This research will look at the UAE Tarbiya Wataniya, or National Social Studies (NSS) K-12 textbooks and curriculum, as a window on the processes the Emirati government employs to create national identity while contributing to developing students’ historical consciousness in a country where citizens are a minority. The NSS program is part of the Ministry of Education (MoE)’s core curriculum and is taught to students, regardless of nationality in both public and private institutions. Since near 90% of UAE residents are non-citizens, the study of the NSS curriculum is key to understanding how the authorities engage with this extraordinary demographic reality. The analysis will contribute to research on governmental efforts to employ pedagogy to spread a normative historical narrative and specific worldview to both Emiratis and non-nationals. The study situates itself within larger debates over collective memory as well as on the processes of national identity formation, multicultural coexistence and heritage preservation across the GCC and in the UAE more specifically. Considering the current public debate on the presence of expatriate communities in the UAE, I will be reviewing K-12 textbooks looking for references to forms of inclusion and exclusion of particular national, linguistic and/or racial communities. In addition to conducting a close reading of the textbooks, I will interview in the early fall 2016 MoE employees involved in the development of the NSS curriculum in parallel to reviewing MoE reports. I will also interview NSS teachers to gain a general understanding of the ways they tailor their teaching and engage with students. Finally, in order to obtain qualitative data on the reception of the NSS curriculum as a form public discourse, I will interview both Emirati and foreign students to discuss their perspective on how the program shaped their individual sense of historical consciousness and nationalist forms of belonging.