Dimitri Morakhovski

School of sociology, politics and anthropology

La Trobe University, Australia

edudm1@lure.latrobe.edu.au

Education played a substantial role in the nation building process from the nineteenth century onwards, involving students into a dominant culture. The institution of school at that time was more closely tied to the interests of the state than in the current era, because the nation state was less able to impose social integration. Identification with the dominant culture as means of social integration from the nineteenth century became more important than loyalty to the state in terms of obedience to the authorities by means of the law. In the current era the role of mass education has been significantly changed. The cultural homogeneity does not occupy the central place in the 'national' politics because a nation state as a political entity can offer less. The new types of social integration in a form of orientation in a world itself reconstituted by information and technological change have increased within a growing commodification of social life.

The paper argues that within this context there is a need for development of the individual as an active agent. Education needs to promote the development of an individual who is potentially capable of dealing with a complex world. This development is required because it can save an individual from getting lost in an era of global communication.

In this paper the relationship between the nation state and the system of mass education will be examined. These relationships will be analysed from a historical perspective in order to explain, in a systematic way, the causal relationships evident in the past which aid an understanding of contemporary and future problems.

An era of so called imperialism (1870s- 1914) will be compared with the era of global communication (1970s-), viewed as two stages of globalization (Robertson, 1992).

In the first section an attempt is made to show the changes in the structure of the nation state in an era of imperialism (1870- 1914). This era is addressed here because one of the developments of this period was the formation of the system of mass education. Mass education was closely linked to the creation of new notions of political citizenship and national identity which constituted the primary focus of the nation building process in the era of imperialism. During the period after the French revolution of 1848 the doctrine of popular sovereignty became widely accepted in Europe. The idea of popular sovereignty implied that the power shifted from the monarch to the people, and that foreign rule was considered as illegitimate (Smith, 1983, pp. xxxiii- xxxiv). These two notions indicate that the idea of the nation "perceived as a space for equality; not the equality of all inhabitants …, but equality of all citizens" (Todorov, 1993, p. 175) has both internal and external characteristics. While internally the nation became an orderly or homogeneous unit, externally in relations to other nations the situation became chaotic like the movement of "billiard balls."

The process of detachment of social relationships from the local context and "distanciation" (Giddens, 1990) of them across significant distances gained impetus in the eighteenth century as a result of the standardisation of time due to the invention of the mechanical clock, and universalisation of space due to the diffusion of maps (Waters, 1995, pp. 48- 49).

In the second half of the nineteenth century means of rapid communication such as telegraph were invented and widely spread. These factors provided the basis for a more effective fiscal policy, than in the pre- modern era. In a traditional society, according to Scott (1998),

In that sense a pre- modern state fiscally was "all thumbs and no fingers" (Lindblom, 1959), while a modern society was more effective in an administrative sense.

These changes allowed "the stable organisation of human activity across vast temporal and spatial distances" (Waters, p. 49) and constituted the context where self- conscious ethnic communities were able to become societies (Smith, 1983, p. xxxiv).

Standardisation of time and universalisation of space as well as new means of effective communication allowed not only to organise human activity across vast distances, but also to integrate people living within the nation state borders. The idea of nation provided the basis for the integration of people across significant distances (Habermas, 1996, p. 130). It was supposed to be a new type of integration of people as strangers (ibid., p. 128). The realization of this idea was an imperative because the notion of popular sovereignty implied that the citizens need to become not only subjects of the state authority, but they are required to be active contributors to the maintenance of state power (Habermas, 1996, p. 129).

The concept of the nation reflected the fact that "to fulfill its integrative function, democratic citizenship must … be more than just a legal status; it must become the focus of shared political culture (ibid., pp. 132- 133). The nation building task for the nation states in an era of imperialism forced them to move from the idea of a "cultural community" as a set of relationships to the idea of "cultural community" as consciousness in order to strengthen their rule and make communication between strangers easier (Breuilly, 1985). To make this process more effective there was a need, according to Anderson (1996), to concentrate "imagined communities" around themselves, in order to bring strangers under a common set of beliefs and values. This shift could be achieved by ideological means (imagination) only ( Breuilly, 1985).

For these purposes, Habermas (1996) claims, the concept of nation as a community of citizens borrowed connotations from its earlier version, which referred to "the ability to generate stereotypes which had been associated with ‘nation’ as a concept of origin" (p. 127). In this sense "a space- fixing process is set into motion" (Bauman, 1998, p. 2). The nation states "redefine friends as natives", extending "the rights to all residents of the ruled territory" (Bauman, 1990, p. 153).

The nation state "grants the residential rights only if such an extension of rights is desirable (though desirability is often disguised as ‘feasibility’)" (Bauman, 1990, pp. 153- 154).

Estrangement became a policy of a nation state in a form of structural opposition of own group and stranger. Strangers were created when it was necessary for the nation state to make some individuals or groups inferior (Bauman, 1998).

Within this context a connection between nation and state becomes desirable and the nationalist ideology comes "out of the need to make sense of complex social and political arrangements" (Bauman, 1990, p. 153). Gellner (1983) argues not that "nationalism imposes homogeneity; it is rather that a homogeneity imposed by objective, inescapable imperative eventually appears on the surface in the form of nationalism" (p. 39).

Due to the promotion of standard culture the population of the nation state became at the same time mobilised and individualised (Habermas, 1996, p. 129).

Education played a major role in developing individuals capable of mobilisation around nation state. According to Ramires and Boli (1987), "the mobilization of individuals under state aegis became a legitimate means of pursuing the myth of progress" (p. 12).

The growth of mass education was connected with the growth of nationalism. Mass education played a substantial role in creating national consciousness from the nineteenth century onwards (Montserrat, 1996, p. 64). Nearly all European countries at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century put much effort into mass education for the purpose of mobilisation of its population. "Education replaced birth as the criterion for wielding authority, and abstract concepts ousted customary allegiances" (Smith, 1983, p. 88). The standard culture in the nation state was understood, according to Smith (1983), as a "kind of schooling" (p. 116). The central role of mass education became "the maintenance of the cultural/ linguistic medium" (Gellner, 1983, pp. 63- 64).

Breuilly (1985) indicates that "the development of a standard culture clearly promotes and makes plausible notions of national identity" (p. 67). The task of education becomes the creation of individuals capable of mobilisation. Nation states became interested in the creation of a new person and, therefore, in the system of mass education. Boli et. al. (1985) argue that

The process of the strengthening of the nation state was based on changes in people’s consciousness where the nation took control of the people’s lives. The identity of individuals was transformed "from the matter of ascription into achievement", and became a life- project linked to the idea of social order as a project (Bauman, 1995, pp. 3- 4).

Therefore the self- realising person became a twin- concept to the self- reflective individual. The system of mass education becomes focused on the "adherence to the principle of self- reflective and self- realising personhood- as a practice engaged in by a particular category of individual for particular ends" (Hunter, 1994, p. 3).

The school system was built to form self- reflective individuals and self- regulating citizens by means of "two autonomous technologies of human existence: the pastoral guidance of Christian souls and the governmental training of national citizens" (Hunter, 1994, pp. 30- 31). Christian pastoralism, according to Hunter (1994, p. 67), is founded "not in principles but in the practices of a spiritual discipline whose object is to create a kind of person capable of acting on principle". For that purpose "they must first ‘become the kind of people’ capable of attending to and governing their own conduct" (ibid. p. 89). "The principle of free self- realisation is thus not the foundation of Christian or humanist morality; it is the ethical goal of a comportment founded on a disciplined and obedient ‘practice of the self" (ibid. p. 89).

Government training is founded "in arts of government that problematise political reality as a domain open to technical administration" (ibid., p. 67).

Nationalism implies that there is a strong connection between the Christian approach to developing a person, able to act on principle and govern her or his conduct, and the government training a person as citizen. However, there is a tension between these two practices. Todorov (1993, p. 179) indicates that "owing to its universalism, the Christian religion is incompatible with the objectives of nationhood." These principles were compounded in a way that "if we are obliged to love all men, and as it is true to say that to a Christian there is no such thing as a stranger, it is more reasonable that we should love our fellow citizens" (Todorov, 1993, p. 185). Gellner (1983) indicates that in an emerging society in these conditions

This type of mass education, based on commonalties, served the nation state which used the policies of estrangement, or opposition of own group (mainstream) and stranger for the purpose of social control (Bauman, 1998). The politics of estrangement, or making and remaking of strangers can be viewed in terms of manipulation of involvement and detachment, concepts which are encapsulated in the stranger. However it would be misleading to conceptualise nationalism solely in the terms of manipulation and illusion (Calhoun, 1997, p. 126). Calhoun (1997) argues:

Nationalism viewed in terms of place and emotion brings strangers into its focus. Strangers viewed as physically close, but emotionally or spiritually remote (Simmel, 1971) were involved, or attached to the body of the nation, while being detached from their local contexts and themselves.

Involvement, however can be viewed as not opposed to detachment. Involvement, according to Todorov (1993), " implies turning one’s back on the lesser entity (the self) as well as on the greater entity (other groups, humanity as a whole). Attachment [or involvement] to the group is at once an act of solidarity and an act of exclusion" (p. 173).

The concept of detachment is not opposite to involvement if viewed in terms of withdrawal, because withdrawal means not an absence from being, but in a sense an attunement of being (Segal, 1998, p. 276). In order to accept oneself "in others … one must first deny the self in oneself" (Todorov, 1993, p. 82).

In an era of nationalism, the school helped children to get a broader perspective due to the detachment of an individual from the local context and herself. On the other hand, involvement (attachment) of the individuals to the nation excluded them from themselves, and other groups (e.g. humanity as a whole).

Detachment therefore could be viewed as a valuable first step in building relationships between strangers (Todorov, 1993). It is not possible to be a member of society in strong terms ("mainstream") and know the society (ibid.). The nation state in a current era is not able to re- introduce the idea of involvement due to the fact that the contemporary westernised societies increasingly become more multicultural (multi- logical) and boundless. According to Beck (1997), "individualization processes, considered globally, abolish prerequisites for constructing and renewing national oppositions of own group and strangers" (p. 75; italics deleted).

In an era of global communication the certainties of an industrial society are over.

Hobsbawm (1994) claims:

The scope of politics of the nation state has shrunk not only because of the emerging forms of governance of international markets, but also because of the lack of war threat due to the end of the Cold War period in 1989. After the end of the Cold War, the need in the nation state because of the "danger" that the enemy could "destroy the gains of socialism or impose communist tyranny" depending on one’s viewpoint, is no longer relevant (Hirst and Thomson, 1996, p. 175). It does not mean though that there could not be some residual developments like the war in Kosovo.

The nation state in earlier times provided basis for equality of its citizens.

Many theorists such as Aronowitz (1996) and Apple (1996) argue that reaching goals like social justice or equality of opportunity by a government is problematic under current conditions of the "unregulated" economy. The possibility of achieving such goals is undermined by the weakened capacity of the nation state to act as a moderator between capital and labour during economical liberalisation as contrasted with its role during the politics of social compromise in earlier times (Aronowitz, 1996, p. 15).

The point could be made that in the current era due to the diminishing capacity of contemporary westernised society to realise ideas of liberation and social justice, as indicated by Apple (1996) and Aronowitz (1996), any notion of progress requiring a "universalistic notion of desirable ends towards which history should move and can actually be moved by properly constituted agents" could be seen as problematic (Offe, 1998, p. 4).

The nation state can no longer be viewed as an effective political framework both for maintenance of social justice and democratic citizenship.

The challenge of social change is often met by the nation state with the new form of public governance, defined by Kickert (1991, p. 21) as "steering at a distance" , which comes to the fore, indicating that market and management have created a system where "the state is left in the enviable position of having power without responsibility" (Ball, 1994, p. 80).

Social change, however, becomes perpetual, and individuals are increasingly aware that there are no times of equilibrium between periods of change.

Human activity becomes possible across the borders of the nation state due to global communication and this is reflected in a tendency for social relationships to become simultaneously close and remote. The increasing interpenetration between closeness and remoteness of social relationships leads to growing desynchronization and personification of time and space relationships in the current era. This leads us to a point that the individual becomes the main actor in the era of global communication. This development requires individuals to be more reflective to understand themselves and the complex environment. Individuals, therefore, are pushed to make decisions in conditions of uncertainty. In an era of uncertainty, when individuals are pushed to act independently, their capability to do so increases in significance.

In an era of global communication, claims Touraine (1999),

Within this context Touraine (1999) claims that

In order to be different, individuals need to be capable of detachment both from their function and their group, because in the current era, according to Touraine (1999), "our identity is increasingly detached from what we do and more and more dependent upon what we are" (p. 168). Equality, therefore, in an era of global communication needs to be re- conceptualised in terms of difference. It is no longer achievable and desirable to found equality on commonalties of individuals. Todorov (1984) argues

Perpetual social change in the current era leads to the awareness of individuals that uncertainty is "no longer seen as a mere temporary nuisance, which with due effort may be either mollified or altogether overcome" (Bauman, 1995, p. 5). The idea that the process of globalization in an era of uncertainty is not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, and may consist of contradictory elements of varying pace and scope which are changing with different speed, will be supported.

It is often said that globalization and localization are twin concepts. Beck (1995) claims that globalization and individualization "are in fact two sides of the same process of reflexive modernization… [This type of] individualization is not based on the free decisions of individuals" (p. 14). For the purposes of this paper I would like to look more closely on the human consequences of globalization in terms of localization.

Bauman (1995, pp. 5-7) indicates that the sources of uncertainty are:

• lack of a widely accepted standard of logic and a sense of direction due to the boundlessness of a contemporary westernised society;
• priority is awarded to the irrationality and moral blindness of the competitive market; the unbounded freedom granted to capital and finance at the expense of all other freedoms;
• interpersonal relations are now permeated by the ruling spirit of consumerism and are not presumed as lasting and treated as such;
• a mode of political agency is based on what the image- industry offers. The self- image slits into a collection of snapshots constituting a palimpsest identity.

Though all of the sources of uncertainty are important, I would like to focus on the first idea as the most relevant to this paper.

For individuals their ability to act consciously, and rationally, means creating new opportunities in an era of uncertainty. The new opportunities, however, are accompanied by the "new worries and anxieties [which] come to the fore" (Giddens, 1998, p. 37). For the individuals known as the mainstream, who are preoccupied with the logic of "common sense", anxiety and anomie may eclipse opportunity. The context of uncertainty leads to the disorientation of ‘mainstream’ individuals.

The point can be made that the positive attitude to difference is desirable not only because the values of each person are important, but also the difference between values of each person is important. To reflect strangeness of the other adequately there is a need to develop the logic "in between" (Segal, 1998, p. 273). It is important because we can not act without being aware of the way we act (ibid., p. 274) and this development is possible in an era of global communication only if we accept the ‘reality’ of multi- logical society and the logic "in between."

The "common- place folk" or mainstream individuals are "near" or "at home". That means certainty for them. Any uncertainty brings fear and disorientation to the "mainstream" (Bauman, 1998, p. 13). "Being ‘far away’ … demands cleverness, courage, mastering skills… The idea of the ‘near’, on the other hand, stands for unproblematic …" (Bauman, 1998, pp. 13- 14). In the current era, according to Bauman (1998), "far from being hotbeds of communities, local populations are more like loose bunches of untied ends" (p. 24). Local communities often disperse the negative attitude to diversity. Bauman (1998) claims, that

Homogeneous localities, therefore, could no longer be viewed as basis for action, because lacking coherence, they may lead to disorientation. According to Hirst and Thomson (1996), "the assertion of ethnic cultural or religious homogeneity may serve as a cultural compensation for poverty, as an opium of the economically backward, but it will not cure it" (p. 182). The locality is more connected to meaning consumption than to meaning generation. In a current era the elite’s culture becomes increasingly more "hybrid" (Bauman, 1998, p. 3). Bauman (1998) claims, that

As Apple (1996) claims:

The processes of globalization in an era of uncertainty and perpetual change require new skills and imply an individual who is able to operate actively in an increasingly multicultural (multi- logical) environment.

This section will attempt to show that the current era demands a different type of mass education. Currently the role of the nation state has changed, and correspondingly approaches to educational policies need to reflect these changes. The institution of the school in the era of so called imperialism was "closely tied to the interests of the state" because the nation state was less able to impose social integration than in the current era (Hinkson, 1996, p. 208). Education from the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century onwards played a significant role in the processes of social integration: it "influenced the self- formation of young people by introducing them to the wider and more complex world of society at large" (Hinkson, 1996, p. 208), and "has arisen not as a practical device to deal with particular local problems or group conflicts but as a general system expressing principles of broad meaning and validity" (Boli et. al., 1985, p. 148).

Decentralisation of (educational) politics is widely used across contemporary Westernised societies as an element of a new paradigm of public governance "steering at a distance" (Kickert, 1991), or "remote control" (Wielemans, 1996). Decentralisation potentially creates problems of its own for the education of strangers due to its preoccupation with local contexts. The processes of decentralisation could not be explained solely by the strive for democracy (Wielemans, 1996, p. 13). There are other reasons as well:

• the drive towards federalism as a political compromise or as a concession to preserve unity in the face of strong movements for cultural identity or mothertongue;

• the advance of liberalism with its beliefs in the free basic forces, in the advantages of competition, in meritocracy and in the individual capacity of social mobility;

• populist localism, which while rejecting the elite dominance indicating that the school curriculum should be an outcome of a negotiating interaction between pupils, teachers and other partners directly involved (elements of anarchism), favours conservatism in relation to the cultural values of ordinary people) (Wielemans, 1996, pp. 13- 15).

These three tendencies do not leave enough room for diversity, though diversity is pertinent for the human condition in the current era. The conditions which are important to enable people to participate in the process of creating new meanings and values is basically a political process in a complex environment, where the individuals have different views on one world (Apple, 1996). The dynamics of this multifaceted process are shown by Hobsbawm (1990) who argues that in future we could see

The omnipresence of strangers and the inability of the nation states by means of top- down action to provide a basis for development of an individual able to act in the uncertain environment in an era of global communication demands new ways of approaching education in terms of equality and difference.

However, according to Taylor et al. (1997), "schools are still based on the assumptions of homogeneity and uniformity. They still require conformity and obedience to rules that are based on the requirements of administrative convenience rather than moral principles" (p. 151).

The goals of education conceptualized on common norms and values are no longer achievable and desirable. The point can be that they do not reflect adequately the individuality of strangers in the current era. Touraine (1999, p. 12) claims:

• When the goals of education are solely those of socialization, social inequalities are reinforced, since those children closest to central socio- cultural models are favoured by the system

• If on the contrary the school emphasizes participation in a cultural group or a social class, this will serve to further distance communities from each other, and thus also to reinforce overall social inequalities since distinct groups usually hold unequal positions in a hierarchical society

The (educational) justice based on uniformity misrepresents the world because it

1. approaches the strangeness of individuals "freezing" the differences between them;
2. overlooks the notions of contingency and unpredictability.

The point here could be that in the current era the emphasis is often placed on the vocational aspect of education. The achievement of the vocational aspect could be problematic if the person does not understand where she/ he stands due to the decline of clear moral purpose in the educational system of the contemporary westernised societies. Giddens (1998) views our time not "as an age of moral decay … [but] as an age of moral transition" (p. 36) on the basis of the importance to find "a new balance between individual and collective responsibilities" (p. 37). However it is not clear how it could be done without re- introducing equality in terms of difference. To address equality and difference adequately there is a need to put the individual as the stranger into the primary focus of education.

The educational role of the stranger is that it "allows me, not only to see myself in an unfamiliar way, but also to situate myself in a broader context" (Segal, 1998, p. 280) The difficulty, however, is that as far as modern society is egalitarian and tries to realise an equal access to all members to all function systems, there are no structural possibilities of privileging the stranger (Stichweh, 1997, p. 5).

The Individual as active agent may also be seen as a basis of social cohesion, which no longer can be "guaranteed by the top- down action of the state or by appeal to tradition" (Giddens, 1998, p. 37). Particulars however do not lead to general per se. According to Todorov (1993),

• The student needs to be trained to be able to get detached from any context, as a first step towards understanding of herself or himself and others

• The student needs to be able to look at herself or himself not only from a different perspective, but within a broader context

Calhoun, C. (1997). Nationalism. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press