I wonder if there is some connection with the idea of ‘newer’ nations that may be less confident about their own identity. Especially those, like the United States, where the population is largely immigrant and had to fight for independance from an older, more established, state.
As states mature, these reinforcements about national identity become less relevant.
Yes, at my primary school (Australia, 1970s) we had Monday morning Assembly and recited the declaration described in the first few paragraphs of this article.
I turn 50 this year, and I’m pretty sure I was among the last to recite that nonsense.
Elementary school in Canada during the 70s and 80s had us sing O Canada and God Save the Queen every day (at least in Manitoba for grade 4 and 5. I don’t have any memory of doing it in Alberta for grade 1, 2, or 3 but I think that is just a faulty memory).
In my daughter’s elementary schools they have been singing O Canada but I don’t think they do God Save the Queen anymore.
I was in grade 7 in Canberra in the 80s and we did not have any morning assembly declarations/rituals.
Naah - I mean, Democratic South Africa is only 20 years old, and while there’s a fair amount of national pride, we don’t make our kids salute the flag. Probably because that was actually what used to happen, in some White schools…
You’ve got to be kidding?
Making school kids pledge “allegiance to the Crown”. Not exactly likely.
That phrase about not doing something for fear of offending people is a dead giveaway that the claim is bogus. I have never heard of any official or any corporate spokesman ever saying that they were not doing X out of fear of offending people. Just doesn’t happen.
The Hitler Youth in NAZI Germany.
To my recollection, that was the last time that children had to pledge allegiance on a national level in Germany.
I can remember singing it exactly twice: once during an assembly that happen to fall on the 50th anniversary of VE Day, and once at a different school’s Founder’s Day celebration. Both of these were private schools.
The only other time I can remember singing it was at Twickenham, before an England-France rugby match.
And I certainly never “pledged allegiance to the Crown”. As far as I know, the only time a UK citizen might ever do that would be upon being awarded citizenship, commissioning in the armed forces, appointment to the cabinet, or admission to practice law in the courts.
I’ve often mentioned this on the boards, but on my first day of US high school I was terrified when everyone else stood up in unison after some blather from the speakers and began chanting at a flag. It put me in mind of nothing so much as Chinese schoolchildren saluting a picture of Mao.
I think the reason it needed to be done in the USA was due to the melting pot nature of America. It was a new nation built with immigrants from many different countries and cultures. An all encompassing view of “Americana” or even myth needed to be created. Immigrantion into America having lessened(at least until recently) the need has became less for such pledges of allegiance.
There never was a need for it. Other countries have immigrants, too. We’re not that damn special.
I grew up in Manitoba and went to public schools. Here’s what we did, as well as I can recall:
[ul][]Elementary school (late '80s): we sang “O Canada” at the beginning of the day, and “God Save the Queen” at the end of the day. A recording was played on the school’s PA system for us to sing along to. Also, our first-grade teacher made us recite the Lord’s Prayer. (This was how I learned it, in fact — I was raised in a Unitarian household.)[]Middle school (early '90s): An instrumental version of O Canada was played at the beginning of the day, before the daily announcements. Singing along didn’t happen.[*]High school (mid-'90s): Much the same as middle school, except I think the anthem happened at the beginning of second period (since not everybody had classes during the first period.)[/ul]
Did other countries have moral panic about non-assimilation? They seem to now, to some small but highly visible extent.
“Need” is the wrong word, if you believe in some objective criterion of “need”.
Pseudo-nativist/anti-immigrant feeling has seemed unusually strong in the U.S., for reasons I can’t pin down. That’s probably what drives the weird desire to enforce assimilation through acculturation.
Yep.
Nothing like that for my kids in Montreal.
I was in HS when “under god” was added and from that day on, I never recited it. No one noticed (or at least, said anything). We were also required to listen to 10 (I think) verses of bible reading every morning.
Im sure there is a loose correlation between numbers of immigrants arriving and any pushback against them. There would have been an added concern in the late 19th and early 20th century America about the fashionable belief of racial and ethnic superiority. Plus, many of these immigrants were Catholic. Im sure there will have been many who still believed in the superiority of Protestantism over Catholicism in producing a modern, democratic state. And to be fair, the actions and corruption in many such immigrant communities did underscore this belief.
You cannot be required to say the Pledge of Allegiance in an American public school if you don’t want to: West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette - Wikipedia
That said, where the Pledge is recited (and it still is, in many schools), the great majority of kids go along, either out of patriotism, boredom, inertia or just to blend in.
I grew up in the 60’s/70’s here in Texas reciting the US pledge at school almost daily. As far as I know, my kids recited it in school through at least middle school. To top it off, they’ve added a Texas Pledge as well.
To be sure, the American Pledge of Allegiance is a pledge to the flag and to the nation “for which it stands”.
The words “under God” were a later Cold War addition, in 1954, to emphasize our differences from those godless Communists.
FWIW there’s a scene in the recent movie Boyhood (set in Texas) that shows elementary school students saying the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas Pledge.
Same here. I suspect that any attempt to have us sing the anthem regularly would have kicked up a major political storm, but it would have been so far outside the culture that it’s the kind of thing that would not have even crossed anybody’s mind.
There is absolutely nothing resembling the pledge of allegiance in Japan. The court battles were about whether schools could force their teachers to sing the anthem, which is sung during important ceremonies like graduation, if at all. Some people resent the anthem and flag because of their links to the country’s militaristic past. On the other hand, “nobody knows the words to the national anthem because it’s not taught in school” is a common right-wing meme here.