Brave New World: How 9/11 Influenced Textbooks and Shaped Conceptions of American Identity

• In Event: Decolonizing Curriculum: Textbooks, Citizenship Education, and Racialized Pedagogy in Transnational Contexts

Abstract

John Dewey said that "democracy needs to be reborn in each generation and education is its midwife." While there has been criticism of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 agenda, there is little recognition of the role that his education policy played to rebirth democracy for a nation in crisis. This paper analyzes the ways that 9/11 has impacted textbooks in the United States in their depiction of citizenship and government that has implications for inclusive citizenship and history education. Drawing upon textbooks, education policy and scholarly discourse, this research reveals how inherent exclusions in the conception of citizenship erases students who are outside of hegemonic power structures.

Author

• Sahtiya Hosoda Hammell, University of Virginia