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Journal of Education and Learning; Vol. 13, No. 6; 2024
ISSN 1927-5250 E-ISSN 1927-5269
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
317
Research on the Cultivation of Education for National Identity in High
School Geography
Jiqiang Niu1, Yiyan Wang1 & Jiao Chen1
1 School of Geographical Sciences, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000, China
Correspondence: Jiqiang Niu, School of Geographical Sciences, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000,
China.
Received: March 26, 2023 Accepted: August 17, 2024 Online Published: October 27, 2024
doi:10.5539/jel.v13n6p317 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v13n6p317
Abstract
National identity is an important national conscience and plays a key spiritual role in maintaining national unity,
stability and promoting the healthy and rapid development of the country. As an essential driver of education, the
discipline must assume a major responsibility for national identity education. This study integrates national identity
education into high school geography teaching, combines the latest geography teaching theory system with
literature research method, text analysis method to analyze the components and specific content of national identity
in high school geography teaching, and establishes a new teaching model. Simultaneously, the theme of “maritime
rights and interests and ocean development strategy” was selected for teaching experiment, and the impact of the
teaching mode proposed in this paper on the students’ learning efficiency in geography is investigated by
questionnaire. The results of the teaching experiment show that the proposed teaching model can improve students’
awareness of national identity and serve as a reference for the teaching of national identity in subject subjects.
Keywords: education for national identity, teaching model, high school geography
1. Introduction
National identity refers to emotional affiliation and identification developed within a particular national context,
and significantly affects individuals’ perceptions of identity and social stability (Yousaf & Li, 2015). As one of
the important ways to construct national identity, education undertakes the important task of promoting the history,
culture, and values of a specific country, and fostering individuals to form a positive national identity. However,
as the deepening of the globalization process, students’ sense of national identity is facing an impact from
multiculturalism and diverse values (Branco & Izzo, 2017). How to guide students to form a healthy and positive
national identity through education has become a crucial issue for education systems worldwide.
The formation of students’ national identity should be based on a correct understanding of the motherland.
Geography education, with its unique perspective and content, aiming to help students understand various aspects
of the country, such as its geographical environment, natural resources, population distribution, and economic
development, so that students can form a holistic knowledge of the country in geography learning (Hintermann &
Kessel, 2020; Karadeniz, 2020). As an important window for students to learn about China and the world,
geography is an ideal vehicle for cultivating students’ national identity and plays an irreplaceable role in national
identity education (Lotz, et al., 2022; Sautereau, 2023).
This study used literature research method, text analysis method, questionnaire survey method and experimental
research method to establish a high school geography national identity teaching model for the content
characteristics of high school geography national identity education, and conducted a teaching experiment for
experimental verification. The integration of national identity into high school geography, which will not only
deepen the study of national identity education within the subject context, but also provide a valuable reference
for the implementation of national identity education in various countries, thereby promoting the development of
national identity education within the framework of subject teaching systems.
2. Content of National Identity Education
2.1 The Basic Elements of National Identity in High School Geography
The basic elements of national identity refer to the factors that influence the identity of an individual to his own
country, which will develop with the development of the state form. They are the basis for individuals to form
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national identity, and they jointly shape the individual’s sense of identity and belonging to the country. Andreas
Pollman, a scholar from the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex, believes that national identity
can be divided into four dimensions: citizen national identity, ethnic national identity, national pride, and
supranational attachment (Yang, 2022). Parekh believes that national identity includes ethnic identity, cultural
identity and institutional identity (Parekh, 1995).
Combining with the characteristics of high school geography courses, this study proposes that the basic elements
of national identity in high school geography mainly include national identity, sovereignty identity, cultural
identity and political identity (De Micheli, 2021; Čučko & Turkanović, 2021; Schardong & Custódio, 2022; Soltani
et al., 2021; Ragsdale, 2005). The content requirements of each element are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Content requirements for the elements of national identity.
Elements of National Identity Content Requirements
N
ational Identity Understanding the national geographical environment, focusing on population, resources, regions,
economy, and global geographical issues, possessing a sense of national consciousness.
Sovereignty Identity Understanding the national territory and the composition of the map, and possessing awareness to defend
national sovereignty and territorial security.
Cultural Identity Promoting outstanding traditional Chinese culture, understanding the history and regional culture of the
country.
Political Identity Embracing the Party’s consciousness and actions, understanding national policy guidelines, and having the
concept of sustainable development.
2.2 Analysis of National Identity Education Content in High School Geography
In 2016, “Core Competencies and Values for Chinese Students’ Development” included “national identity” as one
of the eighteen core competencies for students, and pointed out the key requirements for cultivating students’
national identity competency (Zhao, 2020) (Figure 1). This requirement has provided guidance for schools to
implement national identity education.
Figure 1. The requirements for cultivating students’ national identity competency
If the “Core Competencies and Values for Chinese Students’ Development” serves as a guide for implementing
national identity education, then the high school geography curriculum standards and textbooks are the content
carriers for national identity education. The contents of national identity education are reflected in various parts of
the high school geography curriculum standards. In terms of structural layout, the content of national identity
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education is generally distributed across sections such as the nature and philosophy of the curriculum, core
competencies and curriculum objectives, curriculum structure, curriculum content, and academic quality. Some of
them are directly reflected in specific teaching content requirements and academic quality descriptions. This fully
reflects the national will embodied in the curriculum standards of the new era.
As the core pare of national identity education, textbooks are the main basis for teaching activities. High school
geography textbooks contain national population resources, regional development, regional culture and other
contents, which play an important role in shaping students’ national identity. The following statistics about high
school geography textbooks show that it has a large amount of content on national identity education, but they are
not evenly distributed. Figure 2 shows the distribution of national identity education content in geography
textbooks (People’s Education, 2019 edition).
Figure 2. Content distribution of national identity education in geography textbooks (The People Education 2019
Edition)
3. The Construction of National Identity Teaching Model in High School Geography
The teaching model serves as a bridge between teaching theory and teaching practice, providing a blueprint for
teachers to carry out teaching activities. Focusing on the teaching goal of cultivating students’ national identity in
high school geography, this paper constructs a comprehensive teaching model for national identity education in
high school geography through guiding teaching philosophy, supporting teaching elements, implementing teaching
procedures, and evaluating and examining teaching effectiveness. The framework of the teaching model is shown
in Figure 3.
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Figure 3. Framework of the Teaching Model
3.1 Teaching Philosophy
Regionalism is a fundamental characteristic of geography. From a regional perspective, students can gain an
understanding of territorial divisions, ethnic compositions, population distributions, national sovereignty, political
systems, resources and environment, and economic development issues within the region. They can also
comprehend the differences and connections between different regions, and gain a clear understanding of the
country’s national conditions, thereby strengthening their overall awareness of the country. Through the study of
geography in high school, students learn to recognize regions at different spatial scales in the world and China.
They also explore the relationship between human production and life and the regional geographical environment,
which contributes to maintaining ecological security and promoting the construction of a beautiful China.
Ultimately, this process fosters emotional attachment, love for one’s homeland and country, and a sense of national
identity.
3.2 Teaching Objectives
National identity education is a kind of value education (Pike, 2000), which is different from the cultivation of
knowledge and ability. It is implicit but not isolated and mechanical. Therefore, knowledge, emotion and action
should be integrated in the design of national identity education objectives. According to the combing of national
identity knowledge in the above article and the geography curriculum objectives in high school, the teaching
objectives of national identity in high school are established as three dimensions: acquisition of national identity
knowledge, generation of national identity emotion and practice of national identity behavior.
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Figure 4. Teaching objective structure
3.3 Teaching Elements
The teaching elements in this article mainly include teachers, students, and the content of national identity
education. In high school geography national identity education, the teacher’s responsibility is mainly to guide
students to learn the knowledge of national identity, cultivate students’ national identity emotions, and create
activities that allow students to manifest national identity behaviors. Additionally, the high school period is a
crucial time for students’ psychological and cognitive development, and teachers conducting national identity
education also need to understand the developmental patterns of high school students’ psychological cognition.
The content of national identity education serves as the foundation for teachers to carry out instructional activities,
supporting the achievement of national identity educational goals.
3.4 Teaching Procedure
The teaching procedure primarily involves three stages: “pre-lesson knowledge integration, in-lesson contextual
infusion, and post-lesson activity experience.” This facilitates the effective integration of national identity
education into high school geography teaching.
3.5 Teaching Evaluation
Teachers, students, and the classroom constitute the three subsystems of the teaching model. Therefore, the
teaching evaluation of national identity education in senior high school is mainly evaluated from three dimensions:
teachers’ teaching work, students’ learning effect and classroom teaching effect.
4. Teaching Experiment
This study applies the proposed teaching model to the teaching of the theme ‘Maritime Rights and Ocean
Development Strategy.’ This theme encompasses geographical environment, national interests, territorial
boundaries, map awareness and national strategic content. The national identity elements involved include national
situational identity, sovereignty identity, and political identity. The purpose of this experiment was to determine
whether the teaching model of national identity in high school geography could help students understand
geography knowledge and enhance their awareness of national identity.
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Figure 5. Teaching procedure
This paper takes two classes of senior two in a high school in Xinyang City as the research objects, which are
identified as the experimental group and the control group. The total number of students and the gender ratios in
the two classes are very similar, with 52 students in the experimental group and 55 students in the control group.
4.1 Pre-experiment Test
In the real world of teaching and learning, there are many factors that influence teaching and learning, including
students’ cognitive level, learning attitudes, teachers’ teaching level, teaching progress, and teaching experience.
The interference of irrelevant variables must be consciously controlled in the experiment.
To ensure that there were no overall differences in the levels of the experimental subjects, two classes of the same
level in the same section of the same school are selected for the practice. The same teacher will teach both the
experimental and control classes, and the same curriculum will be used during the experiment. A geography
proficiency test was conducted for both the experimental and control groups before the experiment began. The
results are shown in Figure 6.
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Figure 6. Comparison of pre-test geography results
The results indicate that there were no significant differences in geography proficiency between the two selected
classes for the experiment. Students exhibited comparable foundational abilities, so the next experimental research
could be carried out.
4.2 Post-experiment Test
During the study, the experimental group utilized the national identity teaching model proposed in this paper, while
the control group employed conventional teaching methods. After the teaching sessions were completed,
questionnaires were distributed to collect feedback on the experimental results from both the experimental and
control groups. The questionnaire included tests of students’ national identity knowledge, national identity emotion,
and national identity behavior. All questionnaires were collected and deemed valid. Questionnaire data were scored
using Likert scales, with a maximum score of 5 points per question and a total score of 70 points for the
questionnaire. Independent samples t-tests were conducted on the post-experiment data for different dimensions
of national identity for students in both classes, and the results are shown in Table 2.
The table shows that the experimental group scored higher than the control group in various dimensions of national
identity. In the independent samples T-tests for each dimension, all P values were 0.000 (P < 0.05), indicating a
significant difference between the experimental and control groups in various dimensions of national identity. This
demonstrates that the national identity teaching model proposed in this paper can effectively enhance students’
national identity knowledge, national identity emotions, and national identity behaviors.
Table 2. Post-experiment data on various dimensions of national identity
Dimension t P (Significance) Average Score Standard Deviation Class
N
ational Identity Knowledge 9.043 0.000 23.42 1.486 Experimental Group
20.82 1.492 Control Group
N
ational Identity Emotion 8.535 0.000 23.50 1.475 Experimental Group
21.20 1.311 Control Group
N
ational Identity Behaviors 11.219 0.000 19.13 0.886 Experimental Group
16.78 1.243 Control Group
5. Conclusion
No matter the reform of geography curriculum abroad or at home, geography education has undertaken the
education of students’ basic geographical conditions, patriotism and global consciousness. This study, based on
the uniqueness of high school geography, explores national identity education from the perspective of teaching
models, which is distinct from the macro perspective of national identity education content in previous studies.
Therefore, it is feasible to cultivate students’ national identity awareness from the perspective of high school
geography education. the national identity teaching model proposed in this study can serve as a reference for
63.2 62.6
50
52
54
56
58
60
62
64
66
68
70
Experimental class Control class
Average grade
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implementing national identity education in high school geography teaching.
In the high school stage, students are at a crucial period of establishing ideals, beliefs, and political convictions.
Through the study of national rights and interests, territorial security and international cooperation in geography
class, they can understand their self-identity, have a strong national concept and patriotic enthusiasm, and have a
stronger sense of social participation and national identity. However, national identity education is not only about
knowledge but also emotional education, requiring long-term integration into geography teaching. For future
research, a more diverse selection of topics is recommended. It is also recommended to expand the sample size to
include a more diverse group of students from various schools and districts. Additionally, conducting follow-up
studies in varied educational settings is suggested to further validate the validity of the model and explore its long-
term effects on students’ national identity literacy.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to all those who participated in this study.
Authors’ contributions
Jiqiang Niu involved in supervision, writing-review of the manuscript, and was responsible for funding acquisition;
Yiyan Wang performed conceptualization, methodology, writing of the original draft; Jiao Chen involved in
editing of the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by the Research Project of Teacher Education Curricu-lum Revolution of Henan Province:
Innovation and practice of Geographical Core Literacy Training Mode for Basic Education of Geography Normal
Students [No. 2020-JSJYZD-028]; the Postgraduate Education Reform and Quality Improvement Project of Henan
Province [No. HNYJS2020JD1].
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this study.
Informed consent
Obtained.
Ethics approval
The Publication Ethics Committee of the Canadian Center of Science and Education.
The journal’s policies adhere to the Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Provenance and peer review
Not commissioned; externally double-blind peer reviewed.
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data
are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
Data sharing statement
No additional data are available.
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