Romantic View:

• Nation is a “natural reality”
• National sentiment is spontaneous and innate
• National identities are permanent, with roots in most remote past
• Earlier communities and current nation are the same

Modernist View:

• Nation and national identities are artificial inventions driven by political interests
• National sentiment is acquired — mainly instilled by educational institutions (also encompasses media + monuments, etc)
• Critical view of nations

Ethnosymbolic paradigm:

• The "nation" and nationalism are modern inventions which are built upon pre-modern heritage
• Possible to acknowledge existence of nation before modern times

Presentism — applying contemporary values and attitudes to analysis of the past instead of judging historical figures and events through context of their historical society

• Presentism relates to egocentrism and bias
  • “To understand that the historical “we” is not the same as the current “we””…teaching this requires metacognitive ability
  • Thinking about the past requires cognition + metacognition

Questions Related to Your Concept of a Nation:

• When is the nation? When did the nation "start" in our education?
  • According to textbooks/classes, when did the US start?
  • Epistemological undertones — your answers reflect beliefs about the nature of knowledge and reality (being able to say “this is when the nation began” reflects society’s belief about nature of a nation)
• What is the nation? Who is the nation?
  • Cognitive and metacognitive dimensions (how you define “we” and terminology; reflect why you answer why you did)
• Is territory mutable?
  • Romantic view: these are the boundaries of our country