The decline of the nation-state and the education of national minorities

Abstract

Many forces are shifting the role of the nation-state and altering our fundamental understanding of how it should function. The author argues that the transplanted European model of the nation-state has become dysfunctional, creating “national minorities”, serving as an ideological cloak for various forms of oppression and opposing forms of education that would promote diversity of languages and cultures. The decline of territorial sovereignty under the forces of globalization, the move to supranational forms of organization and the emergence of sub-national areas of economic and social development (often city-regions) provide a new range of opportunities for development of minority schooling.