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Globalization and the Singapore Curriculum pp 85–98Cite as

Recontextualizing Critical Thinking in the Singapore Classroom: Political Ideology and the Formation of School Subjects

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Part of the book series: Education Innovation Series ((EDIN))

Abstract

The teaching of critical thinking has in recent years assumed a central focus across the educational and curricular discourses of developed countries around the world. This chapter examines how the curricular initiative of critical thinking is translated into curricular programmes in Singapore. It suggests that, while in many ways such a discourse embodies the aspirations of a young nation state eager to prepare its citizens for a global economy and a global workforce, its translation into concrete curricular programmes requires a further recontextualization that takes into account a complex set of socio-political ideologies that have for long characterized the nation’s consciousness.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Dale (1989) for a very careful treatment of the relationship between the state and its apparatuses.

  2. 2.

    See, for example, Scheffler (1973).

  3. 3.

    I have argued at length for this position elsewhere. See Lim (2011).

  4. 4.

    Here, the distinctions between liberal and communitarian democracies (the latter of which the Singapore state identifies itself) are especially pertinent (Bell 2000; Chua 2010).

  5. 5.

    It should not be assumed that the distinction between liberal and collectivist societies is a binary one, and that consequently societies fall neatly into one category or the other. This cannot be further from the truth. In framing the above discussion in terms of ideological discourses, it should be apparent that all ideological discourses (liberalism included) really function as moralising statements rather than descriptions of extant conditions.

  6. 6.

    These issues are taken up in my doctoral dissertation (Lim 2013b).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Leonel Lim

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  1. Leonel Lim
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Correspondence to Leonel Lim .

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  1. National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Zongyi Deng

  2. National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    S Gopinathan

  3. National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Christine Kim-Eng Lee

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Lim, L. (2013). Recontextualizing Critical Thinking in the Singapore Classroom: Political Ideology and the Formation of School Subjects. In: Deng, Z., Gopinathan, S., Lee, CE. (eds) Globalization and the Singapore Curriculum. Education Innovation Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-57-4_6

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