This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Bunch, R. E. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Political Socialization and Civics Education in Oceania

Department of Political Science, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207-0751.

Formal education, specifically civic education, as promoted in Oceania by the former colo nial powers and, currently, the United Nations, aims to mobilize Pacific Islanders and integrate them into the modern world. This can be seen in the literature of UNESCO and is recorded in scholarly materials. But the very term, civic education, is foreign to the cultures of the Islanders; it flows from concepts of the development of nation-states (divine right and social con tract theory), and is a product of normative western political thought. A recent anthropological empirical theory of the origin of states by Carniero, when applied to Oceania, confirms the absence of social institutions that would make the concept of civics education relevant to the cultures of Oceania. Thus, similar to earlier forms of colonial intrusion, current western intru sion in creating educational systems in Oceania exhibits an inconsistent message : while articulating normative values of self-determination, it practices the imposition of western values incongruent with Oceania cultures. Western policy continues to serve the national interests of powerful states at a cultural cost to Pacific Islanders and the preservation of diversity.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?