ABSTRACT
In concert with Singapore’s ambitions of a global city well-engineered to the human capital needs of the transnational knowledge economy, its Ministry of Education (MOE) has in recent years emphasized the teaching of critical thinking as one of its key 21st-century competencies (Ministry of Education, 2010). 2 Such efforts, however, are not without tensions and contradictions. Given the fundamental associations of such a curricular ideal with liberal discourses of democracy, intellectual autonomy and an enlarged and engaged sense of citizenship (Lim, 2011; Nussbaum, 2004; Siegel, 1997), what form does it assume in the schools and classrooms of a society with a weak and underdeveloped language of individual rights? In a “meritocratic” and highly stratified education system that has traditionally allocated distinct competencies and social responsibilities for various social groups, what are the tensions involved in now teaching all students what was once classified – and still very much regarded – as “high-status” knowledge (Oakes, 1985)?
