National Literacies and Hidden Curricula: Education Between Nationalism and Imperialism
Mar 19, 2026 — 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The Jean-Luc Pépin Research Chair, the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services and the Faculty of Education are pleased to welcome Professor Daniel Tröhler from the University of Vienna and Professor Elke Winter from the University of Ottawa to speak on their work reflecting on the interplay between education and identity-formation.
Details
Description
The idea of “national literacy” seems straightforward, but it carries very different meanings in different historical contexts. Since the 1960s, it has played a role in global education policy shaped by Western ideas of modernization. Promoted as a way to support newly independent states, national literacy initiatives were often tied to Cold War politics and broader forms of informal imperial influence. After the Cold War, these goals did not disappear but were reframed through the language of globalization.
More recently, however, scholars of nationalism have used the term in a different way, focusing on how schools—especially in established democracies—quietly shape students’ sense of national belonging through everyday curricula, routines, symbols, and assumptions. This approach, described as a new form of “hidden curriculum,” hidden curriculum 2.0., highlights how national identities are cultivated without being explicitly taught.
By bringing these two perspectives together—the global policy history and the everyday practices of schooling—this talk argues that the tensions surrounding “national literacy” are not contradictions. Instead, they reflect the long and entangled history of nationalism and imperialism, and the enduring role of education in connecting the two.
Speakers
Daniel Tröhler currently works at the Institut für Bildungswissenschaft, University of Vienna. Daniel does research in Comparative History of Education, Analysis of Languages of Education, Curriculum Studies and Nation-Building, Globalization Theories. The current project is "Nation state, curriculum and the fabrication of national-minded citizens".
Elke Winter is a sociologist and a full professor at the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, University of Ottawa. Conducting research in the fields of nationalism, migration, asylum/refugees, as well as racial and ethnic diversity, recent writings include edited special issues of The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2024) assessing the contribution of immigration to the formation of the national middle-class and of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics (2023) on the pluralist inclusion of immigrants in polarized societies.