178 Current Issues in Comparative Education within fragile states. In the face of these conundrums, Brock et al. offer two proposals: (i) the need to “re-examine external conditions and forms of engagement that foster or support the mitigation of fragile statehood” and (ii) that the global community should “be ready to do more, and with much greater speed in emergency situations” (p. 165). A requisite component of the first proposal involves an overhaul of international development, whereby effective self-help is fostered and the more economically advanced economies revisit the disequilibrium of “trade relations, market access, investment rules, financial regulation, the rules and regulations of the international organizations, and ‘transnational bads’, such as smuggling, the drugs trade, the arms trade, [and] international terrorism” (p. 167). These are indeed worthwhile recommendations, though more effort should have been expended on their elaboration. Nonetheless, this book represents a strong contribution toward widening our understanding of fragile states; and despite the far-ranging analysis of both endogenous and exogenous factors that shape state fragility, the authors are perhaps quite right when they insist that “fundamental social change must come from [within and] not from outsiders” (p. 136). – Reviewed by Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams, Gettysburg College Citizenship Education in Commonwealth Countries, by Tristan McCowan and Sonia Gomez. London, UK: Commonwealth Secretariat, 2012. 100 pp. ISBN-13 978-1849290715. Citizenship Education in Commonwealth Countries analyzes the use of citizenship education as an educational intervention to promote respect and understanding in different Commonwealth countries. According to McCowan and Gomez, “given that half of the 2 billion people in the Commonwealth are under 25 years old, citizenship education, whether implicit or explicit, represents a window of opportunity to influence a world of active citizenship and peace for the next generation” (p. 25). With this in mind, Citizenship Education in Commonwealth Countries offers a complex look at citizenship education in a global era. The authors explore both what it means to be a citizen in a global society and how to create cosmopolitan citizens through education. Spanning the range of issues associated with citizenship education from theorizing citizenship to implementing interventions, McCowan and Gomez provide useful insights into innovative teaching strategies that foster respect and understanding in cosmopolitan citizens. In the most traditional sense, citizenship “involves a relationship between the citizen and other citizens or the state, and involves concessions and privileges on both sides” (p. 14). Because citizenship education has often been framed by patriotic citizenship in a given nation-state, it has failed to address issues of international conflict. However, defining citizenship in a global era proves particularly complicated, as members of diverse ethnic and religious groups claim citizenship within the same national boundaries. In this context, the ideal cosmopolitan citizen emerges – not a national citizen focused on competing successfully in global markets, but a cosmopolitan global citizen who displays empathy through respect and understanding for diverse groups of people. Aiming to build cosmopolitan citizens through education, McCowan and Gomez employ Martha Nussbaum’s three capacities: critical self-examination, world citizenship, and the narrative imagination. Across different Commonwealth countries, citizenship education has been practiced in different ways and to varying degrees. McCowan and Gomez review those practices in case studies of Current Issues in Comparative Education 179 five Commonwealth countries: Canada, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu. They analyze citizenship education practices in each of these countries with respect to the goals of strengthening democracy and building social cohesion. Each case involves a unique context in which to implement citizenship education, and the interventions are unsurprisingly diverse. Across all five cases, McCowan and Gomez cite similar factors that either promote or harm the effectiveness of citizenship education. Three factors supporting citizenship education include teacher involvement and ownership, democratic school management and pedagogy, and a democratic environment outside the school. Vanuatu, the only small state in the group, has had particular difficulty implementing citizenship education because of its ethnic diversity, geography, and post-colonial political complexity. For Vanuatu, “the more complex issue for citizenship education is that of reconciling multiple cultural influences, tradition and modernity, national and local. The formal education system, while on its way to addressing access issues, has yet to find ways to balance multiple cultural influences to promote social cohesion and civic knowledge” (p. 50). According to McCowan and Gomez, this small state needs to engage its citizens to build an agreed-upon identity that takes into account the Vanuatu’s ethnic diversity and colonial history. As this case shows, postcolonial small states face unique challenges in implementing citizenship education. In addition to describing five case studies of citizenship education, McCowan and Gomez present examples of best practices and innovations from across the globe. These innovations span a broad, if somewhat random, group of innovations. As McCowan and Gomez state, “[m]ost do not come under the label ‘citizenship education’ as such, but represent innovative ways of working towards political empowerment and intercultural understanding, and so share the same aims” (p. 53). By grouping together innovations from Model UN to refugee education in Thailand to intercultural universities in Mexico, the authors illustrate how citizenship education can be effective through diverse means in a variety of contexts. Even though the programs’ content, delivery methods, and contexts are unique, each intervention promotes respect and understanding. The cases included could provide insights for teachers or curriculum writers interested in fostering cosmopolitan citizenship among students. Citizenship Education in Commonwealth Countries uses the idea of citizenship education as a vehicle for promoting peace and intercultural understanding. Taking into consideration identity and the state of citizenship in a global society, McCowan and Gomez present a nuanced look at citizenship education with an optimistic yet pragmatic aim of promoting peace through respect and understanding. Most impressively, the authors present not only the theoretical basis for promoting citizenship education, but also tackle the problem of implementation. In doing so, they provide both policy-makers and educators with concrete ideas and insights to create new innovations in citizenship education. In addressing implementation across such a broad scope, the authors include a wide array of innovations across different contexts. While presenting such diverse approaches to citizenship education is clearly useful, it would also be helpful for these innovations to be presented within a more coherent framework for implementation. Both educators and policy-makers – two groups that might find this work most interesting – would benefit from such a framework when looking to create new strategies for building citizenship education programs. By seeing citizenship education from a cosmopolitan perspective, McCowan and Gomez provide a compelling vision for the future. Nationalist or patriotic versions of citizenship education seem anachronistic in the present context. Yet citizenship is still widely understood as an imperative 180 Current Issues in Comparative Education for living in community with others. By extending their notion of community, and encouraging a citizenship education that encourages international respect and understanding, McCowan and Gomez take a step forward in the path to peace through education on an international scale. – Reviewed by Beth Wright, Loyola University Chicago Education in Small States: Global Imperatives, Regional Initiatives and Local Dilemmas, edited by Peter Mayo. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2010. 168 pp. ISBN-13: 978- 0415560399 Sixteen scholars contributed to nine chapters in Peter Mayo’s edited book that drew on articles that Comparative Education published as a special issue in 2008 (Volume 44, Issue 2). The chapters covered issues that range from basic education, adult education, and entrepreneurship training, to the impact of globalization on educational restructuring, career guidance, advancement of educational research, and funding of higher education in specific small state regions. In spite of a seeming lack of coherence the papers weave in and out of five main research strands: politics and policy making; economic development and labour market characteristics; education and human resource development; administration and sociocultural issues. One of the major strengths of the book is its diversity in terms of not only the range of issues but also the representation of work done on small states – a not easily defined concept – in the Southern Pacific, Caribbean, African, European, and Mediterranean regions. Some of the claims authors make about the notion of small scale are very specific while others are more tentative, taking into consideration other variables and the presence of similar challenges in regions and communities that might not be categorized as ‘small or smaller’. The authors agree that the question of size is indeed a very critical issue for jurisdictions that grapple with creating educational systems that allow them to better prepare students at all levels of the educational system to participate in a global economy. While some authors seem to focus on the seemingly negative aspects of size, others look to the positive and the advantages of being ‘small,’ or attempt to strike a balance. Of great importance to this book is the contribution of the late Kazim Bacchus, a leading scholar in international, comparative and development education. Bacchus’ scholarly work over the years positions him to adequately provide a historical background and introduction to the many issues raised in other chapters of the book. Of great significance is his reference, though some scholars might argue somewhat uncritical, to the work of the Commonwealth Secretariat, World Bank, and other organizations and the role they played in identifying the educational challenges facing small states, and supporting their integration into the competitive global economy of the 21st century. It is important to note that as Crossley suggested one of the priorities of small states should be the strengthening of their capacity to do research and evaluation. The lack of funds to do this kind of work is a major limitation in terms of small states’ ability to participate in global initiatives, make public the achievements of small states, and challenge the hegemonic discourse of many of the research paradigms used to study local contexts. Given the focus of the text, Bacchus’ discussion on the varying definitions of ‘small state’ is most critical and relevant to an understanding of its influence on what these various so-called entities find they can and cannot do as they attempt to participate in global imperatives and regional initiatives. The economic, sociocultural, and political issues, their relationships to size, and the