ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the roots of post-war German and Japanese national identities. It analyses the response of the teachers' unions of three countries to a momentous event, to an exogenous shock to their social system. After a description of the institutional environment of the post-war reestablishment of teachers' unionism, the chapter analyses statements on national identity by unions in the three countries. It situates national identity prescriptions in a multi-dimensional space delimited by three axes: cultural vs. political descriptions of national identity, internationalist descriptions vs. localism, and future-oriented forms of identity vs. backward looking ones. The chapter argues that the content of the statements on national identity varies according to the form that teachers' unionism took in the three countries. The teachers' unions in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Japan were among the collective actors who were most deeply involved in the reconstruction of identity.
