Identiy & Citizenship

Identity and Citizenship: Some Contradictions in PracticeAuthor(s): Heather Piper and Dean GarrattSource: British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Sep., 2004), pp. 276-292Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Society for Educational StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1556057 .Accessed: 21/12/2010 14:19

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BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES, ISSN 0007-1005 VOL. 52, No. 3, SEPTEMBER 2004, PP 276-292

IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP: SOME CONTRADICTIONS IN PRACTICE

by HEATHER PIPER and DEAN GARRATT, Institute ofEducation, Manchester Metropolitan University

ABSTRACT: We argue that many current forms of anti-racist and multicultural teaching, whilst well-intentioned, nevertheless serve to fix' identities on children in ways which inhibit their agency and reinforce stereotypes. In our exploration of the issues we employ a wide range of theoretical ideas.

Keywords: citizenship, identity, stereotype, anti-racist/multicultural

Immigrants will 'swear by Almighty God' that they 'will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors according to law'. An oath to an old woman in Buckingham Palace and her children in order to become a citizen. (Cohen, 2003, p. 29)

1. INTRODUCTION

In this paper we explore some of the tensions that exist, but are seldom articulated, between understandings and expressions of identity and citizenship. We consider how these tensions (acknowledged or not) affect the teaching and learning of citizenship in schools both as a formal curriculum subject and within a framework of Personal Social and Health Education (QCA, 1999). We accept that tensions and contradictions are not necessarily bad, but by making them explicit we are better able to consider their consequences. Indeed, we suggest that a consideration of such tensions may enhance rather than impair the learning experiences of young people, since this can lead to a deeper understanding of issues through processes that are both challenging and critical. Elsewhere (Garratt and Piper, 2003), we identified related complexities in relation to discourses around citizenship and subjecthood; we now widen our critical lens, in order to more explicitly incorporate aspects

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IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP

of identity. In so doing we mobilise the metaphors of the root and rhizome, outlined by Deleuze and Guattari (1987). Issues of identity and citizenship are especially contemporary in the context of recent proposals in relation to immigration (see above quotation, and Travis, 2003a, 2003b; Ingrams, 2003). We suggest that the teaching of citizenship using familiar 'multicultural' or 'anti-racist' discourses has a direct impact on the identities of many pupils, and this impact is 'top down', 'euro-centric' and rarely benign. Hammer and McLaren (1991), for example, have suggested that we should not only adjust our vision in order to recognise the context of any particular relation under scrutiny, but that we should also consider the overall context which has defined its question in the first place, and it is considering this overall context, rather than providing answers, that we are primarily concerned with here.'

2. SOME INHERENT DIFFICULTIES

While multicultural and anti-racist teaching2 has in recent times received considerable attention, most of which we endorse, nevertheless, some aspects arguably tend to take for granted the values and assumptions of the Enlightenment tradition, with its western, liberal-democratic principles and evolutionary roots (see Bhavnani, 2001; Cohen, 1994; Parker and Song, 2001 for various critiques of these assumptions). For example, Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj- Blatchford claim that:

(1) 'Multicultural'/equal opportunities approaches [ ... ] have tended to focus upon the negative effects that education has had upon the educational performance of Black and ethnic minority pupils.

(2) Anti-racist/social justice approaches have more often emphas- ised the role that education has had in reproducing structural inequality through its preferential treatment of white and ethnic majority pupils. (1999, p. 130)

Consequently, such teaching overlooks the importance of the international and interlingual character of a global citizen, which occurs in spite of increasing globalisation, where international mobility has facilitated the 'cross-culturalisation' of citizens and a strengthening of ethnic communities (Byram and Guilherme, 2000). Deleuze and Guattari (1987) suggest alternative ways of exploring social phenom- ena so as to avoid the modernist's preoccupation with tradition, genealogy and the history of western philosophy. They consider its dependence on the 'root-tree' metaphor to be unhelpful, since it is

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not sufficiently sophisticated to embrace multiplicity, or to aid successful mapping of lived experience. Instead they introduce the idea of the rhizome, a more radical system that is not governed by a predetermined path, but rather has multiple entryways and lines of flight. It is non-hierarchical, acentered and nomadic. It wanders like 'couch grass' creating multiplicities of narratives and dimensions that proliferate in less predictable ways and towards unexpected places.

In this paper we employ this assemblage focusing broadly on ethnicity and culture. We argue that current discourses, which inevitably lead to the celebration of difference in classroom situations, can have significant and sometimes unintended negative consequences. For example, Lacan (1981) draws our attention to 'the person I imagine myself to be' (Imaginary Order) and 'the person I am supposed to be' (Symbolic Order) and Carson et al. (2002) apply this analysis to the experiences of a student teacher who considered she was 'walking into this suit every day, putting on survival shoes' feeling she did not 'fit in' unless she forfeited her identity (Carson et al., 2002, p. 6). We suggest this need to forfeit the person I imagine myself to be, for the person I am supposed to be, could be experienced quite strongly by children and young people who are singled out during the celebration of cultural differences in many classroom situations (consider for example, the role played by 'food' in some multicultural practice). So while celebration ensures that particular differences continue to matter we suggest such reinforced differences 'stick' to particular children and young people in ways that 'root' their identity.

As a result of such 'sticking' the fluidity and movement between identities, which we argue is more 'rhizomatic', can be unfairly restricted for those whose identities are regarded as different from the majority population. Ahmed (2003), for example, has argued (in a consideration of fear) that 'emotions work by sticking figures together (adherence), a sticking that creates the very effect of a collective (coherence)' and demonstrated this with reference to figures such as the 'bogus asylum seeker', or 'international terrorist'. She claims that emotions do not reside in a single subject or figure, but that they work by sticking or binding subjects together. She extends her argument to demonstrate how this 'slide of metonymy can func- tion as an implicit argument about causal relations between terms such as 'Islam' and 'terrorism', and asks do 'we fear that which we cannot contain, or through fear, do we contain that which cannot be?' (Ahmed, 2003, p. 16). In our view, the tradition of multicultural and anti-racist teaching that is embedded in narratives of history,



genealogy and 'roots', helps, rather than hinders, this 'slide of metonymy' by fossilising identities and failing to acknowledge 'the coming and going rather than starting and finishing' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 25).

In our attempt to address some of these difficulties we consider the work of others who are similarly concerned with imposed dicho- tomies, for example, between self and other (Said, 1978), subject and object (Bourdieu, 1990), and the epistemological and ontological (Foucault, 1983; Heidegger, 1962; Polanyi, 1969). As Delueze and Guattari note, 'binary logic is the spiritual reality of the root-tree' (1987, p. 5), that runs counter to our preferred metaphor of the rhizome, with its indeterminacy and radical assemblage. The task for teachers is not necessarily easy, and we are anxious not to set the pendulum swinging away from the positive direction of well-intentioned multicultural and anti-racist practice, back towards the alternative of ignoring discrimination (Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford, 1999). Rather, we attempt to move closer towards the fine balancing point where difference can be considered in its various complexities. Whilst acknowledging that celebration and ritual play a vital part in the stories of all cultures, lessons from anthropology and elsewhere have taught us that what we see is inseparable from how we see it.

As should become apparent, our own preference is to allow space for leaky and fluid identities that change over time and place to be a privilege for all children and young people, and this should be allowed for and not inhibited in classroom practice. We acknowledge that the (seemingly inevitable) human condition of prejudice results, at least partly, from the tendency for individuals to collect and put up markers of identity to distinguish their collective self from that of others (Cullingford, 2000). However, our concern is not to suggest that those who seek out particular standpoints are necessarily wrong, and that those who do not are right, but to alert teachers and others to the idea that the location and promotion of standpoints on behalf of others, which appears to be an unintended by-product of multicultural teaching, is not appropriate. It may involve 'sticking' highly visible and adhesive identities on to (sometimes) vulnerable children, which prevents them from trying on different ones for size. As a result, such children lose the ability to choose and shift identities in a more rhizomatic manner (or more agentic) that can be taken for granted to some extent by children of a majority population. Particular people, groups, and ethnicities become knowable as a category and are seen as a fixed commodity (Foucault, 1980; Rose, 1988). Therefore, identities continue to be



produced and reproduced in systems of power (Kearney, 1995). People do not stand separate from society, but are immanent within its relations as one form of its existence (Bourdieu, 1990). We now consider this 'relational' aspect of identity with its ontological and epistemological implications in more detail.

3. RE-PRODUCING IDENTITY AND CULTURE

Many have critiqued the application of the notion of 'identity' as a methodological tool (Butler, 1991; Collins, 1991; Denzin, 1997), and we share the concerns of many others that any consideration of identity (especially in relation to ethnicity and culture) almost inevitably becomes an essentialising exercise. Butler (1991) has developed this argument from her post-structuralist frame in relation to material feminism, which she claims either seeks to privilege notions of 'womanliness', or to distinguish biological factors in defence of some epistemological standpoint. Others, like Collins, have argued that vicarious attempts to experience the plight of, say, African-American women are somewhat pointless, since while a 'heap see, but a few know' (1991, p. 208, emphasis added). Thus, experience is personal to those whose lives are directly affected by it. Another difficulty we recognise is that any discussion of 'black' will tend to default to 'white', whether this is acknowledged or not; similarly any discussion of woman will default to man, and so on. Said (1978) described this phenomenon in his seminal book Orientalism, where he claims the West defines itself in opposition to the East or the Orient which is disliked, feared, or romanticised, and consequently 'othered'. Although at one level (see later) the teaching of citizenship has attempted to take this notion on board, the messages for teachers are nevertheless confusing.

Hammer and McLaren (1991) identify historical, geographical and social processes of negation, which they claim resulted from dichotomous constructs of black/white, male/female and so on. Some, such as Clifford (1994), have suggested that diasporas can challenge such dichotomising, as potentially they can undermine and break the binary distinction between minority and majority communities. Hall (1990) described identity as an historical narrative that allows us to explain where we are from. He adopts Derrida's (1967) notion of difffrance as this allows for different and indetermi- nate new meanings, without necessitating the removal of the trace of previous meanings. Foucault (1986) was interested in the interplay between space, subjectivity and power and used the term 'hetero- topia' to describe places of difference that could be inhabited by

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differentiated subjectivities (Latinas cleaning the rooms of a hotel, blacks parking the cars, whites staying as guests etc. - see Allen 1999). Bourdieu (1990) suggested that dualisms (black/white etc.) could be regarded as analogous to some of the oldest problems that have beset the Western intellectual tradition, i.e. the bifurcation of the individual and society. He uses the concept of habitus in an attempt to avoid this type of difficulty, where individual and society are seen as two dimensions of the same social reality. He defines their relations as:

principles which generate and organize practices, and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them. (Bourdieu, 1990)

From a more heuristic perspective we suggest that using Bourdieu's concept of habitus can help in articulating the influence of the past and all that is encapsulated in tradition (see also Gadamer, 1979). However, habitus is itself a restrictive concept in the manner in which it attempts to root aspects of identity in tradition and the world into which people are born. This is inimical to notions of fluidity, movement and ever changing dispositions that take flight through the influence of spontaneous offshoots (the collective influences that eclectically shape our becoming). Characterised in this way, dispositions are evolving, free flowing, non-deterministic and depicted by agency. These dispositions or assemblages are organised through their relations with social forces, for example, the various cultural, ethnic, religious and gendered influences that are influential in our lives. We argue that the relationship between people and society is interminably reflexive, and identity inevitably includes both being (what we are already, with its root-tree invocation) and becoming (what we might be in the future as the rhizomatic nomad), position and positioning, and past and present (Allen, 1999). The notion of being and becoming is at the nexus of a relationship between epistemological and ontological issues that we consider next.

4. IDENTITY: ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL RELATIONS

Heidegger (1962) understood identity to be a question of Being (Dasein), with its various manifestations, connected to the scrutiny of its own historical formation (s), including its nature (logos), which he claimed is located at the origin or 'root' of the 'becoming- present' of beings in time. Contained within this notion of being and



becoming is an interesting dynamic between the metaphysics of ontology and epistemology, a fundamental questioning of the nature of identity from within the grounds of our own existence (Dasein), which seeks to question its spirit, as opposed to its theory of knowledge (or contents).

We believe there is an over-reliance on the concept of standpoint epistemologies inherent in some of the literature on identity as the medium through which disparate embodiments are typically expressed. These necessarily invoke the root-tree metaphor and inhibit the fluidity that we espouse. Representations of different fem- inisms, for example, include the gynocritic, materialist, psychoana- lytic, post-structural, African American, empiricist, postcolonial and so forth. These standpoints invoke experience, and although they perhaps point towards the ontological, they inevitably privilege an epistemological point of departure (Clough, 1994; Collins, 1991; Harding, 1996). Denzin (1997) argues that while such standpoint epistemologies privilege lived experience, they do so through an ocular medium in which sight, vision and text point towards experience, but fail to demonstrate to the reader how such experiences are brought into the text. From the perspective of identity, texts will always fail to represent the experiences of the lives they are intending to capture. To make this claim is more than a simple restatement of the crisis of representation. Drawing on Bruner (1986), Denzin argues that:

the links between experience and its expressions is always problematic. The critical distinction ... is between reality (what is

really out there), ... experience (how that reality presents itself to consciousness), and expressions (how individual experience is framed and articulated) ... experiences are constantly out of the reach of language and discourse and on the borderlines of consciousness and awareness. (Bruner, 1986, p. 6 cited in Denzin, 1997, p. 61)

This suggests that discourses of identity are no more or less than repositories of knowledge that 'reflect the standpoint of their crea- tors' (Collins, 1991, p. 201) but then fail to capture the very idea of experience itself. They strangle the offshoots of identity but feed the roots, which grow ever more deeply into the archaeology of thought and the history of western philosophy. An implication is that theories of knowledge about identity ultimately fail to articulate all that is embodied in the space within which they are immanent and assem- bled. Experience both transcends and defies expression, and so the knowing of identity is ultimately unspecifiable. Heidegger (1978, p. 11) claimed 'the epistemological Subject does not express the most



meaningful sense of Spirit, much less its full content'. This tension is captured in the work of Polanyi (1969) who raises awareness of the relationship between knowing and being. Although Polanyi's example relates to the understanding of disease, the concept of identity might easily be substituted. Similarly, just as any specification of the particulars of disease are inadequate in tracing its essence, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) draw our attention to the rhizomatic spread of disease, which like identity, has a nomadic and anti-hierarchical qual- ity that maps rather than traces.

Approaches that characterise identity as relying on predictions about future developments, partial and vague descriptions of present features, and typicalities that point towards categories of identity, fix identity through the image of the root-tree, whilst failing to acknowledge more tacit and hidden features (Polanyi, 1969). For us to claim that all knowledge is fundamentally tacit would be too bold an assertion. However, the idea that aspects of knowledge may contain tacit nuances seems eminently likely and we acknowledge the idea that these aspects of identity may exist in ways that defy expression. This has serious consequences for the learning and teaching of identity and citizenship in schools. It implies that any coverage of identity and citizenship is inevitably partial and incomplete, particu- larly since it is easy to gloss over and misrepresent important and critical differences within and between disparate groups.

Crucially then, discourses do not describe the world neutrally but they classify it. They bring some aspects of the social into sight whilst concealing others (Parker, 1992, 2002). Issues of identity and citizenship risk becoming increasingly susceptible to caricature. Palmary (2003) has argued this point in relation to nationalism and its implications for the identities of women. She draws attention to how women are often given the task of transmitting social and cultural customs and values through their behaviour and clothing. Women can become the symbolic signifiers of cultural difference, the ones who maintain tradition. We suggest this is also the case for particular children chosen for the star role in many celebrations of difference in a classroom setting. Correy and Terre Blanche (2000) have demonstrated how even positive attempts at 'nation-building' have the unintentional consequence of constructing an 'other'. Such discourses give 'truth' to stereotyping, 'rooting' cultures in particular ways. For example, the United Nations embraces and celebrates cultural diversity based on the notion of a 'family of nations', and attempts to promote tolerance by saying they are just like us. Carson and Kanu (2001, p. 6) have noted that 'it is this privileging of commonality in understanding over difference, ambiguity or

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disorder in the dialogic space that is now being questioned', which paradoxically reinforces 'they as they' and 'us as us'.

Giroux (1992), in discussing border pedagogy and the border metaphor, argues that the goal should be to reject essentialisms and naturalisations and to aim for a critical citizenship with multiple communities of resistance, each with empathy for the other. Cross- ing borders can assist in transforming the self/identity, which can help create a critical consciousness. For Giroux, this consciousness is bound up with multiple representations that are situated and 'produced within codes which have a history [and] a position within the discursive formations of a particular time and place' (Hall, 1988, cited in Giroux, 1992, p. 221). However, Deleuze and Guattari speak about consciousness as passion, where identities take 'flight' result- ing in a less secure deterritorialisation; for some, the crossing of borders is anything but deliberative. Anzaldua (1987) emphasises that there is no single standpoint for the subaltern subject whose identity is characterised by hybridity, living in and through the borderlands of place and culture. In such circumstances the logos of identity is inevitably fractured and can never be finally determined as it takes 'flight'. Bhabha also touches on this point, distinguishing between identity and identification, arguing that 'the question of identification is never the affirmation of a pre-given identity ... it is always the production of an "image" of identity and the transformation of the subject in assuming that image' (Bhabha, 1994, p. 8).

With this in mind, the preoccupation with knowing, of developing a well-tailored epistemology that facilitates simple identification and labelling, can never be achieved in practice. Methodologically, its failure is contained within the belief that the process of understanding, or hermeneutics of interpretation, can be realised through direct correspondence with the particulars of identity, conceived as a fossilised or 'rooted' concept. However, there are inherent dangers in uniformity as 'It is a curriculum of sameness, aided and abetted by Lacan's "discourse of the university" which demands a knowledge that is both certain and able to be exchanged from one who knows to one who does not' (Carson andJohnson, 2001, p. 2). We argue that it is assumptions such as these that can be found in some current guidance on citizenship education, and we now turn our attention to the implications of our analysis for classroom teaching and learning.

5. CITIZENSHIP

Citizenship, like identity, has similarly been described and critiqued by many including ourselves (Garratt, 2000, 2003; Garratt and Piper,

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2003; Piper and Piper, 2000). Others have pointed out that a precon- dition of the notion of citizenship requires an acceptance of the necessity for nation states that individuals can belong to in the first place. For example, in current DfES citizenship guidance, it is suggested that teachers ask children to 'indicate those countries where ... relatives or friends live now and where ... relatives or friends used to live before they moved to the UK'. It is also suggested that pupils consider 'recent, historical and locally relevant examples, e.g. refugees from Bosnia; the Vikings and the Romans ... pupils [should] study where these people originated, and when and why they came to the UK' (DfES, 2003a). In spite of 'encouraging pupils to use their imagination to understand the views of others' (ibid.) these guidelines continue to trace a lineage through time, place and tradition that reinforces a them-and-us scenario - these people. This is evident even when different scenarios are employed as a focus for discussion involving issues of a sensitive nature connected with racial discrimination and racist activity, including: * a Sikh boy being teased because he wears a turban * a British National Party magazine, which contains cartoons mak-

ing fun of Asian and black people, being passed round ... * an Asian shopkeeper complaining because pupils from the school

are constantly being rude to him .... (DfES 2003b)

It is suggested that 'pupils build on their conclusions from the above scenarios by reviewing a range of video clips such as My England'. Thus, in spite of the rhetoric of global citizenship, the National Cur- riculum is just that, i.e. national and 'rooted' in the imperial history of the UK, or in more narrow cases, even single countries like Eng- land. Allen (1999) draws our attention to the similarity in the words national and natural, and to Foster's (1991) remark, that very few discussions of 'nation' ask whether there should be a nation to begin with, and whose interests this may be serving. It is these sorts of issues that we are concerned with here, and we suggest that these more fluid or 'rhizomatic' understandings are generally absent from the teaching of citizenship in the UK and elsewhere. For example, while more hybrid notions of identity are encouraged in some guidance on citizenship as pupils are typically asked to consider whether 'they belong to different groups at different times' (DfES, 2003c), elsewhere it is suggested that they make 'a belonging tree' to illustrate their discussions (DfES, 2003d). Such activities, we argue, do not allow identities to develop rhizomatically. Instead, they work by planting culture firmly in the soil of the homeland, rooting meaning, and arresting difference.

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Carson et al. argue (adopting similar ideas to those previously expressed in relation to identity) that through cultural celebration and discussions of the 'collective' as is typified in most multicultural education, race tends to be regarded 'as a static or ubiquitous category' (2002, p. 8). Bhabha, too, has argued that the concept of 'cultural diversity' implies intact cultures 'unsullied by the intertextuality of their historical locations, safe in the Utopianism of a mythic mem- ory of a unique collective identity' (Bhabha, 1994, p. 206). We suggest that such arguments are not un-typical of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority's general teaching guidance for those engag- ing in these issues (QCA, 2003). On the theme of Respect for All: valuing diversity and challenging racism through the curriculum, at first glance the guidance appears well-balanced and sensitive to issues that may be potentially controversial. For example, there is clear direction on the challenging of stereotypical views about race, ethnicity and culture:

teachers should encourage debate. Pupils who wish to express criticism of an aspect of culture should not be discouraged, but taught to express their views in context, in a balanced way. They should be encouraged to look positively at differences within and between cultures and to examine their own beliefs and prejudices ... [t]eachers need to be aware that introducing issues around culture and racism may provoke extremely strong sentiments in some pupils. (QCA, 2003)

Yet this sensitive approach falls into a trap of wishful Utopianism in suggesting that:

as well as considering teaching approaches, teachers will need to present pupils with facts and share informed viewpoints with their class ... giv[ing] an accurate picture of the beliefs, practices and

lifestyles of minority ethnic communities, without representing them as exotic. (QCA, 2003)

It would appear that containment, and all it entails, is hard to avoid. Cullingford claims that 'prejudice in terms of categories, or stereotypes, is part of experience' adding, it can 'be contained. It can be understood, and it can be controlled' (Cullingford, 2000, p. 238). The invocation of the binary between 'exotic' versus 'indigenous' representations merely aligns with the internal reproduction of the same structure, i.e. the branches of the same tree, thus preventing imagination from taking flight. Identity is thus frozen, commodified and represented as different but 'rooted' as the same. For example, we question to what extent the process of debating issues relating to



diversity fits with the condition of examining what it means to be British (DfES, 2003d). Moreover, a reliance on knowing (and control- ling) in this context, through the production of facts and so-called accurate descriptions of identity, clearly transgresses an important injunction set out elsewhere in the guidance: 'avoid fossilizing the lifestyles and cultural practices of minority ethnic groups. Emphasise that a particular culture is diverse, dynamic and evolving' (QCA, 2003). In our view, the production of facts and descriptions relating to disparate groupings restricts understandings of the more rhizomatic character of identities. Such understandings are necessarily affirmed on an ontological question rather than an epistemological statement, where the latter 'imposes the verb "to be", but the fabric of the rhizome [and hence identity] is the conjunction, "and ... and ... and ..."' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 25).

This situation has implications for the way in which others have described some of the tensions inherent in both anti-racist and multicultural approaches to teaching. For example, Carson et al. consider that 'while anti-racist pedagogy is understood to interrogate the power differentials among groups who are positioned by inequal- ities and racial categorization, multicultural pedagogy is understood to celebrate diversity within the dominant framework of knowledge which shapes curriculum in schools' (Carson et al., 2002). Anti-racist teaching has been regarded as 'risky' by some, and 'useless' by others; risky because it criticises and apportions blame, which tends to result in guilt and anger, and useless, because those who teach it generally feel they are preaching to the converted. Ellsworth (1997) suggested that the awareness-raising inherent in anti-racist teaching can pro- duce anger and deepen resistance that may actually be counterpro- ductive. We agree with Carson et al., that 'multiculturalism connotes a superficial treatment of culture, while anti-racism implies blame for an already existing racist status quo' (Carson et al., 2002, p. 2). In order to avoid such blame and consequent guilt, Ellsworth (1997) and Carson and Johnson (2001) have suggested that wilful igno- rance can be one outcome of anti-racist teaching, which arises from the resistance by the self to dangerous knowledge. The assumption within anti-racist education, by definition, works on the premise that knowledge (the teaching of issues) leads to understanding, which results in a person changing their mind (attitudes). However, this assumption disregards the idea that knowledge that may threaten the self with disintegration will tend to be resisted (Carson et aL, 2002) and might impact on action in more rhizomatic and less expected ways. This is perhaps not surprising given our preoccupation with the western-liberal philosophical tradition and its dependence on

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the tree metaphor, with its roots, lineages, traceable ancestry and archaeology of knowledge. By embracing encounters with difference, pupils can be encouraged to challenge not only identity but also the foundations of former worldviews. 'The idea is not to deny our presuppositions but to unfold them with greater penetration [up-rooting them perhaps?], staying on the alert as best we can, to the ontocategories that shape our thought, troubling ourselves about them and worrying them a lot' (Caputo, 1993, in Carson and Kanu, 2001, p. 3), remembering that whilst multiculturalism and cultural diversity objectify culture, racism is personally experienced (Carson and Johnson, 2001).

6. CONCLUSION

In this paper we have argued that the teaching of citizenship in the UK (and elsewhere) context needs a more careful and critical assess- ment of the ways that culture and ethnicity are re-created in the classroom situation. It is not our intention to provide tips for teachers of citizenship education. In any case there is nothing inherently complicated about our critique. While many UK children would be familiar with the adage that 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me', we suggest that words in fact can hurt and do have an impact. They do so by stereotyping and fixing identities, as we argue throughout. In our view, understanding this issue is not beyond the comprehension of the very youngest of children. Indeed, it has been our intention to consider the often unexplored dimensions of citizenship education and identity, which are fre- quently assumed and insufficiently articulated.

Most current teaching in this area falls broadly into the multicultural camp, which we (and others) have argued has some inherent difficulties. Whilst it is necessary to consider difference in its many forms, we have suggested that it is the relationship between differences rather the differences themselves, which provides the basis for a more ethical style of teaching. Whilst on one level the ideas may be relatively straightforward, in practice we acknowledge this is not always easy for teachers or their pupils, but 'the pedagogical challenge involves helping student teachers to live in the uncomfort- able space of difficulty' (Carson et al., 2002, p. 10). Others too have attempted to navigate this difficulty by arguing for a perspective that addresses the multiplicity of difference rather than otherness (Afshar, 1996 for example). However, returning to where we started this paper, it is the process of redefining the questions rather than seeking simplistic solutions, that is crucial in this and many other



contexts. For example Hyndman has noted that: 'If one approaches the relationships among cultural groups and the spaces they occupy not as harmonised "us" and "thems" living together, but as a series of unequal, uneven links between different subjects, then the question itself changes. Difference is not a question of accommodation but of connection' (Hyndman, 1998, p. 245), and meaningful affili- ations (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). Pupils need to be helped to 'create narratives of this increased interaction of differences as rep- resentational spaces, or identities' (Geyer, 1993, p. 533). This is not just a task for the majority population as 'no-one is off the hook since we can all claim to stand as oppressor and oppressed in relation to someone else' (Razack, 1998, p. 47). As we have argued previously (Garratt and Piper, 2003), such questioning not only facilitates critical thinking, but also encourages the more spiritual aspects of a young person's personal and social development.

Something is rotten in the state of Britain and all the parties know it ... the buzz word emerging as the salve for this disease is something called citizenship ... Somewhere out there is an immense unsatisfied demand for it to mean something. But it needs to become much more than a word. (Hugo Young, Guardian, 1 September 1988, quoted in Heater, 1990, p. 293; Arnot, 1997, p. 275 and now here)

7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to John Piper, John Robinson and Ian Stronach for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

8. NOTES

i In our treatment of issues throughout this paper we adopt an eclectic mix of philosophies and perspectives that are not typically assumed to be compatible. However, our rhizomatic assemblage is less concerned with compatibility but instead with advancing the debate. As such we aim not to be restricted by any one single school of thought.

2 Whilst we acknowledge that such a description of multicultural and anti-racist teaching could be interpreted as a caricature of well-intentioned practice, there is not the space in this paper to outline the complexities of various positions contained within either concept. For an overview see: Jones (1999).

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Correspondence Heather Piper Institute of Education Manchester Metropolitan University - Cheshire Crewe Green Road Crewe Cheshire CW1 5DU E-mail: [email protected]


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