Patriotism through different disciplines

I just discovered something really fun and wanted to share with you.

Many disciplines deal with patriotism. The first book I found on patriotism was from the social psychology field, later on, I discovered works from the political psychology field. Of course, I tried to find works from the educational field, where I am based mainly at. But other cool fields (sorry I used this term interchangeably with discipline, still rather confused) that discuss patriotism are: political science, philosophy and history!

And what I recently discovered from reading historical research articles is that historians like to see patriotism as a narrative, an ongoing story. They see patriotism as constantly morphing, and political.

This is different from the psychologist who often see patriotism as a trait in a person, that they either have it or do not have. People like Adorno try to measure "patriotism" in people, thinking that "pseudo-patriotism" inclines people towards racism. Political scientists also like to measure patriotism in people using surveys.

Social and political psychologists approach patriotism from the standpoint of identity, patriotism is what is needed for people to feel a sense of belonging, and national identity. It is also a tool used by politicians to rouse emotions and get support for unpopular policies. Being psychologists, they also measure this trait in people using surveys.

Philosophers are the interesting ones. They like to debate whether patriotism is a virtue or vice, whether it's morally obligatory, permissible or forbidden!

Of course, educators, like me, are interested in the process of socialization or initiation into citizenship. How to do you develop patriotism in people. How does loyalty develop? What does loyalty mean? Does it include critique of the nation and government, or only trying to help the students see everything good about them? How does the school develop loyalty in their students?

Isn't this fun!? One concept, but thought about so differently by different disciplines!

EDIT: I just realized I have not included sociological works. I think it's because I am unsure what constitutes sociology. I hope I can find some works from this discipline soon!

Why should I define my term?

I am always asked how I define patriotism or citizenship. And I always struggle to reply. Because out there in the literature, there are gazillions of definitions, some of them conflicting. I always tell people, the term is defined the way people want to define it, I don't fix the definition... I think... Perhaps I should play the role of a Philosopher and try to define it for myself.

'The nature of citizenship', Aristotle declared, '... is a question which is often disputed: there is no general agreement on a single definition.' Yet the terms 'citizen' and 'citizenship' are in constant use throughout the world today: the concepts are central to everyday political discourse. Is it therefore good enough for 'citizenship' to be a 'Humpty-Dumpty' word, in danger of crashing into fragments while asserting that it means just what it chooses to mean? Surely not. Citizens should know what their status implies; and they should understand when politicians abuse the term by according the whole concept only a partial range of attributes. It is, moreover, important to understand the complexity of the role of citizen and to appreciate that much needs to be learned if civic rights are to be exercised, civic duties are to be performed and a life of civic virtue is to be pursued. The citizen, in short, must be educated; and no teacher can properly construct the necessary learning objectives if semantic confusion surrounds the very subject to be studied.

This is not to argue in a world of richly diverse political traditions that a detailed prescription of universal application is either possible or desirable. Rather to suggest that those who use the words 'citizenship', 'world citizenship' and 'education for citizenship' should be aware of the long history and great wealth of meaning which lie behind them. Furthermore, only confusion and harm can arise from loose employment of the term. If we can but reach an agreement on some definitional highest common factor, political discourse and social education can only benefit from the clarification. To this end the present work is offered as some contribution. (Heater, 2004, p. vii) 

I think one of my goals for my PhD studies must be to come up with an operationally ready to be used definition of patriotism, usable in the educational setting. Yes. Cannot skirt this issue anymore. Difficult to define, so go in and solve the problem, don't avoid anymore.

I just received a book to review (Kleinig, Keller & Primoratz, 2015) and they did define patriotism. Will learn from these philosophers and write one for myself.

References

Heater, D. (2004). Citizenship: The civic ideal in world history, politics and education (3 ed.). Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Kleinig, J., Keller, S., & Primoratz, I. (2015). The ethics of patriotism: A debate. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.

Idea

Patriotism is surely a social concept. If not, why is it always associated with other concepts like racism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia?

I must write an article about civic patriotism one day, especially the social aspect of patriotism.