The construction of the citizen and the ‘other’ in schools : an analysis of social studies curricula and textbooks used in state schools

Abstract

One aim of schooling, as the role of the nation-state, is the creation of the citizen (Dewey, 2006). However, no citizen can be created without the creation of the ‘other’ (Ahmad, 2009; Sultana, 2008; Mason, 2007). In this essay I ask ‘who is the Maltese citizen, as the selected ambassador of the culture that propels this society, and who are his/her ‘others’?’ I seek to answer these questions by looking at the state’s syllabi and books used in Social Studies in Maltese primary schools and argue how Maltese are given a monolithic identity marked by them being Christian and European. This process is inevitably violent upon the ‘other’ who lives with (or amongst) the Maltese in a context where Huntington’s (1993) “doomsday image” (Brasted, 1997, p. 8) is becoming increasingly relevant.