Identity beyond borders: national identity and the post-colonial alternative

The study examines national identity in school curricula against the backdrop of globalization and its forces to create a universal global identity beyond particular affiliations. To that end, the study examines the problematic nature of Western notion of identity formation, and simultaneously asks whether political socialization in the nation-state school system is conducive of the development of cosmopolitan identity, an identity beyond national borders. Jordan, Israel, and Palestine are the three-case studies discussed in this article. Theoretically, the study contributes to the ongoing scholarly debate concerning the question of identity, political socialization, globalization, and nationalism. I make use of postcolonial theories to demonstrate the shortcomings of the logocentric way of theorizing identity as a binary twin, rooted in the relational formation between Self and Other, and search for alternative strategies to identity formation.