Illustration: "Citizenship", Rafael Lopez, www.rafaellopez.com
We would like to highlight in this post the work of Professor Osler, founding director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights Education at the University of Leeds.
She began her career as a teacher and has experience working for local authorities as an adviser for multicultural education and as a director of a teachers’ centre.
Prof Osler has received career recognition from a wide range of bodies, both nationally and internationally. In 2003 she was winner of the Times Educational Supplement/ NASEN award for best academic book. From 2003-2005 she was sole European representative on the University of Washington’s Consensus Panel on Citizenship and Diversity. She has acted as an advisor to a number of international organizations, including UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the Carter Center at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. She has also acted as advisor and/or trainer to national governments and NGOs, including the Korean Commission on Human Rights; the Development Education Association of Japan; Equitas, Canada; the government of Macedonia (FYROM); the Jordanian Ministry of Education in collaboration with UNICEF; the Kenyan Ministry of Education; and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education.
Prof Olser’s research focuses on the socio-cultural contexts of learning and on education policy as it relates to questions of equity and human rights. Research projects have addressed the processes of school inspection; exclusion from school; teacher careers and professional development; student perspectives on schooling; children’s human rights; diversity, identity and citizenship; faith schooling and social cohesion; and the processes of implementation of European and national policies on citizenship and multiculturalism.
Abstracts of recent publications:
“This article examines recent UK government policy and proposals relating to immigration and citizenship, and the ways in which these policies are presented as means of securing allegiance and integration. From 1997, the incoming Labour government emphasized the importance of informed, active citizenship and social justice. From 2001, the emphasis shifted to community cohesion, with immigrants identified as a potential threat to cohesion. The article analyses the knowledge required of new settlers through the `citizenship test’, introduced in 2005, and the assumptions made about immigrants and about British culture and society in the test. It critiques the concepts of `active citizenship’, `earned citizenship’ and `probationary citizenship’ in the 2008 Green Paper, The Path to Citizenship . These policy proposals, if enacted, threaten migrants’ employment opportunities, risk creating barriers to participation and undermining social cohesion. They place unrealistic demands on aspirant citizens, which are not placed on established citizens.”
“This paper examines the British Labour government’s developing political discourse on patriotism, citizenship and multiculturalism since 1997, particularly following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the 2005 London bombings. It focuses on the speeches of key government figures, notably Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and on the ways in which they apply their ideas to the teaching of history and citizenship in schools. It contrasts a broadly cosmopolitan rhetoric about Britain and its role in the world with a narrower focus on British history and “British values”. It considers concerns about the radicalisation of Muslim youth and how such concerns are related to a discourse about separation and communication, applied to minorities in general, and to Muslims and to Muslim women in particular. Political discourse is contextualised within the race relations legislation of the period. The author reflects on challenges that arise when history is harnessed in a project to promote national unity. It suggests that history teaching needs to be reframed, so as to recognize that students are not only citizens of a nation-state but are also emergent cosmopolitan citizens living in an age of globalization and universal human rights.”
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