Globalization and citizenship education: Implications for the nation state. A study of the influence of globalizing agencies on educational policy discourse in Spain and Manitoba in Canada

This study examines the characteristics of the understanding of citizenship education as reflected in some of the policy documents the Manitoban and Spanish governments produced in the 1990s. I argue that although the specific socio-economic and political contexts in Spain and Manitoba have conditioned the understanding of citizenship education as stated in the documents, the economic priorities of globalization have provided a powerful frame of reference for educational reform. As a result of globalization the notion of the nation state acquired new connotations in the discourse of citizenship, therefore the understanding of citizenship education has changed. The chief question underlying my research is to what extent pressures to create a knowledge-based economy have influenced the articulation and implementation of citizenship in the educational policy documents.; I examine the discourse in the policy documents from Spain and Manitoba in Canada, and, using a comparative research method of analysis, provide the tools to show how Manitoba in Canada and Spain have their own individual ways of mediating change. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...