ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 discusses potential criticisms of postcolonial theorists to global and democratic conceptions of educational justice and citizenship education. The first of such kind of criticisms is that the democratic ideas on which these conceptions draw involve an arbitrary extrapolation of democratic principles from Western to non-Western contexts. In response, this chapter argues that the mere fact that such standards have emerged in Western contexts does not render them inapplicable to non-Western contexts as well as that it is questionable on empirical grounds that basic normative ideas about democracy pertain exclusively to the West. In addition, this chapter considers the further critique that due to the present inter- and transnational economic and political asymmetries that have their origin in colonialism, border-transcending practices of democratic citizenship education are necessarily counterproductive. To this second criticism this chapter responds that the awareness of such asymmetries is a first step towards formulating reflective policies of transnational democratic citizenship education that are more effective. Yet in order for such policies to work well, this chapter argues, the institutions of democratic citizenship education must be democratic themselves and must remain responsive to citizens’ continuously shifting perspectives.
