Globalization and history education: The United States and Canada

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of history education in imagining the nations of the United States and Canada within the global order. I provide an overview of the discourses of national identity and relevant research on history education in each nation. Observing three US and two Canadian secondary history classes engaged in the study of World War II, I identify the schematic narrative templates that render the United States as a “reluctant hegemon” and Canada as uncertain of its claim to nationhood. The US story of the World War II as a fundamentally political narrative suggests an underlying narrative in which politics, rather than military or economic actions, are the driving force in history. Canadian narratives, on the other hand, portray different images of the war. Not only do military narratives dominate the narrative landscape, but the narratives attend in detail to the material experiences of ordinary soldiers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the need to critically read and rewrite the national narrative.