Patriotism In Schools Research Articles

History Textbooks as Social Contract: Educational Reform, the Unified History Textbooks and Patriotism in Contemporary Russia

This article examines uniform standardized history education in Russia. It focuses primarily on the process of designing unified national history textbooks in 2013-2017, and also examines the educational reform that followed this process, along with the role of Russian society in the formulation of the textbook’s content. The new historical-cultural criteria—and the Unified textbooks based on them—are considered as a product of social contract as it was revised and approved by the different levels of Russian society: academics, parents, teachers, and government. In essence, the new textbooks are the first joint project made by the government, academics and society in the history of the Russian state. The new history textbooks are regarded as an attempt by the state and society to link Russian history with world history; previously, each discipline was studied separately. It is also an attempt to acknowledge and accept all of Russian history as one historical process of the evolution of Russian statehood, including all successes and achievements as well as black spots and wrongdoings. Although the unified textbooks are the most prudent revision of history in contemporary Russia, however there are several improvements required to redirect textbooks from being simply a tool for the construction of patriotism in schools to also being a mechanism of development of the younger generation’s critical thinking.

Informal patriotic education in Poland: Homeland, history and citizenship in patriotic books for children

This article uses a critical discourse analysis approach to observe themes and patterns in eight non-fiction books about Polish patriotism for children. The books are commercially available in mainstream bookshops, and may be used in a range of home or educational settings. In a social and political context where the concept of patriotism has a long history of use by various powerful elites to legitimize their positions and political actions, and where approaches to teaching patriotism in schools have been widely discussed, the article compares themes emerging from the books with patterns in wider social and political discourse, as well as considering what messages and assumptions are revealed in the texts themselves. The analysis finds that, while most of the authors try to associate themselves with a modern and inclusive type of patriotism, they also tend to reproduce certain assumptions that favour exclusionary or hierarchical understandings as to who has the right to be recognized as a member of the national community.

The values predicting patriotism attitudes in Turkey

Today, most liberal democracies face a tension between promoting citizenship and social adaptation and between developing critical thinking skills and allowing opposition. The teaching of patriotism in schools is at the center of this tension. Within this context, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the values and the attitudes of blind and constructive patriotism by using the Schwartz’s Values Survey. The participants consisted of 342 preservice teachers in Turkey. Results showed that achievement, conformity, and tradition predicted blind patriotism positively while stimulation and universalism predicted blind patriotism negatively. On the other hand, security and universalism positively and significantly predicted constructive patriotism while tradition was a negative and significant predictor. Based on these findings, a second model involving mediation relationships was tested. Accordingly, it was observed that power mediated the relationship between conformity and blind patriotism. Thus, the non-significant and negative relationship between conformity and blind patriotism became significant and positive via the mediation of power. Similarly, the non-significant and positive relationship between the conformity and constructive patriotism became significant and negative via the mediation of power. The reason behind these findings might be the role of non-objective oral exams in teacher appointments and promotions. Moreover, the influence of political proximity to the ruling party in the employment of teachers or education administrators might have led intense and unquestionable commitment to government by conformity towards it and its actions.

Where Does the Motherland Begin? Private and Public Dimensions of Contemporary Russian Patriotism in Schools and Youth Organisations: A View from the Field

Relying primarily on field research in the Siberian city of Omsk, this essay analyses a variety of ways in which state patriotic terminology is used by individuals and groups through the study of organisations and activities that deploy the patriotic label, such as schools, museums, youth clubs, and summer camps. Analysis based on field work suggests that although patriotism includes a basic consensus about the homeland, a clue to the success of the concept is its capacity to be appropriated, distorted, or embedded in diverse understandings and practices. Easily ‘captured’ by different actors according to their needs and goals, patriotism also appears to be deeply rooted in the personal and the private. Everyday patriotism is thus far from being reduced to its top-down or official dimension. While patriotism is a tool that officials efficiently use to promote their political goals, it is also a symbolic resource that Russian society uses in its attempts to reformulate a new collective identity.

Re-examining patriotism in Japanese education: analysis of Japanese elementary school moral readers

In 1947 the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE) defined the pacifist principles for post-war Japanese education and was revised in 2006 for the first time in nearly 60 years. The revised FLE stipulates the importance of teaching love for country and region and Japanese culture and traditions with special emphasis on moral education. Today, this moral education is regarded as an essential program for promoting patriotism among children in line with the revised FLE. Critics, however, fear that the revision is a revival of pre-war patriotism and a rightward shift in Japan’s education. Their fear resurfaced more recently when Shinzō Abe, who carried out the revision of FLE during his first term as prime minister, was elected to his second term in December 2012. As Abe emphasized the importance of teaching patriotism in schools, the international media came to report that Japan’s education was taking a turn to the right under his administration. While critics expressed their concern that Japan’s education was becoming too patriotic, there was a lack of empirical inquiry into the issue of whether patriotic education had materialized in the classrooms. This study examined this issue by analyzing the content of moral readers currently used throughout Japan. The findings suggest that, contrary to the critics, the content of these readers does not emphasize patriotism. Instead, the readers seek to promote basic moral values such as faithfulness and friendship and sympathy and kindness. The findings are discussed with reference to social and educational contexts in Japan.

Beyond patriotic education: Locating the place of nationalism in the public school curriculum

The main thesis we want to defend in this article is that learning about nationalism from a historical, sociological, and normative point of view constitutes one important, but rather neglected, dimension of a good citizenship education. Although the debate about nationalism and education has received considerable attention from political and educational philosophers in recent years, the dispute has mainly focused on the question of whether public schools can legitimately promote nationalist sentiments, that is, patriotism. However, in this article, we wish to shift the focus away from the question of promoting patriotism and toward the question of the role that teaching about the phenomenon of nationalism and about specific nationalist movements can play in reinforcing liberal and democratic civic values and principles. We argue that such teaching can indeed play an important role and that this is true regardless of whether one views patriotism as a civic virtue or not and regardless of whether the aim of promoting patriotism in schools is legitimate or not.

Patriotism in Schools

In the face of rising concerns about citizenship, national identity, diversity and belonging in Britain today, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have looked to schools to inspire and invigorate a strong, modern sense of patriotism and common purpose, which is capable of binding people together and motivating citizens to fulfil their obligations to each other and to the state.In this timely and astute analysis, Michael Hand unpacks the claims made on both sides of the debate to assess whether love of country is a defensible aim of education. Remarking on the curious failure of engagement between defenders and opponents of patriotic education, he looks beyond the usual arguments for and against, to offer original insight into whether teaching patriotic attachment can be defended on rational grounds. Rather than looking merely to the practical difficulties of cultivating common bonds without misrepresenting or distorting the country's history, Hand's tightly argued conclusion is that reasonable disagreement about the desirability of loving one's country rules out the explicit teaching of Patriotism in schools, and therefore, it should not be actively promoted but rather taught as a controversial issue in the classroom.Breaking new ground in the intellectual debates around teaching citizenship and promoting common patriotic purpose, Patriotism in Schools is an illuminating treatment of a pressing contemporary issue, which will animate and provoke debate amongst parents, teachers, students, academics, politicians and policy‐makers alike.

Should We Promote Patriotism in Schools?

If patriotism is love of one's country, the attempt to promote it in schools must count as a form of emotional education. Emotional education is defensible in so far as it consists in offering pupils good reasons and effective techniques for fostering or suppressing particular emotions. The question is whether we are in a position to offer pupils good reasons for loving their countries. In this article I set out an account of the rationality of emotions in general and of love in particular, and then identify two benefits and one drawback of patriotic attachment. I argue that there is room for reasonable disagreement on the desirability of patriotism and that we therefore ought not to promote it in schools but rather to teach it as a controversial issue.

Patriotism, History and the Legitimate Aims of American Education

This article argues that while an attachment to one's country is both natural and even partially justifiable, cultivating loyal patriotism in schools is untenable insofar as it conflicts with the legitimate aims of education. These aims include the epistemological competence necessary for ascertaining important truths germane to the various disciplines; the cultivation of critical thinking skills (i.e. the ability to even‐handedly consider counterfactual evidence); and developing the capacity for economic self‐reliance. The author argues that loyal patriotism may result in a myopic understanding of history, an unhealthy attitude of superiority relative to other cultures, and a coerced sense of attachment to one's homeland.

Civic virtue out of necessity

Should patriotism be considered a legitimate part of schooling in a democracy? This question has been contested in the scholarly literature as well as by policy-makers for decades.Terrorism and conflict exacerbate this debate by adding a sense of urgency to both the demand to love thy country and the concern for individual freedom. In this article I suggest that the social circumstances of conflict substantiate the claim for teaching patriotism in schools, while maintaining a strong commitment to their democratic educational mission.While patriotism should be regarded as a civic rather than a moral virtue, its contribution to solidarity and to endurance in wartime warrants the attention of educators, scholars and education policy-makers. The implementation of patriotic teaching should thus be incorporated into the broader democratic vision which public schools should endorse and with which they should engage the next generation of citizens.

On Education in Patriotism in Schools of Open Economic Zones

China has followed a policy of opening to the world and reinvigorating the domestic economy since the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Guangdong province, as China's southern gateway, has adopted special policies and flexible measures. It has six of the nineteen economically open cities and zones in China, including Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang, and Hainan Island. Comrade Deng Xiaoping has pointed out that China's policy of opening to the world is a long-term national policy which not change in this century or the first five decades of the next century. It will not be easy to change in the last five decades of the next century either, as by that time China's economic and trade relations with other countries will be so close and developed that it will be hard to change even if one wanted to.