A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools by Nicole Nguyen (review)

The United States has interminably explored innovative approaches that attempt to anticipate, prevent, and thwart foreign acts of violence against this country, its peoples, and their interests. A means of achieving this starts with the preparation of professionals whose career path is centered on the protection of their country. Nicole Nguyen’s A Curriculum of Fear exposes the behind-the-scenes world of Milton High School, an institution located outside Fort Milton military base in the Greater DC area. Milton has joined the growing ranks of educational institutions that offer Homeland Security training programs. Offering curriculum that highlights a career path in the service of this nation focused on militarization and securitization, educational institutions have formed partnerships with private-security organizations, defense contractors, and businesses fostering the creation of trademark programs aligned with a security interests workforce. Nguyen’s school ethnography spans one academic year and offers a rich and detailed engagement with students, faculty, staff, and administrators involved in the formal and informal curriculum centered on Homeland Security processes at Milton High School.

A Curriculum of Fear is a contribution to the field of education and those interested in curriculum studies, educational policy, and the history of education. Public schools are being influenced by the neoliberal corporate mind-set, one in which school choice encourages both parents and teachers to choose a school that fits the needs of their individual student. But there is more to these educational dynamics than the promises made by school location, rankings, and graduation rates. In the case of Milton, the school “redesigned its curriculum to train its poor and working-class youth of color for vocational work in the national security industry, synchronizing its curriculum with the skills valued in the industry” (21). This flagship program has changed the educational terrain, and Nguyen shows how it joins a number of burgeoning programs in the K–16 curriculum to offer similar career paths. For the students, the promise of employment after graduation is intended to encourage high academic performance while securing a candidate pool for private corporate organizations.

Nguyen introduces a brief yet pertinent history of how vocational work has been influenced by the interests of the national security industry. These efforts date back to the early 1900s and are made evident in this nation’s history during both world wars, the Cold War era, and, most recently, the post-911 era. Educational spaces became and continue to act as key sites where military principles and training are encouraged. Nguyen shows that military culture is not restricted to only inside the classroom, but that it also serves as a theoretical framework for how some choose to conceptualize an educational experience, for example, the Junior Reserve Office Training Corps (JROTC). It is through programs like the JROTC that “military training . . . works to erase racial, cultural, and gendered differences to build a common military identity” (25). This ethnography is a detailed exposé of how the K–16 curriculum is being influenced by the militarization and securitization of this nation. The author distinguishes the difference between these two, however: militarization emphasizes “the role of the military in securing the border, and securitization involves other bodies, entities, and spaces engaged in the protection and the involvement in the war against terror” (29).

While the author found the rise of programs such as those offered at Milton problematic, she is transparent and methodical in her evaluation of her own biases as well as the ethics, advantages, and critiques that surround covert qualitative research. The author is conscious of her place as both a researcher and an educator and what it meant to complete covert research once the critical nature of her project was divulged to the participants—students, faculty, and staff who were enthusiastic about the value of the work. The author also provides an organizational chart that illustrates the participants and collaborators, information on them and...