Expanding William F. Pinar’s notion of autobiography from an individual to a national scale, this book takes the reader on an inner journey to explore the fragmented condition of the post-9/11 American national psyche. It excavates the many layers of the emerging social context within which multiple, conflicting national narratives of identity compete, and uses notions of democracy, nation, and citizen as signposts of contested terrain inside a troubled nation. While reminding us that the old, enduring questions remain unresolved, the book identifies and grapples with new questions that are central to emergent visions of ‘educating for democracy’ in contemporary America, situated now within a frenetic post-9/11 world.

The Author: JoVictoria Nicholson-Goodman, a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh’s Social and Comparative Analysis of Education Program, was twice awarded the Paul Masoner School of Education International Fellowship Award. She has taught curriculum and foundations courses for seven years, both as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh and currently as Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations at Penn State, Harrisburg. Her prior publications include Mapping an Autobiography of Post-9/11 America: A New Paradigm for Policy-making – Constituencies for a Curriculum of Possibility (2007); and Mapping Practitioner Perspectives of «It’s research-based»: Scientific Discourse, Speech Acts, and the Use and Abuse of Research, with Noreen B. Garman (2007). Her research interests include curriculum studies, social theory, foundations of education, educational policy studies, global education and citizenship studies, and comparative qualitative inquiry.