ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship of education to the nation-state within the context of a globalizing economic and political system. The Western model of schooling involves mass compulsory education funded by the government and serving the needs of the nation. The Syrian Constitutions provides one of many examples of the use of schools to promote the cause of the nation-state. Jean Jacques Rousseau is one important example of an 18th-century political theorist who considered mass education essential to the development of the nation-state. Rousseau's educational dictates can be found in the example of the Syrian Constitution. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's projects an image of a corporate society where a worker's imagination and thinking are devoted to economic improvement. The Civic District Tour confronts students with buildings that embody the administrative apparatus of the nation. Singapore provides one educational ideology for a global society where boundaries between national cultures are disintegrating and populations are migrating from region to region.
