National Identity Education In Multiethnic States: American History And Experience

National identity,which can be viewed as spiritual bonds of maintaining national unities by multi-ethnic countries as well as common sense processes is mobilized by political and cultural construction.Though the formation of national identity is restricted by many factors,education is a very important way to improve this phenomenon.Only people confirm their national identity and acknowledge their closely connections with their countries,can they care for the interests of the nation and take the responsibility of maintaining national security.Under the background of globalization,concerning the significance of national security,national identity education is an important proposition.From the aspect of national identity,this paper clearly lists the formation of American's national identity in the premise of a survey which is about American states and its ethnic relations.Even more,this paper gives a clear investigation of the formation of American's national identity education from the angles of Education,ethnology,political sociology in 3 different times as follows:at the beginning of America's founding,after the second world war and the time when the "9 · 11" event took place.And from the angle of transverse dimension,this thesis intends to analyze the national identity education's system protection and its contents;meanwhile,it tells the differences between the domestic theoretical arguments about the national identity education.Finally,based on the longitudinal and transverse combing analysis,this paper summarizes the successful achievement and the coming challenges in the development of national identity in the United States.The main parts of this paper are consisted of six chapters except the introduction and the conclusion:Chapter ? illustrates the formation of America states,including its connotations,characteristics and trends under the vision of national identity,meanwhile,it analyzes the origin and crucial issue of ethnic problems in the United States.Moreover,it expounds the theoretical basis and the historical evolution of American's national policy.Chapter ? generalizes the formation of the national identity.With the enacting of The Declaration of Independence,it marked a new age of an independent consciousness of American states,meanwhile,The 1787 Constitution marked the political establishment of a unified national identity,and after the civil war,the true national identity finally developed.With the above historical analysis of the formation basis of America national identity and its inner spirit,it can be acknowledged that America national identity was formed on the basis of the New-England experiences,the common revolutionary experiences as well as the universal values of liberalism.Therefore," the defender of freedom" and "the dream of the freedom to" has become a symbol of the images of the United States.Chapter ? gives a clear investigation of the formation of American's national identity education from the angles of Education,ethnology,political sociology in 3 different times as follows:at the beginning of America's founding,after the second world war and the time when the "9·11" event took place.The time when the united states of America was founded was the growing period of America's national identity education,the period which revealed its most prominent feature to serve political education and cultivate "the native Americans".The time After World War II,which was affected by the political and economic environment is a national identity education development stage,the focus of the national identity education has become the individual responsibility concerning the safety and interests of the United States of America.In this period,the relationship between education and national fate was re-examined to have a new direction.In addition,the country's achievement motivation and the way of "Americanization" of strengthening became one of the focuses of national identity education.Since "9·11" incident,the national identity education has been strengthened,with the key task of reconsidering of citizenship,re-shaping social and political identity and strengthening crisis consciousness and patriotism education.Chapter ? mainly discusses the national identity education's system protection and the main channel of implementing the national identity education in school education.Chapter ? provides a theoretical view to review the argument about the existing national identity education and illustrates the controversies and their own points of extreme nationalism,moderate nationalism and cosmopolitanism toward this issue.In addition,this chapter analyzes the debate on the uniformity and diversity of national identity education in multi-ethnic countries and points out the development of national identity education.Chapter ? summarizes the experiences and the challenges of national identity education of America on the basis of above analysis.This Paper argues that,under the background of globalization,the frequent emergence of the multinational group and the formation of the collective,group interests reflects that the culture and belief of the country as the basis of the national identity has weakened the existence of strong national identity instead of its former dominance over person.In this situation,the central socialist value which established on the basis of unity and respecting for the differences plays an important role in Stabilizing the national identity,the value penetrated in our daily life and gradually internalized formation of the core values of identity with the belief of“life creed".In the area of education,education's responsibility of national development should be affirmed and in the process of education,to strengthen the individuals'understanding of national situation and personal responsibility is an effective way to strengthen the connection between the individuals and countries.Compared with the direct force-feeding output way of education,the way held by the whole society,from multi-channels,and infiltration type way of education is turned to be more powerful and more effective.But in the age of globalization,every country's national identity is facing the challenge of globalization and the extreme cosmopolitanism,especially for the United States,as the world's original socialist country,it has a great impact on this country.In addition,as a multi-ethnic immigration country,the unstable factors of immigration has always been a very difficult problem blocking the education of national identity.Besides that,the crisis which was existed in American's national identity itself fundamentally causes a stubborn resistance on the national identity education.