Jasmine B.-Y. Sim

Notions of criticality: Singaporean teachers’ perspectives of critical thinking in social studies

In this article we explore the ways critical thinking is conceived by a group of Singaporean social studies teachers, what they see as its purposes as well as perceived constraints to critical thinking and teaching critical thinking in Singapore’s schools. Using a case study research design and constant comparative method we analysed data from teachers’ discussion board entries, observation notes and lesson artefacts from a Master’s class. Findings revealed three key tensions involving teaching critical thinking in an exam culture, uncertainty about what constitutes the ‘out‐of‐bound’, and the issue of professional identity. Each of these tensions intersected and interacted in dynamic ways for teachers and shaped the way they understand and practise critical thinking.

Citizenship education in Singapore: controlling or empowering teacher understanding and practice?

Teachers understand and apply citizenship education differentially in traditional western democracies. But what of Asian countries where democracy is more recent and treated differently and where countries have traditions of highly controlled education systems? Do teachers have and demonstrate independence of thought in civic matters? This article reports on a study of social studies teachers’ understandings of citizenship education, and how these understandings influence their teaching. We found that teacher understandings and practice of citizenship education were located in three distinct groupings, characterised as nationalistic, socially concerned and person oriented. This reflected a citizenship education landscape in Singapore that, despite tight controls, was not as rigid, prescriptive or homogenous as literature on the Asian region suggests.

Civic Disparities: Exploring Students' Perceptions of Citizenship within Singapore's Academic Tracks

Drawing on individual interviews with 62 students from three secondary schools, the authors of this study investigate how Singapore students from different educational tracks understand their role as citizens in a democracy. In contrast to most countries, the constitutionally democratic state of Singapore explicitly assigns separate citizenship roles to students from different education tracks. Premised on the principle of meritocracy, the Singapore state has also developed separate citizenship education programs incorporating different values, skills, and knowledge for students from the academic and vocational tracks. The study illustrates sharp disparities in how citizenship and democracy is conceptualized by students from the different education tracks. The differences in civic efficacy, learning outcomes, knowledge, and skills also closely parallel the different goals of the social studies and citizenship education programs for students from the academic and vocational tracks.

THE STATE, TEACHERS AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT: States commonly employ education policy to build a strong sense of citizenship within young people and to create types of citizens appropriate to the country. In Singapore the government created a policy to build citizenship through both policy statements and social studies in the school curriculum. In the context of a tightly controlled state regulating schooling through a highly controlled educational system, the government expected teachers to obey these policy documents, political statements and the prescribed curriculum. What do teachers understand about citizenship in this context? In schools do teachers demonstrate independence of thought on citizenship education or do they acquiesce to government policy? This article reports on a small group of social studies teachers’ understandings of citizenship, and explores the nature of these understandings in the context of government policy. The study showed an unexpected diversity of conceptualization amongst Singaporean teachers with their understandings of citizenship located in four themes, namely a sense of identity, rights and responsibilities, participation, and national history. This response was unintended by government and reflects an independence of citizenship education landscape in schools, despite the tight policy and bureaucratic controls over teachers by the Singapore state.

Social Studies and Citizenship for Participation in Singapore: How One State Seeks to Influence Its Citizens.

Singapore is an example of a country where there is centralised control of the school curriculum and where political leaders wield direct influence over citizenship education. Co-ordinated and sustained effort is made to transmit the salient knowledge and values, develop the ‘right’ instincts and attitudes, to help students become believers in the particular ‘truths’ deemed necessary for the survival of Singapore. This article examines how a citizenship-related curriculum, social studies, develops students for their role as citizens by addressing the nature of the curriculum, the conception of citizenship promoted and the nature of thinking. Does the state have the right to impose its values on students, and to teach them to think in a particular way, or to believe certain ‘truths’? Are students respected as citizens or are they treated as subjects by the curriculum? The study found that social studies promotes a citizenship that is fraught with assumptions and contradictions, particularly by framing the notion of the common good in terms of national interests. This constrains the exercise of citizenship, trivialises participation and de-contextualises thinking. As a result, the students are more often treated like subjects than citizens.

Transmitting Social and National Values Through Education in Singapore: Tensions in a Globalized Era

There are diverse opinions regarding the place of values in the curriculum and also approaches to be employed when teaching values. In Singapore, values education is accorded high priority. Characteristic of countries with highly centralized systems, the Singapore state expresses the set of national values that emphasizes communitarian principles, consensus and cohesion in detail, and systematically transmits them to students via the formal curriculum. In Singapore, values education is primarily subject-based and is carefully planned, with a clearly delineated list of aims and objectives to culturally reproduce the elites’ view of Singapore society. Much of the discourse surrounding the national values, however, is dominated by the state’s focus on national interest and pragmatism. In this chapter, the authors take the position that schools in Singapore are deliberately created social institutions that are nested within particular social, political and economic realities, and as such, they serve as a means of maintaining social control and sustaining the status quo. The transmission of the prescribed set of national values through school subjects has mostly been deemed unproblematic and is seldom troubled. Nonetheless, the social, political and economic pressures, brought about by the forces of globalization, have problematized the conception of values education in Singapore. In this chapter, the authors examine how a newly introduced subject in secondary schools – Social Studies – is framed by the national values and ideologies defined by the state, and discuss the inherent tensions brought about by changing contexts. They argue that such an approach is both constraining and inadequate, when what is needed to ensure student wellbeing in the current era is an understanding and recognition of diversity, alternative visions of the world and multiliteracies.

Interrogating differentiated citizenship education: Students’ perceptions of democracy, rights and governance in two Singapore schools

Across and within democratic societies, youth experiences of education for citizenship vary widely. A growing body of research suggests that students’ experiences of democratic citizenship education will differ according to how academic programmes, community culture, socio-economic status and gender intersect with prevailing conceptions of equality, mutual respect and reciprocity. This qualitative study explores how democratic citizenship education is enacted in two secondary schools with very dissimilar academic programmes and policies. A key finding in the study is fissures in perceptions of civic engagement and democratic rights between students from the two schools, thus suggesting that academic programmes and policies can differentiate the manner in which students are prepared to fulfil their roles as citizens.

The burden of responsibility: elite students’ understandings of civic participation in Singapore

Elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew maintains that a society ruled by elites is necessary to provide for high growth and social progress. Elitism conjures a class divide; an ongoing concern is a disconnection between elite and the citizens it has to represent. In the tradition of political socialization, and using the case study approach, this article reports on how a group of 22 elite students understand civic participation, and are prepared to undertake their role as citizens. Findings reveal that students are prepared to undertake their responsibility as future leaders to serve the community. Their discourse however is system-confirming and maintains class interests. With globalization and widening income inequalities, this is an inadequate response to the ideals of “justice and equality” laid out in the national pledge. A more just and equal society requires a participation characterized by greater awareness of the surrounding, empathy, and a sense of social justice.

National Education: Framing the Citizenship Curriculum for Singapore Schools

National Education (NE) is one of latest nation-building initiatives to address citizenship in Singapore. Introduced in 1997, the agenda centres around a revitalized conception of nationalism and citizen loyalty in response to globalization. This chapter examines what curriculum-making entails in the context of National Education at the programmatic level, and addresses the substantive issues and tensions surrounding it. It suggests that National Education is a top-down and state-driven curriculum that is more political than educational. National Education promotes a minimal interpretation of citizenship, built upon a fixed and unproblematic notion of national identity. If the desired outcome is to have citizens stand by the nation in an ever-changing global society, National Education in its present form is inadequate. It needs to be reconceptualised to take into account a more balanced approach, inclusive of the realities of young Singaporean, as well as the space for responsible criticism of enshrined values.

Postmodern patriotism: teachers’ perceptions of loyalty to Singapore

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore humanities teachers’ perceptions of patriotism in Singapore by addressing two questions. First, what are teachers’ understandings of patriotism? Second, what are teachers’ attitudes toward patriotism as a quality of good citizenship? Design/methodology/approach The qualitative case study approach was used, with semi-structured interviews and classroom observations as data sources. The participants were four teachers from diverse backgrounds with distinct perceptions of patriotism. Data analysis methods included writing teacher profiles and thematic coding. Findings Teachers were generally positive toward patriotism and understood it in four ways: cosmopolitan, nationalistic, social-movement and person oriented. These themes were not mutually exclusive but distributed across the participants in varying extents. These findings show that patriotism is susceptible to individual meaning-making, and there are different scales and expressions of patriotism. Research limitations/implications The results from this small case study cannot be generalized. However, owing to globalization, it is likely that alternative ways of understanding patriotism might become more widespread and salient in citizenship education. Hence, the authors recommend that more studies be conducted on larger samples and using other methods. Originality/value This study goes in-depth into a case where teachers had positive feelings toward patriotism, and it draws on the context of Singapore to understand how and why this is so. It also revealed conceptions of patriotism that differ from the more common constructs in the educational literature, suggesting that people from post-colonial countries with different histories, might conceive of patriotism differently from others.