Education, Curriculum and Nation-Building: Contributions of Comparative Education to the Understanding of Nations and Nationalism

288 Pages·2023·4.885 MB·English

by  Daniel Tröhler

Education, Curriculum and
Nation-Building
Contributing to interdisciplinary discussions on nationalism, the book explores
how educational systems and practices contribute to the phenomena of
nationalism and nation-building.
Using nine comparative case studies from four continents, the book
elaborates a theoretical understanding of nationalism from the perspectives
of comparative education research. It integrates the theme of nation, nation-
building and nationalism and its involvement with issues of education. It
explores the theoretical scope of concepts such as national identities, national
literacies, or “doing” nation. The book revives the idea that nation should be
the starting point of comparative research and contributes to the theoretically
reflective integration of nationalism research into education research.
This timely book will be highly relevant for researchers, academics, and
postgraduate students in the fields of comparative education, international
education, education policy, and curriculum studies.
Daniel Tröhler is Professor of Foundations of Education, University of
Vienna, Austria.
Oxford Studies in Comparative Education
Series editor: David Phillips, University of Oxford
Oxford Studies in Comparative Education explores a range of issues relevant to the
field of comparative education. With a focus on innovative research of wide
international interest, it brings together the work of established and emerging
authors and researchers. The series comprises both edited volumes and single-
authored books that explore the vibrant field of comparative education and
will be of wide relevance to academics and students interested in comparative
inquiry, its methods and its lessons.
Previously published by Symposium Books from 1991 to 2018, this long-
established series has a history of publishing quality titles across a huge range
of topics.
Books in this series include:
Examining Teach For All
International Perspectives on a Growing Global Network
Edited by Matthew A.M. Thomas, Emilee Rauschenberger, and Katherine
Crawford-Garrett
Schoolteachers and the Nordic Model
Comparative and Historical Perspectives
Edited by Jesper Eckhardt Larsen, Fredrik W. Thue and Barbara Schulte
The Status of the Teaching Profession
Interactions Between Historical and New Forms of Segmentation
Edited by Xavier Dumay and Katharine Burn
Education, Curriculum and Nation-Building
Contributions of Comparative Education to the Understanding
of Nations and Nationalism
Edited by Daniel Tröhler
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Oxford-Studies-in-Comparative-Education/book-series/OSCE
Education, Curriculum and
Nation-Building
Contributions of Comparative
Education to the Understanding
of Nations and Nationalism
Edited by Daniel Tröhler
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Daniel Tröhler; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Daniel Tröhler to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tröhler, Daniel, editor.
Title: Education, curriculum and nation-building : contributions
of comparative education to the understanding of nations and
nationalism / edited by Daniel Tröhler.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Oxford studies in comparative education | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022050534 (print) | LCCN 2022050535
(ebook) | ISBN 9781032307589 (hardback) | ISBN
9781032326474 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003315988 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Nationalism and education—Case studies. |
Education and state—Case studies. | Comparative education—
Case studies.
Classification: LCC LC71 .E294 2023 (print) | LCC LC71 (ebook) |
DDC 379—dc23/eng/20221228
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022050534
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022050535
ISBN: 978-1-032-30758-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-32647-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-31598-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003315988
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables viii
List of Editor and Contributors ix
Introduction: Understanding nationalism through the
lens of education 1
DANIEL TRÖHLER
1 Education and the nation: Educational knowledge in
the dominant theories of nationalism 7
DANIEL TRÖHLER AND VERONIKA MARICIC
2 “The divine fire . . . burns within them.” National
Davids and Goliaths in Swiss, Danish, and Scottish
school lessons 34
NICOLE GOTLING, VERONIKA MARICIC, AND LUKAS BOSER
HOFMANN
3 Nation-building by education statistics and data:
A comparative perspective on school surveys in
Switzerland, France, and Scotland 55
REBEKKA HORLACHER, SÉBASTIEN A. ALIX, AND LUKAS BOSER
HOFMANN
4 Education and nationalism after empire: Imposing
and inventing the nation as the fundament of the
modern state in interwar Austria and “Slovene Yugoslavia” 77
FLORIAN GIMPL AND JERNEJ KOSI
vi Contents
5 Sharing nationalism through public education in Latin
America: An overview of early-twentieth-century
Argentina and Mexico 101
HOWARD PROSSER, JASON BEECH, AND ALONSO CASANUEVA
BAPTISTA
6 Korean ethnic nationalism and modern education:
Christianity and political ideologies in shaping one
nation and two states 124
TERRI KIM
7 Nation-building and curriculum in Canada 149
JENNIFER WALLNER AND STÉPHANIE CHOUINARD
8 Primers as a nation’s self-portrait: The case of Latvia
and Lithuania in the 1920s and 1930s 173
IVETA KESTERE AND IRENA STONKUVIENE
9 Literacies of childhood and nation in the
Anthropocene: Insights from (post) Soviet early
literacy textbooks 194
DILRABA ANAYATOVA, KETEVAN CHACHKHIANI, SETRAG HOVSEPIAN,
IVETA SILOVA, AND KETI TSOTNIASHVILI
10 Reform histories and changing educational
conceptions of the nation and nationalism in
Norwegian and Swedish curricula (1900–2020) 224
KIRSTEN SIVESIND AND MAGNUS HULTÉN
11 Concluding chapter: Education, nationalism, and
internationalism: gap-filling and gap-creating 249
MICHAEL BILLIG
Index 264
Figures
1.1 Educationally relevant keywords in relation to the theoretical
approaches (in both index and full text) 11
1.2 Ranking of the educationally relevant keywords in the
full-text search 12
9.1a Children within the Soviet modernization landscapes in
Latvia 200
9.1b Children within the Soviet modernization landscapes in
Armenia 201
9.1c Children within the Soviet modernization landscapes in
Georgia 202
9.2a Children within post-Soviet national landscapes in
Armenia 203
9.2b Children within post-Soviet national landscapes in
Georgia 204
9.2c Children within post-Soviet national landscapes in
Latvia 205
9.3a “Friendship of people” as reflected in national folk costumes.
Soviet Armenian textbook for non-Armenian children 208
9.3b “Friendship of people” as reflected in national folk costumes.
Soviet Latvian textbook for Latvian children 209
9.4a Wine-making and other national traditions in Georgia 211
9.4b Wine-making and other national traditions in Armenia 211
9.5a National heroes: Georgian King Vakhtang 214
9.5b National heroes: Armenian Hero Hayk Nahabet 214
9.5c National heroes: Kazakh Uyghur Hero Sadir 214
Tables
10.1 Overview of national curricula for public schooling in
Norway and Sweden (1900–2020) 229
Editor and Contributors
Sébastien A. Alix is currently Assistant Professor of Education Sciences at the
Université Paris-Est Créteil, France, and Researcher at the Laboratoire inter-
disciplinaire de recherche sur les transformations des pratiques éducatives et
des pratiques sociales (LIRTES, EA 7313). His research interests include
the history of French and American schooling, with a focus on progres-
sive education movements, as well as the transnational history of education.
His publications include L’éducation progressiste aux États-Unis. Histoire, phi-
losophie et pratiques (1876–1919) (Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2017);
“Transnationalising American progressivism and emancipation: Frances B.
Johnston and progressive education at the 1900 Paris universal exposition”
(Paedagogica Historica, 2019); Crise(s) en éducation et en formation (with Laurent
Gutierrez, L’Harmattan, 2022); and “Circulations transnationales en matière
d’éducation (19e-20e siècles): note de synthèse des travaux d’un champ de
recherche en expansion” (with Pierre Kahn, Recherches en education, 2023).
Dilraba Anayatova is a PhD student in Educational Policy and Evaluation at
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, the United
States. She is interested in education policies in the context of Central Asia,
rural education, heritage language policies, and teacher education. Cur-
rently, she is working on projects in areas of environmental sustainability,
refugee education, and topics of nationalism in post-Soviet countries.
Alonso Casanueva Baptista teaches Sociology and Human Geography at
La Trobe University and the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne,
Australia. He is Commissioning and Production Editor of Thesis Eleven,
journal of critical theory and cultural sociology. His research explores radi-
cal definitions of learning through a critical engagement with alternative
pedagogies and American philosophies of education.
Jason Beech is Associate Professor of Education (Global Policy) in the Mel-
bourne Graduate School of Education at The University of Melbourne and
Visiting Professor at Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires, where
he holds a UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainability and Global