Teaching national and regional cultures: the role of teacher identities in Martinique

Abstract

Schooling is widely considered to be vital to the development of modern nation-states, yet little is known about how teachers might go about transmitting national culture within schools. Using the case of history–geography lycée teachers in the French overseas department of Martinique, this article makes the argument that teachers’ professional identities must be taken into account when considering the ways in which teachers implement curricula and understand their role in passing on national and other collective identities to students. Through local-level research in schools – comprised of interviews with teachers, school administrators, local officials and others, classroom observations and archival research – it becomes evident that teachers on the island, as elsewhere in France, enjoy considerable autonomy in implementing curricula. By training students to think critically, teachers encourage students to consider new meanings of ‘French’ and ‘Martinican’ identities on an everyday basis.