizations, together with other international non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations, sought to identify anti-human rights context in existing textbooks and advocated for the inclusion of more human rights content in the new curriculum standards (Moon and Koo 2011).

In Malaysia , of the seven learning areas in the 2000 Moral Education syllabus for secondary schools, one learning area is dedicated to human rights, including “protection of children’s rights, respect for women’s rights, protection of labor rights, respect for rights of the disabled, and protection of consumers’ rights” (Balakrishnan 2010, p. 99). Likewise, in Indonesia , the Curriculum 2004: Citizenship Education for secondary students explicitly addresses the topic of human rights and students are expected to learn about international agreements such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to learn how international institutions protect human rights. The 2004 curriculum document includes standards such as: “Explain the formulation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, identify various international instruments of human rights, (and) mention international institutions of human rights protection and their roles” (Kalidjenih 2005, p. 327).

Finally, Hong Kong offers an interesting case study with regard to the inclusion and further development of human rights discourse within global citizenship education. Chong (2015) contends that the global citizenship education guidelines in the 2000s not only extend students’ understandings of human rights issues around the world compared to the previous curricula but also provide numerous opportunities for critical discussion and taking action . Taken together, the different subjects that address human rights (Moral and Civic Education; Personal, Social and Humanities Education; Integrated Humanities ; History ; and Liberal Studies ) emphasize how students should pay attention to issues of marginalization, discrimination , and inequality. Students are also taught that they have an obligation to all of humanity and that they have a duty to challenge injustice. For instance, the junior secondary Integrated Humanities curriculum guidelines require students to “inquire into the inequalities and discrimination that are associated with imperialism , colonization, and hegemony ” (Chong 2015, p. 235). The curriculum also includes concepts such as interdependence , cosmopolitan society, decolonization, global ethics , global unity, and cultural imperialism. Notably, Hong Kong schools are also expected to provide civic and service learning experiences for students in order to encourage social activism . These experiences can include community involvement, participating in learning programs organized by different nongovernmental organizations such as Oxfam and learning about global poverty and injustice, and identification and investigation of opportunities for action.

Global Competitiveness and National Pride as a Strong Discourse

Scholars in East and Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia , Indonesia , Taiwan, China , South Korea , and Singapore have also identified another strong discourse —global competitiveness and national pride—within global citizenship education. For instance, under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, the Major Plan for Education Development (2006–2010) focused explicitly on developing human capital in order to establish Malaysia’s position in the global arena (Balakrishnan 2010). Likewise, in South Korea , Sung , Park and Choi (2013) observed that the national curriculum for the elite South Korean global high schools defined global citizenship education largely in terms of preparing students to be internationally competitive and they noted that the curriculum gave primacy to the goal of developing students to be more productive in the global labor market in order to enhance South Korea’s status in the world. Similarly, Zhu and Camicia (2014) found that the discourses of neoliberalism and cosmopolitanism were gaining in importance in China ’s citizenship education discursive field. They argued that these discourses were intricately connected: “Cosmopolitanism adds a moral legitimacy to neoliberalism and Confucianism adds a moral legitimacy to nationalism ” (p. 54). This neoliberal cosmopolitan discourse does not pay much attention to developing allegiance to a global community and but instead focuses on portraying Chinese citizens as productive workers and consumers in a global marketplace. For instance, the amendment to the junior high school’s curriculum in 2007 emphasized the national strategy of prioritizing economic development for nation building (p. 54).

The discourse of global economic competitiveness is particularly dominant in Singapore albeit in a slightly different form. The Singapore state has consistently emphasized the importance of promoting economic development and being globally competitive in order to ensure national survival. More importantly, globalization is consistently perceived by the government as posing an existential threat to the survival of the nation-state. This survival narrative and discourse of vulnerability permeates the national social studies curriculum (Sim and Ho 2010) and unsurprisingly, teachers and students see the subject as a vehicle for the promotion of state-approved national history , values, and identity (Ho 2010). In spite of the curricular revisions made recently that aimed to develop more cosmopolitan citizens with broader worldviews, these economic goals remain foregrounded in the secondary social studies curricula (Ho 2013). For instance, the 2008 social studies syllabus included this guiding question: How do nations sustain their economic development in a globalized world?” (Singapore Ministry of Education 2008, p. 14) . Notably, even topics like environmental management are framed in economic terms: “Students will be able to… understand how environmental management is necessary to ensure economic growth” (p. 14). Finally, the syllabus document reminds students that “the failure to respond to the changing global landscape” will have disastrous consequences for the country and “result in a nation fading into obscurity” (p. 15). The discourse of global economic competitiveness can also be found in the most recent secondary social studies textbook published in 2016. One of the three themes in the secondary social studies curriculum focuses on the topic: “Being part of a globalized world” and it includes inquiry questions such as “How do we respond to tensions arising from some economic impacts of globalization?” (Singapore Ministry of Education 2016, p. 250) .

Conclusion and Future Directions

This chapter provided an initial overview of how countries as diverse as South Korea, Japan , Taiwan, Singapore , Malaysia , and Indonesia respond to globalizing trends and it explained how these countries converged and diverged in their definitions of and approaches to global citizenship education. The previous sections also showed how global economic pressures have resulted in the governments utilizing the discourse of globalization to serve nationalistic economic goals and to define an inclusive or exclusive national identity. The section also described how another consequence of globalization—transnational migrant flows—differentially affected the construction of national identities of the countries in East and Southeast Asia . The chapter also highlighted a general trend of East and Southeast Asian countries giving greater attention to ideas and concepts related to global citizenship, albeit with a strong nationalistic focus. Finally, two strong discourses were also identified: (1) human rights education ; and (2) global competitiveness and national pride.

Notably, in spite of an increase in attention paid to global citizenship themes, the discourses that appeared to dominate civics, citizenship, and social studies education in the East and Southeast Asian countries examined in this chapter were still very much focused on enhancing national economic productivity and maintaining the global status of the nation-state. The review of literature from this group of countries with strongly centralized governments and histories of developmental authoritarianism thus reminds us that the state plays a particularly central role in determining the inclusion and framing of strong discourses of global citizenship in citizenship education curricula. Drawing on his analysis of the changes in China ’s citizenship education curricula, Law (2006) writes: “In a globalizing world, the nation state is a principal selector and translator of global elements of citizenship and citizenship education in its jurisdiction… the nation state has the final power to prescribe what global elements will be introduced, emphasized, and materialized” (p. 620). Nevertheless, in spite of the power of the state to determine the scope and structure of national curricula, the case of human rights education in South Korea identified by Moon and Koo (2011) also demonstrates the influence of local and international non-governmental organizations on curriculum development.

The review of literature in this chapter, in addition, emphasizes how particular discourses of global citizenship have been sidelined in civic education and social studies curricula. In general, cosmopolitan and global social activism discourses are very much marginalized in the citizenship education curricula of countries in these two regions . For instance, as Sung et al. (2013) point out in their analysis of the South Korean Global High Schools (GHS) curriculum, not much attention has been paid to significant global issues such as social justice and global poverty . They write: “Little consideration is given to education’s role in preparing students to be global citizens with responsibilities for global issues and problems” (p. 292). The case of Hong Kong described by Chong (2015), on the other hand provides educators with an indication of how these ideas and themes may be incorporated in citizenship education curricula.

Finally, it is important to remember that schools are important sites for both students and teachers as they negotiate the tensions between cultural, national , and global affiliations (El-Haj 2009). There is, however, a dearth of research studies on how these changes in citizenship education curricula are implemented, enacted and received in different national contexts, particularly in countries that are significantly less economically developed, such as Myanmar , Vietnam , Cambodia , and Laos . While this chapter focuses primarily on curricular development, readers also need to consider how the implementation of formal curricula varies significantly at the school and classroom level because teachers and students continuously try to navigate, negotiate, and resist the curricular scripts imposed on them by the state (Buras and Apple 2006).