Ethics education – multicultural approach with a global view.

Polish ethics education - can’t it be mapped to a multicultural education?

Dr Joanna LEEKUniversity of Lodz, Poland

ENASTE-Congress 2015, ViennaMay 14-16, 2015

Polish ethics education - can’t it be mapped to a multicultural education?

• The aim of the lecture is to highlight one of the issues which insufficiently deals with the relationship to globalization, migration and multicultural education: teaching values. – concept of global multicultural world of Martha Nussbaum– some theoretical debates on multicultural education that

is based on democratic values, affirming world citizenship in an interdependent world

– ethics education in Poland by introducing policies, measures, approaches, curriculum and organization.

Methodological approach

• The desk review mapping cosmopolitan education and multicultural education (part I)

• Reviewing two types of literature: academic studies and Polish ethics core curricula & direct contacts with professionals (teachers) working in the field (part II)

Cosmopolitan connections of multicultural word

• Martha C. Nussbaum is an American philosopher, Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago

• She has a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy, feminism and ethics.

Cosmopolitism of M. Nussbaum• is connected with the idea of education for

world citizenship that must ‘prepare to live together in a pluralistic democracy’

• requires the need for discussion about sexual, racial, ethnic & social minorities and major cultural and religious orientations

Cosmopolitism of M. Nussbaum

• To get to know own region and culture• To engage students in knowledge of all

cultures and histories • To develop ability to see itselve as citizens of

some local, regional group but also as human beings, bound to other human beings by ties of recognition and concern.

Cosmopolitism of M. Nussbaum

• Citizenship education nees to beginn as soon as possible– Children should be presented differences in culture,

traditions and beliefs. – They can participate in storytelling and must be taught to

understand and respect the commonality and differences, common rights and unique history, problems and aspirations of various groups.

Cosmopolitism of M. Nussbaum

• NARRITATIVE IMAGNINATION• The ability – to think what it might be like to be in the situation

of a person different from oneself, – to understand the emotions, wishes and desires

that someone so placed might have.

Multicultural education with global context

• Over the past 40 years numerous scholars, researchers and organizations have been defining multicultural education in different ways for various reasons.

• Even now there is still not a clear and agreed upon definition emerging from the literature on multicultural education

• The term multicultural education refers often to two practices: teaching in a multicultural society and teaching about cultural diversity.

Multicultural education with global context

• Multicultural education by J. Banks (2010)(1) content integration, (2) the knowledge construction process, (3) prejudice reduction, (4) an equity pedagogy,(5) an empowering school culture and social

structure.

Multiculturalism

Cosmopolitanism

Multiculturalism & Cosmopolitism

Ethics education in Poland

• Ethic education together with religion education as school subject is a rather recent innovation.

• It has been set in Polish schools 1991 with adding it into the school curriculum.

• Since then school is obliged to offer religion or ethic lessons but them two school subjects are nor compulsory but voluntary to attend by pupils.

• Pupils may attend religion lessons, ethic subject, both or they have right do not attend any of them.

• Results in ethics are included in the student's grade point average, do not affect the promotion.

Ethics in Polish core curricula – interlocking multicultural & global approaches. How it is.

Ethics in Polish core curricula – interlocking multicultural & global approaches. How it can be.

Conclusions

• The paper was intended to extend understanding of challenges of multicultural & cosmopolitan education. The contribution is threefold.

Conclusions

1. My research demonstrates that ethic education can’t be understood as part of multicultural or global education as they are two different concepts.

Conclusions

2. The content of Polish ethic curriculum includes multicultural and global issues. But there is still a lot of possibilities what could be included in curricula.

Conclusions

• A challenge of moral education in multicultural global world is to focus on fostering the development of empathy and pro-social emotions. An attempt to teach how to live together is at heart of most formulations of moral education in multicultural & global world.

Conlusions

3. Although there are differences between multicultural and cosmopolitan education, ethics education might be the opportunity on Polish schools to combine this two issues in one Ethics core curriculum.