“Let’s Move, Let’s Not Remain Stagnant”: Nationalism, Masculinism, and School-Based Education in Mozambique

Esther Miedema

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

In this chapter, I examine the role of public schools in shaping young people’s gendered understanding of citizenship and their “sense of place” in Mozambique. I seek to illuminate two interrelated features of processes of civil enculturation, which is defined as education for and about citizenship (Baumann 2004). First, I discuss the centrality of public education to nation-building efforts in Mozambique, examining the approach taken by the country’s ruling party Frelimo to creating and consolidating the Mozambican nation during postin-dependence days and at the time of data collection. I analyze how current school-based education shapes young Mozambicans’ geographical and cultural imagination, that is, how it seeks to provide them particular ways of imagining and making sense of their place in the world and their nation. In doing so, and drawing on feminist scholars such as Iris Marion Young (1990), Joane Nagel (1998), Cynthia Enloe (2000), Isabel Casimiro (2004), and Signe Arnfred (2010), I investigate the masculinist underpinnings of Frelimo’s nation-building project and the core goals of secondary education as reflected in policy and curricular documents, political speeches, and participant accounts.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationChildhood and Nation. Interdisciplinary Engagements
EditorsZsuzsa Millei, Robert Imre
PublisherPalgrave / MacMillan
Chapter10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

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