ABSTRACT
Chapter 1, “Introduction,” introduces the topic and problem addressed in this book: in spite of the widespread recognition that social studies education is a site where collective identities are constructed through the use of historical narratives, there is limited research that has explored the role of teacher discourse in this process. Textbook analyses have dominated scholarship that critically deconstructs historical narratives. This has come at the expense of understanding the lived classroom experience and the knowledge produced there. Moreover, in a globally interconnected society, there remains a dearth of research critically interrogating the portrayal of Middle Eastern and African populations in school knowledge. This chapter establishes the imperative to evaluate the role of social studies teachers in representing the Middle East and Africa and whether their discourse contributes to or challenges perceptions of otherness associated with the inhabitants of these regions.
