This dissertation examines the role of education in the formation of the Singapore developmental state, through a historical study of education for citizenship in Singapore (1955-2004), in which I explore the interconnections between changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics of nation-building.
Building on existing scholarship on education and state formation, the dissertation goes beyond the conventional notion of seeing education as providing the skilled workforce for the economy, to mapping out cultural and ideological dimensions of the role of education in the developmental state. The story of state formation through citizenship education in Singapore is essentially the history of how Singapore’s developmental state managed crises (imagined, real or engineered), and how changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, served to legitimize the state, through educating and moulding the desired “good citizen” in the interest of nation building. Underpinning these changes has been the state’s use of cultural constructs such as Confucianism and Asian values to shore up its legitimacy.
State formation in Singapore has been very successful, as evidenced by its economic prosperity and education has played a key role in this success. However, the “economic growth at all costs” ethos comes, arguably, at a price – the potential loss of zeitgeist, or the loss of the “World-Soul”. Nation building in the sense of fostering a sense of rootedness and belonging to the country in its citizenry – the “World-Soul” – had to be relegated to the backburner in the relentless pursuit of economic development, in order to sustain and legitimize the developmental state. By harnessing the educational sphere for its economic growth objectives through the discourse of crisis, the developmental state gained political legitimacy in the eyes of a citizenry increasingly accustomed to educational mobility and material wealth, even if at the expense of political freedoms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/29685 |
| Date | 30 August 2011 |
| Creators | Chia, Yeow Tong |
| Contributors | Sandwell, Ruth W. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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