ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
This article explores Citizenship Education in Malaysia as a cultural discourse in Malaysia. The conception of citizenship is problematic because it is a product of social fragmentation that carries legal and sociological meanings. Citizenship in this article refers to the learning and teaching as an educational process to improve or achieve the aims inherent to the legal meaning. The objective of this article is to pull together citizenship and education as central themes, not legal but the sociological aspects, with ‘nation-of-intent’ as a conceptual framework. Nevertheless, the present effort of citizenship education in Malaysia is based on a particular form of ‘nation-of-intent’ (Bangsa Malaysia). As nation-building in Malaysia is a state without a nation, the present effort does not include ideas to the nation when promoting citizenship education- the notion of ‘equality in diversity’ and not only ‘unity in diversity’. The concept of citizenship and citizenship education in Malaysia is prompting only one form of ‘nation-of intent’ available in the country, whereas there are other nations as well, apparently. An implication of it is that the concept of citizenship and thus, nation-building in Malaysia is still fraught with confusion. The presence of plurality of ‘nation-of-intent’ in contemporary Malaysia demonstrates the fact that dissenting voices are present and heard, within and without government. Hence, in the context of challenges and possibilities, there is a need to clarify and explore the meaning of citizenship in diverse and democracy in a nation-state, the multiple views of citizenship and the dimensions of citizenship education in Malaysia.
Anderson, B. (1996). Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.
Barbalet, J. (1988). Citizenship. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Bendix, R. (1996). Nation-Building and Citizenship (revised ed.). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Bottery, M. (2000). Education, Policy, and Ethics. London: Continuum.
Castles, S., & Davidson, A. (2000). Citizenship and migration: Globalization and the politics
of belonging. London: Macmillan.
Green, A. (1997). Education, Globalization, and the Nation State. London: Macmillan.
Heater, D. (1990). Citizenship. London: Longman.
Heater, D. (1999). What Is Citizenship? Cambridge: Polity Press.
Held, D. (1989). The Decline of the Nation State, in: S. Hall & M. Jacques (Eds) New Times. London: Lawrence &Wishart.
Hill, M., and Lian, K. F. (1995) The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore. London and New York: Routledge
Hobsbawm, E. (1990). Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ichilov, O. (ed.) (1998). Citizenship and Citizenship Education in a Changing World. London: Woburn Press.
Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multi-citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Lauder, H., Jamieson, I., & Wikeley, F. (1998). Models of effective schools: limits and capabilities, in: R. Slee, G. Weiner & S. Tomlinson (Eds) School Effectiveness for Whom? London: Falmer.
Marginson, S. (1999). After globalization: emerging politics of education, Journal of Education Policy, 14(1), pp. 19–32.
Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, T. H., and Bottomore, T. (1992). Citizenship and Social Class. London and Concord, MA: Pluto Press.
Mccrone, D. (1998). The Sociology of Nationalism. London: Routledge.
Miller, D. (1995). “Citizenship and Pluralism”. Political Studies, XLIII.
Ohmae, K. (1995). The End of the Nation State. New York: Free Press.
Oldfield, A. (1990). Citizenship and community: Civic republicanism and the modern world. London: Routledge.
Prewitt, K. (2002). Race in the 2000 Census: A Turning Point. In Perlmann Joel, Waters
Mary, C. (eds). The New Race Question: How the Census Counts Multiracial Individuals. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Rawls, J. (1973). A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Riesenberg, P. (1992). Citizenship in the Western Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Rosaldo, R. (1999). Cultural Citizenship, Inequality and Multiculturalism. In R.D. Torres, L. F. Miron and J. X. Inda (Eds.), Race, Identity and Citizenship Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers (253-263).
Schumpeter, J. (1942). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.London: Allen & Unwin.
Shamsul, A. B. (2003). Membina Bangsa Malaysia [Building a Malaysian Nation), Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Perpaduan Negara [co-edited with Rahimah A.Aziz, Abdul Rahman Embong, Mohamed Yusoff Ismail, KamaruddinM.Said].
Shamsul, A. B., and Daud, S. (2006). “Nation, Ethnicity and Contesting Discourse in the Malaysian State” in State Making in Asia, edited by Richard Boyd and Tak-Wing Ngo, London and New York: Routledge (131-140).
Shamsul, A. B. (1996). “Nations-of-Intent in Malaysia,” in Asian Forms of the Nation, edited by Stein Tonnesson and Hans Antlov, London: Curzon and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (323-47).
Shamsul, A. B. (2011). “Reconnecting „the Nation? and „the State?: The Malaysian Experience”, in Shamsul A.B.: His Observations, Analyses and Thoughts”, edited by Anis Yusal Yusoff. Bangi: Institute of Ethnic Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Torney-Purta, J. V., Schwille, J., and Amadeo, J. (eds). (1999. Civic Education across Countries: Twenty-four National Case Studies from the IEA Civic Education Project. Amsterdam: International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
Vincent, A., and Plant, R. (1984). Philosophy, Politics and Citizenship. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wilkinson, R. (1996). Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality. London: Routledge.
In-Text Citation: (Ahmad & Abdullah, 2022)
To Cite this Article: Ahmad, A., & Abdullah, N. A. T. (2022). Citizenship Education: Challenges and Possibilities in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 12(6), 1109 – 1129.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode