My project investigates the centrality of youth and pedagogical ideology to formulations of national identity and development in revolutionary (1958-1984) and postrevolutionary (1984-present) Guinea. It examines the construction, reception, and demise of a revolutionary curriculum that sought to transform faulty contemporary young Guineans into ideal African socialist citizens through activities in schooling, theater, sports, and the scout-like Pioneer Movement. Special attention is devoted to Guinea's forest region, where youth were caught at a particularly fraught intersection of local traditions and state pedagogical policies aimed at "demystification." Through documentary sources, case studies, participant observation, interviews, personal narratives, and life histories, I will study how forest youth have participated in, described, and experienced Guinean nationalism as it was mediated through the revolutionary curriculum, and examine how youths' perceptions of national development and citizenship are changing in the current postrevolutionary context.