Our goal here is to interrogate what we often view as common sense assumptions about the state of American society by using sociology as a lens through which to see the world. For this week, we will be discussing the ways that American national identity is produced and reproduced. We will examine how, even though we often think our perspectives and identities as natural, they are actually created through complex historical, social, and cultural processes. This week, we will focus on the role of memory of significant historical events in the creation of American national identity. For this week, we will examine the role that youth play in the construction of American national identity.
Youth play many roles in contemporary understandings of the state of America.
They can be seen as representing the state of America's future, they can be used as scapegoats in the construction of social problems such as crime and violence, they can be a target of commercialism through advertising and consumerism, among many other things. In this week, we will try to unpack the myths and realities of youth's lives, and examine the ways youth fit into American national identity as well as examining youth identities themselves. We will examine the university in particular as a site in which identities are produced in ways that form boundaries around who is included and who is excluded.