book review

Global Citizenship Education and the Crises of Multiculturalism: Comparative Perspectives

by Massimiliano Tarozzi and Carlos Alberto Torres London: Bloomsbury Academic (2016) Reviewed by Caroline Ferguson

This book focuses on an important and timely investigation that addresses an uncomfortable realisation that we have been reluctant to acknowledge. Policies of multiculturalism and interculturalism are in crisis. Multiculturalism, an approach applied mostly in North America, can overemphasise difference between cultures, while interculturalism, the official line in Europe, implies cultural dialogue but is politically limited and inconsistent. The authors, looking comparatively at the two policies, argue that we need an updated paradigm to underpin our new global diversity. Furthermore, we need to bring social justice and equality into the discourse of how we live together with different cultures.

The thorough theoretical analysis in this book reminds us that there is hope. Notions of belonging, citizenship and identity have always been sites of struggle. Yet we have work to do. Social disorder is serious, and education plays a crucial role in the transformative process. Tarozzi and Torres argue that a planetary citizenship, a democratic model of Global Citizenship Education based on human rights and social justice, can be a solution to our current predicament. For educators, this book is valuable for reflecting on why we teach. By considering the broader picture of political, economic and social forces, it can challenge our accepted perspectives of diversity, culture and democracy in international schools today.

Tarozzi and Torres state that there is a void in how education is responding to the reality of modern diversity and contemporary cultural politics. We have a political climate where right wing populism is feeding on feelings of threatened cultural identity. The global economy places power beyond the nation state, but nation states are where we expect our rights to be protected. The shifting balance of local and global relationships, and the flexible nature of cultural community, has resulted in a re-evaluation of citizenship.

In the context of widespread and growing inequality the authors illustrate the current complex tensions, from a variety of mainly western theoretical angles, and the inability of our traditional concepts to understand them. Reading this book as international educators, we can appreciate the evaluation of contemporary political and social thought, and the impact of international events that have affected our local communities. It makes us acutely aware of the responsibility of education to work for social harmony.

Human migration is at the centre of the book’s debate about how we can live together. Tarozzi and Torres view the immigrant as the quintessential lived expression of the current social confusion. The many experiences within the term ‘immigrant’ are not fully explored in the book. However, the migrant is presented as a symbol – a border crosser with unclear citizenship rights, a subject of globalisation yet often blocked where other capital moves freely, an ‘other’, and part of a phenomenon of cultural hybridisation – particularly evident in second and third generation immigrants.

This highlights a central claim in the argument for a new practical theory of education for diversity and democratic citizenship; culture is not fixed and identity is complex. Tarozzi and Torres state that we are all cultural hybrids. This is relevant to our experience in international schools, where we

In the context of widespread and growing inequality the authors illustrate the current complex tensions, from a variety of mainly western theoretical angles, and the inability of our traditional concepts to understand them.

see the relational aspect of identity. It shows the restriction of some versions of multiculturalism, which lean to essentialist, stereotyped understandings of particular cultures. Global Citizenship Education can support our mix of multiple mobile cultural identities.

The model of Global Citizenship Education proposed here is pragmatic and critical. It is argued that despite global citizenship being out of fashion, we must still push for inclusion beyond national borders. The book probes key theories of the policy including social justice, democracy, and diversity, drawing on the work of Paulo Freire to connect these with education. Furthermore, Tarozzi and Torres challenge the traditional expressions of citizenship founded on western white male political philosophy. In their description of global citizenship is a useful framework for active participation outside of our nations. Cosmopolitan democracy allows us to have a political voice irrespective of where we are located.

Global Citizenship Education and the Crises of Multiculturalism is a welcome contribution to the discussion about how we can live together and get along in diversity. With more comparative inquiry and commitment to a global perspective, we can move through the current deadlock of multicultural education policy. Respecting the universal principles of human rights, embracing diversity and difference with a clear aim of equity is a positive direction for social unity.

Caroline Ferguson is a Lecturer in Democratic Citizenship for International Teacher Education at Stenden University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands Email: caroline.ferguson@stenden.com