ABSTRACT

This chapter examines state efforts to teach young women in a Jordanian school about national identity through daily school rituals and extracurricular activities. It looks at the daily school assembly in which young people participated each day. The chapter discusses student participation in musical performances at patriotic events, showing how such events highlight tensions in the relationship between patriotism and morality, potentially challenging the régime's legitimacy as moral guide. It demonstrates that despite efforts to solidify a state ideology that serves to reinforce the legitimacy of the regime in schools, the patriotic rituals performed by students may indeed serve to rupture rather than embolden the symbolic content they are intended to convey. The chapter draws on ethnographic research conducted in Jordan over a period of 13 months in 2002 and 2005 in Bawadi al-Naseem, a city in northern Jordan. Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin make up a majority of Jordan's population.