Abstract:
This study investigates the potentiality of the construction of national and ethnic identity in the Arabic language school textbooks in the Basic Level. The main objective of the study is to show how language can be an effective tool in the process of developing national identity construction in school textbooks. It also tries to reveal the ideology upon which this construction is based. The study emerges as a result of the fact that Sudan is rich with different ethnicities, languages, cultures, and religions. Another objective is to draw the attention of educators and policy makers to the importance of impartiality towards the different groups in Sudan. This is done through critical discourse analysis of the language used in the textbooks. The study is descriptive and exploratory in nature. A non-probability sample was selected from the textbooks. The sample of texts selected depended on the concept of theory of saturation. The study followed content analysis, critical discourse analysis, and Grounded Theory as methodologies. Special instruments have been developed to gather data from the textbooks; one for national and ethnic identity and the other for the expression of ideology. Data have been collected, analyzed, and discussed in order to answer the research questions and verify or refute the hypotheses. The study came out with the results that 33.4% of the content of Arabic language component has the potentiality to construct national identity, 34.5% has the potentiality to deconstruct national identity. The study came out with the results that all the textbooks are based on ideology. Three out of the five textbooks are based on negative ideology, whereas the other two are based on positive ideology. Based on these results, the study made some recommendations for designing textbooks in a better way in order to develop national identity without diminishing ethnic identities. Also there are suggestions for future research.