“Globalization, multiculturalism and citizenship education”
Athanassios Gotovos
Pages
Abstract
Citizenship education, as well as civic education as its core subject, can be discussed either as a pedagogical ideal proposed for an educational system free from historical, political and economic restrictions, or as an alternative proposal for the current reality of citizenship education within an already existing, real educational system. The membership of Greece in the European Union and its participation in the global political and economic reality, accompanied by the presence of a relatively large number of migrants and refugees in the last twenty years, have changed the conditions under which citizenship education is conceived and implemented for the Greek schools. The model for the new citizen comes from a notion of multicultural society and intercultural education where the principles of virtual solutions for real problems, political correctness and policies of affirmative action prevail over grounded theory for the education of the democratic and participating citizen. The responsibility for this development lies not only by the policy makers, but also by academics who legitimate and implement ideologically conform but highly controversial pedagogical solutions to composite problems.