Chapter 7: School History as a Resource for Constructing Identities: Implications of Research from the United States, Northern Ireland, and New Zealand

History education and issues of national identity have long been connected. The rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century was linked to the creation of historical narratives that explained and justified emerging nation states (Anderson, 1983; Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983), and from a modern perspective, it is hard to imagine a nation without a history, because history justifies the very existence of a nation. The creation of these national narratives coincided with the rise of universal public schooling and the development of museums, both of which arose during the nineteenth century, and both of which took on responsibility for transmitting historical identities—conceived in national terms—to both young people and adults. Still today, the use of history to create a sense of national identity is a source of ongoing controversy in countries around the world, as textbooks and curricula are constantly revised to reflect changing ideas about how a given nation should think of itself.