Nationalism and Childhood: Pedagogies of the Nation

Ideas about the nation and childhood intersect at many points. Both constructions are modern and emerged during the formation of nation states. Notions of childhood served, and still do so, as a symbolic resource for nation-building. For example, white settler children together with Australian native flora and fauna created a distinction for the new Australian nation from the British Empire (Taylor, 2014). Childhood and related notions such as ‘youthfulness’ or ‘adventure’ can also serve as sources for national identity formation (Howard and Gill, 2001). For the emerging nations, children also presented raw materials from which to form a healthy and cohesive national community and its future citizenship. The health and education of children thus gained paramount importance and led to the establishment of child institutions, such as orphanages, health clinics, maternity care, nurseries, and mass schooling.
In these institutions, dominant historical and cultural meanings and elements (e.g. folk traditions or practices in certain climates), and signs and symbols of the nation became part of the design of buildings and educational environments, the curriculum, textbooks and teaching materials, as well as place-based instruction referring to national borders and within those significant sights, for example, mountains, rivers, forests etc, as well as ‘national’ animals and plants. Ubiquitous symbols, rituals and practices of the nation in these institutions hence promote national socialisation, patriotism and identity formation. National celebrations, national mores, rules and feelings, or the national schedule or rhythm of the day that seamlessly underpin the running of school days, create alliances to the nation and habituate children’s thoughts and bodies.