Citizenship Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

This chapter explores Citizenship Education in Malaysia in the context of its current experiences as we approach the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution. As a cultural discourse, the problematic conception of citizenship is a product of social fragmentation in Malaysia. Citizenship can carry two meanings - legal and sociological. The legal simply refers to a subject’s right and duties to be recognized as a legally permanent inhabitant of a state. Secondly, the development of citizenship, understood in sociological terms, would involve a transformative process in which individuals come to see themselves as part of a wider citizen body, to which they owe obligations involving duties as well as having rights. As such, ‘citizenship’ in this chapter refers to an educational process: learning and teaching to improve or achieve the aims inherent to the legal meaning. The objective of this chapter is to pull together citizenship and education as central themes, - not legal but the sociological aspects, with the ‘nations-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 (and it has many nations-of-intent), 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 ‘nations-of-intent’ in contemporary Malaysia demonstrates the fact that dissenting voices are present and heard, within and without government. To some degree, it is necessary, for the underlying reason that the identification and sense of belonging of individuals and communities themselves are fragmented, not necessarily conducive to the knowledge of national unity. Hence, in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there is a need to clarify and explore the meaning of citizenship in diverse and democratic Malaysian as a nation-state, the multiple views of citizenship and the dimensions of citizenship education.