Cultivating “Postmodern Citizens”? Reflections on the New Trends of Education in Taiwan

Abstract

The institutionalist theory of world polity advanced by John W. Meyer and his colleagues provides us an insightful analytical tool to understand the ontological basis of the contemporary world constituted by nation-states and citizens, both of which are constructed through the rationalization process of modernity. However, does this theory still hold in a so-called postmodern or global era, in which the foundations of nation-states are said to be undermined? Are nation-states still the major authoritative actors in world polity? Does education as the main institution for social reproduction still produce reliable citizens for nation-states? This paper uses Taiwan as an illustrative case to explore the above questions. The author makes two arguments. First, the recent trends of education in Taiwan, epitomized in the so-called “chaos of educational reform,” are in part a reflection of the “postmodern condition” resultant from Taiwan’s national question. Taiwan’s abnormal status qua a nation-state can be viewed as an “ethnomethodoligical case” that demonstrates the resilience of institutional structures of world polity. In other words, the ontological principles that legitimate nation-states (on the collective level) and citizens (on the individual level) as constitutive members of world polity remain steadfast despite the impacts of globalization. Second, however, we have also observed in Taiwan new trends in education that may eventually undermine the rational foundation of such structures. The new trends in education can be characterized as “postmodern” for two reasons: first, due to its abnormal status qua a nation-state, metanarratives of nationalism can hardly hold in Taiwan; as a result, there is an overall incredulity towards metanarratives in Taiwan’s educational system, where instead instabilities and dissensions are prominent features. Secondly, during the educational reform in the past two decades, postmodernism has been both implicitly and explicitly promoted in education. In addition to a variety of postmodern scenes that can be characterized as Disney-zation of education, we have observed a tendency of moral indifference towards ethical principles and civic virtues in students. While we may call these new subjects thus cultivated “postmodern citizens,” their impacts on the future of institutional structures of the modern world are yet to be explored.