Discourse, Narrative, and National Identity: The Case of France

Abstract

France provides an ideal context for beginning to understand how schooling affects students' understanding of their national identity. In this article, Kyle Greenwalt examines the discursive practices through which a group of French secondary students constructed their national identity. Following an appraisal of the historiographical literature of nineteenth-century French nation-building, the author proceeds with a phenomenological analysis of the discourses students used to make sense of their lived experiences with teachers and schooling. Greenwalt evaluates the continued presence and salience of traditional versions of French national identity, suggesting the need to reconsider the relationships among social solidarity, pluralism, and national identity and calling into question the contemporary relevance of structural representations of the nation-state.