Becoming National: Classroom Language Socialization and Political Identities in the Age of Globalization

Scholars of nationalism have long considered universal education and the spread of literacy as primary mechanisms for cultural and linguistic homogenization, thus creating the social conditions that make it possible for individuals to identify themselves as members of the imagined community (Anderson, 1991, p. 6) of the nation (e.g., Gellner, 1983; Weber, 1976). Public education has also been identified as a crucial site for acculturating new immigrants (e.g. Olneck, 2004) and instilling democratic values (e.g., Dewey, 1916/1966; Levinson, 2005), and popular recognition of the role of education in legitimating cultural identity and developing national consciousness has sometimes turned schools into sites of struggle among competing ethnolinguistic and national groups (e.g., Langman, 2002).