Reconciling liberal democratic citizenship values with traditional Arab societies :
[Thesis]
Abdel-Nour, Kamal IskandarAbdel-Nour, Kamal Iskandar
University of Bath
2007
Thesis (Ed.D.)
2007
The word 'democracy' today generally signifies a liberal form of democracy, which provides citizens with both a public sphere in which they have their say in running their affairs, and a private sphere where basic negative freedoms are enshrined. Globalization and the knowledge economy have served to accent diversity as characteristic of late modern democratic societies, and ground belief in individual and social construction and consumption of knowledge. Given the liberal understanding of democracy, this research argues that diversity, which is extending its reach into Arab societies, especially in Arab states that have established democratic institutions, puts demands on citizenship education programmes in these states not only to help students develop a capacity to respect other ways of life, but also to help students develop a capacity for reasoning and critical thinking that allows them to make their own choices and decisions, which would lead to their development as autonomous individuals. Individual autonomy as a liberal ideal could be argued to encourage students to reflect on their own 'inherited' ways of life, which may come into conflict with traditional sources of authority such as religion, tradition and the state. This research argues that a reasonable approach for citizenship education in democratizing Arab states could be grounded in John Rawls' political liberalism which, while providing a framework for liberal democratic citizenship education, also provides room for reasonable traditional ways of life to preserve their place in society. To illustrate some of the tensions between democratic citizenship values and traditional sources of authority, chapter three sets to analyze some aspects of the citizenship education programme in Jordan in which reconciling the traditional with the modern is among the overarching objectives. Analysis is based on Norman Fairclough's three dimensional critical discourse analysis model.