Search

This paper argues that propaganda poses a (new) challenge to civic education. It examines the tension between education and propaganda in relation to civic education for adults considering (1) civic education as protection against propaganda attempts and (2) propaganda as a possible element of civic education. This paper explores didactical approaches and core principles of civic education that strive to both resist and deal with propaganda. The core proposal of the paper is to root civic education in the tradition of the German concepts of Bildung and Mündigkeit in order to contrast civic education with propaganda or manipulation.

The purpose of this research was to explain and critique the causes of indoctrination in formal and informal education systems and to offer solutions that are compatible with Islamic culture. To do so, it was utilized philosophical conceptual analysis and interpretation (reviewing the context or registering of concept, and analyzing based on the contrast concepts) as well as transcendental analysis methods. The results indicated passive teaching methods, indoctrinating contents, and misuse of education are the influential factors on formation of indoctrination in formal education. While in informal education culture, family, passive acceptance of criteria and also psychological factors influenced on formation of indoctrination. Active teaching methods, student-centered content, and citizenship education are the solutions that would reduce indoctrinating oriented in formal education. To avoid indoctrination in informal education following solutions are offered: cultural moderation, family education, criteria recognition in this domain and paying attention to psychological self-awareness and self-discovery.

The industrialization and its consequential imperialism and colonialism have impacted this world for three centuries. India has been a colony of the British Empire for two centuries. These eventful two centuries of Indian history did see the influence of not only the political and economical might of the “great” Britain, but its influence on every milieu of Indian life. India’s indigenous education system was gradually displaced and the colonial model of education pervaded under the patronage from the colonial-state. The language, pedagogy, evaluation and knowledge of the colonizer became naturalis obligato for the population of the colony. India got independence in 1947 and took to the task of decolonizing education immediately. The attempts to decolonize education from various standpoints of political activism, universalism and religious nationalism are charted in this article. What decolonizing education should entail and how India has responded to this question in the last century and how the neo-liberal order has supported a particular ideology to have a dominant say in this process are concerns of this article. We analyse how re-schooling and indoctrination are projected as the most nationalist response for methodical decolonizing of education.

Civics courses in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) were intended to educate students to become socialist personalities. The didactical and ideological structure of the course, however, created internal contradictions that turned civics into an “impossible” course. This case study offers a model for conducting educational research into a single course curriculum using a multi-perspective analysis.