Former social studies teacher and teacher educator Mark Kissling describes how he has used the Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the U.S.A." to guide students to think more deeply about the meaning of patriotism and the various ways to understand a single text.

Thousands of U.S. citizens live abroad in communities whose mission is to support the nation's military and diplomatic corps. Many members of these overseas communities are deployed for many months at a time in support of U.S. military missions, and many of those so deployed will be parents of students in American overseas schools. Under these…

How does patriotism look north of the 49th parallel? In this article, the author explores the answers to this question and examines the "quiet nationalism" that characterizes Canadians' views of themselves and their nation. One of Canada's best-known philosophers, John Ralston Saul, argues that Canada's contribution to the world has been…

Patriotism can be a force for good or evil. American patriotism helped vanquish fascism; German patriotism helped create and sustain it. Wars of national liberation depend on patriotic fervor to oppose colonial rule; unfortunately, ethnic cleansing draws on this same fervor. Appeals to the transcendent value of the nation-state can be progressive…

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance may be the core civic ritual in the United States and the most common--core because it extracts a personal promise of some sort and most common because it is widely required in schools and concludes the naturalization ceremony for new citizens. While many people have recited and memorized the pledge, few have…

The extent to which people abhor or admire patriotism in the schools depends on how it is taught. If educators teach it narrowly as jingoistic, uncritical self-praise of the nation, then such instruction is wrong. It would be indoctrination rather than education. If, however, they teach civic education and define patriotism as a respectful…

The author was invited to speak at a poetry slam conducted by Urban Poets, a group of teenage poets who perform their own works with the most passionate intensity. She had trouble deciding what to say to the young generation whose world differed so much from hers. She turned to Walt Whitman and a poem he wrote, "To the Young Poets," telling them…

Most people believe that by learning about the past, students can better prepare for the future. As a teacher of U.S. history, the author believes that people learn much about the present from their study of the past. She also believes that juxtaposing past and present can help students understand that dissent can be patriotic and that the…

Over three decades of teaching, the author has come to a deep understanding of the commitment she made in swearing her loyalty to a governing system dedicated to the virtues of democracy and equality for all--both those within the diverse society and those across a global mosaic of cultures. Every day in the classroom, teachers and students alike…

In this article, the author hopes to address the challenge of patriotism in this current age. She wants to challenge those who are patriotic enough to criticize common discourses about the nation and national policies to work on recapturing the language so that real debate is not only possible but valued. She makes her argument in a time when this…

From their first recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, students are taught that the most important unit of social analysis is the nation-state and that people on this side of the border constitute "us," whereas those on the other side of the line are "them." By the time students enter a global studies class as high school…

In this article, the authors take a systematic look at high school seniors' views on patriotism and its relationship to democracy. Drawing on the work of the Harwood Institute and on studies by Robert Schatz, Ervin Staub, and Howard Lavine, they discuss a set of criteria that can help them determine the degree to which students' patriotic…

It has often been said that the Inuit have many words to describe snow because one would be wholly inadequate to capture accurately the variety of frozen precipitation. Like snow, patriotism is a more nuanced idea than is immediately apparent. Political scientists, sociologists, and educators would do well to expand the roster of words used to…

Americans will debate for many years to come the causes and implications of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as the foiled attack that led to the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. Between the first and second "anniversaries" of 9/11, another development deepened their…

Outlines a proposal whereby students between the ages of 16 and 26 would give two years of national service in the government agency of their choice or in the nonprofit private sector. The proposal would be especially useful, the author argues, for noncollege-bound high school students and dropouts. (JBM)