Civics in the Margins: The Limitations and Opportunities for a Counterhegemonic Civic Education

• In Event: 67.060 - Addressing Hegemony Through Counternarratives

Abstract

Civic education has often been used to cultivate a sense of belonging in the nation-state; civic education scholars tend to believe that inclusion in the nation-state is necessary to be a fully contributing citizen. However, many students will never, or do not want to be, included in the national body politic or assume a national political identity. This study investigates how the official curriculum in the US Virgin Islands, a territory of the US, makes sense of the second-class and conditional citizenship experienced by Virgin Islanders. The findings suggest that when educators had autonomy and the need to create their own curriculum, the social studies curriculum was counter-hegemonic because it decentered the nation-state and promoted the local, ancestral, and cultural.

Author

• Annaly Rebeccah Babb-Guerra, The University of Wisconsin-Madison