Reading notes class 6 on: Citizenship Education: Implications for Teacher Education by James A. Banks

After reading the articles that were assigned for class 6 there was one that stood out to me. Based partly on my heritage, I felt I could understand and relate to it the most. The article that I chose was by James A. Banks and is titled Citizenship Education: Implications for Teacher Education

When looking at this article there are a couple of things that stand out, especially about our concept of citizenship. The main argument that I see contained as described by Banks is “citizenship education needs to be reconceptualized because of the increased salience of diversity issues throughout the world”. He believes that multicultural citizenship will allow students to gain a more equal idea of cultural, national and global identifications as well as be able to understand the ways in which knowledge is constructed.

Banks first shows us why we need this new concept of citizenship education. Looking at growing ethnic, cultural, racial and religious diversity, he says in order for students to function effectively in the 21^st century, citizenship education needs to be changed. Old beliefs took on the idea of assimilation, aiming to educate in order to fit students into the ideal “good citizen”. This led to students losing their first cultures, languages and identities, sometimes leading to alienation from their families and communities. Banks even states “ethnic minorities of colour often became marginalized in both their community cultures and in the national civic culture”. He believes that because of the large number of immigrants who settle around the world, the continual existence of institutional racism and discrimination, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, that citizenship education must be transformed. Banks believes citizens have the right to maintain attachments to their cultural communities as well as participate effectively in the shared national culture. He speaks of a new kind of citizenship called “multicultural citizenship”; it looks at “the rights and needs of citizens to maintain commitments both to their ethnic and cultural communities and to the national civic culture.  

Banks shows us the need for this new concept, by explaining the weaknesses of assimilationist concepts in the 21^st century. How they marginalize cultural and ethnic groups and focus more on national issues and priorities; these can lead to divisions within society. He argues that a multicultural citizenship education would allow for students to keep their attachments to cultural and ethnic communities, while aiding them to gain knowledge and skills needed to participate in the “wider civic culture and community” allowing them to identify with both cultural communities and their nation-states.

Banks believes that part of citizenship education must teach them to become thoughtful and effective citizens, and to do this they must understand the ways in which knowledge is constructed. While constructing knowledge, they “challenge the mainstream academic metanarrative and construct liberatory and transformative ways of conceptualizing the US and the world experience”. He believes so much so in these ideologies that the last part of the text, he talks about trying to help students in a teacher education program fully rethink their notions on race, culture and ethnicity in order to develop clarified cultural and national identifications.

This reading had quite a few strengths. First, I really like that the article was split into sections. It made it easier to follow, and allowed for me to have a better idea of the main points being spoken about in the paragraph. I also found his article strong because not only did he talk about what needed to be done (reconceptualization of citizenship education), but showed that he had tried to start, by teaching education students to rethink race.

This article is very practical for teachers. The entire second section of the article could relate directly to teachers. Making them think about their own views on ethnicity and culture or even about some of the things they still do in their practices. As for questions that the article raises, there are four questions directly in the text that I thought were great. Though they are not directly associated with this article, the questions would still make for good ones a teacher may want to ask their class. The two that I found to be most powerful were: 1) which groups have the power to define and institutionalize their conceptions within the schools, colleges, and universities? And 2) what is the relationship between knowledge and power, and who exercises the most power?