Narrative identity: The Canon as Identity Narrative

• Authors: Zielka, Sylwester

Abstracts

EN

The main focus of this paper is to address problematic issues inherent in the canon, whichcan be understood as a construct that enables the production of the common universe ofimages and symbols, which support the collective memory, that is an indispensable elementof the collective identity of social groups, including nations. In such understandingof the canon, it is a cultural construct which itself also constructs culture. This dual natureof the canon becomes particularly obvious in the case of national educational canonsconnected to complex collective subjects. Participation in the canon as a cultural text ispartially indicative of belonging to a certain group, and thus guaranteeing one’s individualidentity. Education, however, is the field of constant debate, a polemical discourse andother forms of cultural dispute which may come under the header of ideological wars. Theinextricable connection between ideology and education can be expressed in the formof a dilemma: what kind of person do we wish to raise, and how do we identify what itmeans to be a citizen, and does he/she have exhibit patriotism as a result? In this context,the question about the educational canon emerging from these debates is also a questionabout the image of culture and its dominant narrations defining ways of constructing andfulfilment of identity.

Keywords

EN

Canon; nation; Education

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Gdański
• Journal: Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica
• Year: 2016
• Volume: 17(2)
• Pages: 135-147

Contributors

author

Zielka, Sylwester