Between Policy and Belonging: Constructing National Identity in Postconflict Guatemala

• In Event: 16.029 - Policyscapes of Education Reform: Vertical Case Studies of Educational Policy Appropriation Across National Settings

Abstract

In 1996, thirty-six years of violence between army and guerrilla forces in Guatemala came to an end with the signing of the “Firm and Lasting Peace Accords.” These UN-brokered accords included a promise by the government to “design and implement a national civic education programme for democracy and peace, promoting the protection of human rights, the renewal of political culture and the peaceful resolution of conflicts” (United Nations, 1997, p. 55). Aiming to address the longstanding disenfranchisement and persecution of Guatemala’s large indigenous population, the accompanying Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples declared “The Mayan culture is the original basis of Guatemalan culture,” noting “the development of the national culture without the recognition and promotion of indigenous culture is inconceivable” (United Nations, 1995, p. 5). Educational policy, therefore, “should be oriented with an approach based on the recognition, respect and promotion of the indigenous.” Embedded in these documents were policy directives that put a human rights, multicultural and democracy-centered approach to education at the center of national civic reconstruction.

Transforming national identity through education, however, is not a simple task. Historical, political, cultural and economic divisions complicate the use of education as a means of building a “new Guatemalan nation.” This paper considers the teaching of Social Studies and Citizenship Education, a curriculum embedded in the global policyscape of human rights and democratic citizenship education, as a means of developing a national identity in post-conflict Guatemala. The researchers, two Guatemalan and one North American, conducted a multipronged analysis of this question. Drawing upon multiple data sources - educational reform documents, the national curriculum, a statistically representative survey of teachers’ reflections on the design of and resources available for the course, and an ethnographic investigation of diverse schools' implementation of the approach - these investigators consider the thorny question of how national identity is constructed in a deeply divided society and the role of education policy in this process.

Preliminary results indicate that teachers struggle with inadequate support materials, the vagueness of the national curriculum, inadequate preparation to teach difficult topics, confusion between notions of patriotism and citizenship, and a lack of clarity on whether the areas of Social Studies and of Citizenship Formation should be the same or separate subjects. Educators show a clear interest in teaching about recent events that have affected Guatemalan citizens, about the Peace Agreements, and about tolerance, although ethnographic data reveals that teachers in indigenous and Ladino settings have distinct interpretations of what the nature of this instruction should be. Across contexts, young people in Guatemalan schools draw upon historical memory, school and community resources, global discourses and local practices to craft their own sense of national identity amid a shifting and contentious environment and an ostensibly standardized curriculum.

Authors

• Beth C. Rubin, Rutgers University

• Matilde Ivic de Monterrosa, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala

• Miriam Ramirez Pinto de Galvez, Universidad del Valle de Guatemala