Nationalism, as taught in Belize schools, is panethnic and multiethnic, but because the increasingly widespread practice of ethnic mixing is not acknowledged, there is a discrepancy between what is taught and the daily life of students. Research results from 161 elementary school children show that the ethnic self-identification of children is…

The government of Belize promotes ethnicity and nationalism in schools through a curriculum that teaches about the country's ethnic diversity but ignores its many multiethnic/multiracial children. A study of such children in one rural town reveals the irrelevance of the curriculum and shows how the children are constructing their own multiethnic…