Citizenship and political education has increasingly been identified as an important component in educating young people for democratic citizenship. The National Curriculum Framework for School Education in Nepal 2007, the Nepalese social studies school curriculum, and textbooks explicitly underline the promotion of a democratic system and culture along with the development of civic and citizenship skills among Nepalese citizens. This article reports on a qualitative analysis of selected civic awareness images in Nepalese social studies textbooks using a ‘visual grammar’ framework. The analysis reveals that the images attempt to promote a message of national unity and respect for diversity in the country. However, the low quality black and white images and textbooks have some adverse teaching and learning implications for teachers and students and tend towards idealized representations.
This paper draws upon a wider study deploying a ‘Contexts of Influence’ policy analysis framework applied to a developing nation—Nepal. The specific focus of the investigation was a policy into practice analysis of civics and citizenship educational curriculum goals. Themes around teaching and learning related to national identity, democracy, cultural diversity and global education were explored at the macro, meso and micro policy levels. The paper identifies some gaps and tensions in policy making in Nepal within and between the contexts of influence, text production and practice. The findings of this paper indicate that the relationships between the various contexts of influence in Nepal are not quite as dynamic as in some other studies that have applied the policy cycle model. There is an asymmetry of power with the policymakers in charge. The paper reflects upon how both textbooks and teaching practice might benefit from a greater sense of agency and empowerment in order to stimulate more creative and multi-perspectival classroom practice.
The article explores how educational policy, curricula, textbooks and teaching have translated thinking about Nepal’s relationship with the rest of the world into global education practice in Nepalese schools in contemporary classrooms. Drawing upon the framework of a policy cycle approach, the article addresses the following research questions: What are the key contemporary messages about global education in Nepal within the ‘macro’ context of policy influence? How is the theme of global education communicated through the content of Nepalese textbooks at the ‘meso’ context of policy text production? What are the perceptions of Nepalese social studies teachers with respect to teaching and learning about global education themes at the ‘micro’ context of practice? Qualitative content analysis of textbooks and documents was conducted, while thematic analysis of interview data was undertaken to understand policy objectives and recommendations related to global citizenship education in Nepal. The findings indicate that educational policies primarily aim to socialise and nurture responsible citizens, while textbooks and teaching processes mostly emphasise the acquisition of knowledge. Some recommendations are made as to how the curriculum, textbooks and pedagogical approaches might be adapted to better support Nepalese young people seeing themselves as global citizens.
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