UNIWERSYTET JAGIELLOŃSKI W KRAKOWIE
WYDZIAŁ STUDIÓW MIĘDZYNARODOWYCH I POLITYCZNYCH
INSTYTUT EUROPEISTYKI
Adam Różałowski
Nr albumu: …1120472…KIERUNEK Europeistyka
Specjalność Euroculture
EXPLORING DIDACTICS IN
TRANSNATIONAL AND POLISH
HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
Praca magisterska
Promotor: …
Prof. Dr hab. Zdzisław Mach
.
Master of Arts Thesis
Euroculture
Jagiellonian University of Kraków (Home)
University of Groningen (Host)
Exploring Didactics in Transnational and Polish History Textbooks
A comparative analysis of didactics in national and transnational history
textbooks
Submitted by: Adam Różałowski Student number home university: 1120472 Student number host university: s2864118 Supervised by: Name of supervisor home university: Professor Zdzisław Mach
MA Programme Euroculture Declaration
I, Adam Różałowski hereby declare that this thesis, entitled “ Exploring Didactics in Transnational and Polish History Textbooks”, submitted as partial requirement for the MA Programme Euroculture, is my own original work and expressed in my own words. Any use made within this text of works of other authors in any form (e.g. ideas, figures, texts, tables, etc.) are properly acknowledged in the text as well as in the bibliography.
I hereby also acknowledge that I was informed about the regulations pertaining to the assessment of the MA thesis Euroculture and about the general completion rules for the Master of Arts Programme Euroculture.
Signed Adam Różałowski
Date 01/08/2016
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Introduction ... 4
Chapter 2 – Theory ... 7
1) Transnational cooperation and history textbooks – a brief overview ... 7
2) History textbooks and the nation state ... 8
3) Problems inherent to history textbooks ... 10
Chapter 3 – Pedagogical theory ... 13
1) Two traditions to teaching history ... 13
2) Ross E. Dunn Arena A vs. Arena B ... 13
3) Chris Husbands, Anna Pendry, Allison Kitson – learner centered model vs. great traditon ... 14
4) Alternate models to teaching history 5) Didactical approaches to the teaching of history in the 21st century ... 19
6) Who is doing what in regards to history teaching and what are they doing? ... 20
Chapter 4 – Methodology ... 28
1) Introduction ... 28
2) Methods ... 28
Chapter 5 – Analysis ... 36
1) Polish history textbooks and the education system in Poland ... 37
a) Odkrywamy na Nowo. Historia – Operon 2012 ... 40
b) Po Prostu Historia – WsiP 2015 ... 43
c) Poznać Przeszłość. Wiek XX – Nowa Era 2015 ... 46
2) Transnational history textbooks ... 47
a) Europa Nasza Historia 1 – WsiP 2016 ... 52
b) Shared Histories. For a Europe without Dividing Lines – Council of Europe 2012 ... 57
c) Teaching Modern Southeast European History. The Second World War – CDRSEE 2009 ... 62
Chapter 6 – Conclusion ... 62
Bibliography ... 65
Chapter 1 – Introduction
The nation state has dominated the way we think about and organize our societies for at least the last 200 years. National education systems, and especially history education, have largely been a major element in helping to institutionalize the nation state through history textbooks based on the historiography of a single unified nation state. Since the turn of the 21st century however, at least 10 different jointly written history textbooks have been
conceptualized in different regions from Europe to East Asia, and many more are in the works.1
Originating in Europe, the phenomenon is spreading to other parts of the world. The ASEAN countries of Southeast Asia for example are currently exploring the feasibility of a common textbook since 2014.2 These projects mark a modest, but noteworthy departure from the traditional nation state centered model of history education, one that is largely told from the point of view of a single nation—to a model that is based on a broader geographical location, focusing on skills rather than knowledge, and told from multiple perspectives.
By looking at the didactics of history textbooks, this paper sets out to investigate what skills and knowledge these different groups (politicians, educationalists, policymakers), in a transnational and a national setting, view as important enough to pass on to the next
generation. This paper hopes to answer to what extent do the didactics present in traditional history textbooks differ from textbooks written as a result of bilateral, multilateral or
transnational3 projects? How and why are these different groups promoting alternative visions of teaching history? Do textbooks seek to guarantee certain attitudes and values? Or do they exist to enable young people with a foundation of knowledge, skills, insights to make their own independent choices?
1
The Georg Eckert Institute in Braunschweig, Germany alone is involved in at least 5 transnational projects aimed at publishing a bilateral or transnational history textbook. http://www.gei.de/en/projects/current-projects.html
2
News, B. B. C. “Textbook Approach to Asia’s Disputes.” BBC News. Accessed July 12, 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26073748.
3
This research is relevant for several reasons. First, although textbook revision projects have been around since the beginning of the 20th
century, jointly written and published textbooks are still relatively new, therefore it is worthwhile to draw comparisons and gauge the level of similarity or differences in the approaches they take in regards to the teaching of history. That is, take a horizontal4
approach and research the most recently published
textbooks. These textbooks are chosen without much attention to place, since new strategies and approaches can appear anywhere and are not bounded by space. Second, the importance of joint history programs are pertinent for our time. It is increasingly apparent that the conflicts of the 21st
century stem from questions of ethnicity, identity, and cultural
differences. Wolfgang Hopken of the Georg Eckert Institute refers to these as “postmodern wars”5 as opposed to the traditional Clausewitz definition of war. Therefore, analyzing the way that novel textbooks approach such topics is valuable for the insight it may bring in terms of best practices on how to teach about questions of ethnicity, identity and the Other. Also, the fall of the Iron Curtain and a resolution of the wars in the Balkans is calling on us to
reimagine our pasts through new perspectives; as partners, not perceived enemies. This requires a re-imagination of our collective memories partly through history education. As these textbooks are an attempt at re-imagining this history it is interesting to analyze how it is being done.
These are also valid questions as Europe seeks to dilute problematic nationalistic outlooks that have re-emerged alongside the recent crises in Europe, such as the Euro-crisis and the ongoing refugee crisis. These questions are important in a Europe where history is once again making headlines, as in disagreements about the interpretation of the past, which is so often used by right-wing governments as a source of political legitimacy, branding
themselves as the protectors of the only “true” history. As the English-language website of Jobbik (nationalist political party from Hungary) puts it, “In order to survive globalization people have to know their true history, otherwise [they will] lose their histories as the global elite has been conducting a clandestine war on national cultures.”6
It is important for students to know the nature of history, so that they may understand the contested nature of
4
A horizontal approach seeks to study the latest developments and therefore takes as its primary focus the materials that have been published the most recently. A vertical study on the other hand, chooses textbooks from a particular place and researches how it has changed over time.
5Wolfgang Hopken, “Textbooks and Conflicts. Experiences from the Work of the Georg-Eckert-Institute for International Textbook Research,” The World Bank, Washington D.C. March 24-26, 3.
6
Gale Stokes, “Purposes of the Past” in The End and the Beginning: The Revolutions of 1989 and the
historiography. History education should give students the tools to decide for themselves whom they want to support and why. History pedagogy is very much at the center of promoting these skills and therefore is the main subject of this research.
While much of the research on history textbooks to date has focused on the content of the text found in history textbooks, developments in publishing technology and teaching methods have changed the structure of the textbooks themselves, which is simultaneously changing the methods associated with researching them. According to a research paper entitled “New Trends in History Textbook Research: Issues and Methodologies toward a School Historiography” by Maria Repoussi and Nicole Tutiaux-Guillon, presented at the 2009 conference of the International Society for History Didactics, a shift in the focus from content analysis to didactical analysis is necessary as “iconographic materials come to interrupt the unity of the written text and create new multimodal text and content”7
and therefore new ways of interaction between students, teachers and the textbook. New methodological tools are needed as these new structural approaches and changing teaching practices are altering the way history is being taught. According to this conference paper, research on didactics has been “underestimated or marginalized in previous research,” as in many works the
iconography was previously thought to be “paratext or supplementary” and therefore not important enough to be studied. Repoussi and Tutiaux-Guillon suggest that the old methods of written content analysis (often quantitative) are not “sufficiently relevant for investigating and analyzing the multimodality of the new history textbooks.
It is this shift in the structure of history textbooks that has prompted this research to focus on the structure and didactics present in history textbooks. The inquiry into these textbooks is based on 10 questions specifically developed for the purpose of evaluating the pedagogy of history textbooks created by Robert Stradling in his Handbook for Teaching 20th
Century History.8
These questions are then supported by a tool widely used in education
created to evaluate the cognitive demands of questions asked of students, this tool is referred to as Bloom’s Taxonomy. This diagram was developed by Benjamin Bloom and adapted by David R. Krathwohl. How this paper attempts to use this diagram and the methods of this research paper will be further explained in the methodology section.
7
Maria Repoussi and Nicole Tutiaux-Guillon, “New Trends in History Textbook Research: Issues and Methodologies toward a School Historiography.” Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society 2, no. 1 (January 1, 2010). doi:10.3167/jemms.2010.020109, 155.
8
Chapter 2 – Theory
1) Transnational cooperation and history textbooks – a brief overview
Cooperation in regards to the writing of history textbooks was a response to the horrors of WWI. The period following WWI saw for the first time the ideas of peace activists incorporated into history curricula in Sweden in 1919; in the form of an increased focus on heroes of peace and social justice rather than the traditional national heroes of war. Some organizations like the League of Nations proposed “sensible patriotism” in history education, others like the Norden Associations proposed more cultural exchange between the Nordic countries.9
The period following WWII was characterized by a development in textbook revision schemes, inspired by these earlier attempts at cooperation. Textbook commissions sent already published textbooks to each country in order to ensure proper treatment of their nation’s history in each other’s textbooks and also to have a chance to defend their own narrative if need be. A study by Henrik Astrom Elmersjo on 50 years of cooperation has shown how historical cultures of these different countries influence each other. A key finding is that even though historians from each country were able to regularly come to an agreement (particularly that changes were necessary), attempts at revision failed because there were not often enough political advocates within each of those nations to incorporate a change. Another difficulty is that textbook production and consumption is still largely subject to free-market principles; without a nod from teachers and the political establishment in each nation these changes were unlikely to happen. Therefore, Elmersjo makes the claim that “historical cultures can only change from within and that external pressure has problems of perceived legitimacy.”10
The experience of the German-Polish History Textbook supports Elmersjo’s
conclusion. While a commission between the two countries was formed in 1972, plans for a jointly-written textbook could begin only when certain political questions were finally solved by the two countries, such as the conflict over Poland’s eastern border. The “general favorable
9
Henrik Åström Elmersjö, “History beyond Borders: Peace Education, History Textbook Revision, and the Internationalization of History Teaching in the Twentieth Century,” Historical Encounters 1, no. 1 (June 30, 2014): 66.
10
environment”11 in diplomatic relations between the two countries in the 2000’s brought together both ministers of foreign affairs form each country: Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany and Radosław Sikorski of Poland, and work on a joint history textbook finally commenced in 2008.12 This project could be hailed as a next step in the development of cooperation on history teaching as it is the first project that aims to bridge the “divide” between Western and Eastern Europe, fabricated by the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.
Developments such as the coming down of the Iron Curtain, the conclusion of ethnic wars in the Balkans and the eastward expansion of the EU have provided the impetus for these textbook projects. As “our relationship to the world has changed we [as Europeans] have been driven to reconsider the past from new perspectives”13 reconsidering who the “us” and “them” are. Work on the role of history education in the construction of the nation state is well-founded.14 The role of transnational history textbooks in this “re-considering of the past” however is ongoing, and therefore the approaches taken are worth researching.
2) History Textbooks and the Nation State
In Nationalism, Anthony D. Smith proposes that a nation is "a named human community residing in a perceived homeland, and having common myths and a shared history, a distinct public culture, and common laws and customs for all members.”15 The 19th century in Europe was a time of intense nation-building efforts. Leaders knew that in order to build a strong and united nation state they needed these “common myths and a shared
history.” In the context of this time period, language and history education proved particularly important for creating “loyal” citizens. The production of a nation’s “history” is a product of a
11
In a study by Wolfgang Hopken, 4 preconditions for a common textbook are presented. The second precondition or observation is that “textbooks can only act in a general favorable environment.”
Wolfgang Höpken, “History Textbooks and Reconciliation – Preconditions and Experiences in a Comparative Perspective”. Draft. World Bank Meeting, November 11th [2001], Washington DC., at 25
>http:///sitersources.worldbank.org/INTCEERD/Resources/EDUwolfganghoepken.p df< 12
Krzyszstof Ruchnievicz, “The History of the German–Polish Textbook Commission.” In Beijing International
Conference on Textbook Revision and Peace Education Revisited: Past Experiences, Present Expectations and Future Concepts, 2008.
http://ece.columbia.edu/files/ece/images/HistoryoftheGerman-PolishTextbookCommission-3.pdf, 12. 13
Minna Suikka, “‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in National Collective Memory: Encounters with Images of Russian Empire and Soviet Russia in Czech, Finnish and Polish Upper Secondary School History Textbooks,” 2014.
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/137616, 1. 14
The work of Korostelina is one example of this especially in her work on recently independent CEE countries. Karina Korostelina, “Shaping Unpredictable Past: National Identity and History Education in Ukraine.” National
group of people reflecting their collective memories in the present, for the purposes of the present and by discussing and reflecting on these memories and attaching special significance to them. Selected memories which are beneficial to the state are then reified into the public or collective memory through certain means, such as, monuments, rituals, symbols, cultural products (films, songs, art) as well as books.16 Because history textbooks are a media that are widely distributed, these products are perfect tools for reifying a particular collective memory.
Eric Hobsbawm claims that the nation state exists only as a stage of a particular point of development - an intersection of politics, technology and social transformation.17 For example, national languages cannot exist without particular technology – such as printing, mass literacy and therefore mass schooling. All three of these factors made a common
textbook for language and history as well as literature possible. And these factors in turn were instrumental in making nation states possible.
If the printing press made the nation state possible in the last “stage” of development, as Hobsbawm puts it, is it possible that new technologies widely available to us today are preparing us for the next stage? What will that stage look like? Is the recent rise in
transnational textbook production a result or a harbinger of the next perceived stage? Smith believes so: “the 'heroic' vision of national identity, with its themes of struggle, liberation and sacrifice typical of newly independent nations or ‘state-nations', may, in the next generation, cede place to a more open, pragmatic and utilitarian version of the nation's identity, stressing such themes as entrepreneurial ability, organizational skills and tolerance of diversity.”18 Are the new transnational textbooks a manifestation of Smith’s 1992 statement? If so, how do they go about promoting a “pragmatic and utilitarian version of national identity?”
Using textbooks in order to shed light on these questions makes sense because textbooks are so much more than a classroom resource. They are the products of an intricate web of political forces, societal forces, context, trends in historiography and technology, coming together to serve a particular purpose in the societies they are produced. What makes textbooks a rich source of study is the fact that the process of textbook production is ongoing,
16
Sirkka Ahonen, "Post-Conflict Society in the Grip of a Difficult Past." In Coming to Terms with a Dark Past:
How Post-conflict Societies Deal with History, 13-26. Frankfurt Am Main: Peter Lang AG, 2012,13.
17
E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. (Cambridge University Press, 1992), 10.
18
the differences and changes in them can be especially revealing because they offer clues to the circumstances, hands and forces that created them.19
3) Problems inherent to history textbooks
Textbooks, like history itself, are a human construct. If history is an attempt to come to an understanding of the past, shaped by the framework of its time and by the purposes of its creators20, then textbooks are a manifestation of this construct. Textbooks are never simply a neutral assemblage of knowledge, but part of a selective tradition, representing someone’s choices, some group’s vision of what stands for legitimate knowledge.21 In large part this vision presented in history textbooks is an important tool in the creation of a national collective memory, based on national myths, essential for the construction of a nation state. This makes history textbooks a very powerful medium. Because of the important political role that history textbooks play in this process, inherent problems associated with history
textbooks and their use exist.
Because of political pressure and demands of a national curriculum, textbooks struggle to cover all of the necessary material and at the same time make it relevant to students.
Whereas issues relating to a nation state’s kings and queens were very relevant to people living in the nineteenth century, the most important issues that face our youth have changed. Most of the questions facing this generation of young people, and the generations that follow, are and will be supranational in nature, rather than national.22 In other words, textbooks that present only a single point of view will struggle to stay relevant for 21st century students.
This is accentuated by the fact that national history textbooks rarely come up with their own historiography, rather they are an extension of nation-specific historical research by that nation’s historians and scholars.23 Relying on only this singular point of view limits students’ ability to evaluate the past and make generalizations on the present (the less examples students have to draw from will lead to a less thought out assessment of political events for example). Understanding that a persons point of view is largely shaped by their
19
John Issitt, “Reflections on the Study of Textbooks.” History of Education 33, no. 6 (November 2004): 683– 96. doi:10.1080/0046760042000277834, 686.
20
Stokes, “Purposes of the Past,” 37.
21Michael W. Apple, “The Politics of Official Knowledge: Does a National Curriculum Make Sense?”
Discourse 14, no. 1 (1993): 1.
22
Haydn, “History in Schools and the Problem of the Nation,” 282. 23
environment, by the history culture they were brought up in, is key to being able to understand why people view the same events differently. This is especially important in Europe where decisions require cooperation from 28 member states and where different historical cultures often play a role in how history is interpreted—and therefore the decisions that are made.
Constructing a narrative that pits nations in an “us against them” model can become very exclusive, negating the many things that as Europeans we do have in common. Although an “aggressive, self-centered weaving of one’s own past may have served the practical
function of unifying various groups into a coherent state, it may not serve the same purpose in today’s Europe.”24The historian Charles Maier puts it this way25:
But now the excesses, the extremist byways, the rantings and falsehoods that seem to be part and parcel of nationalist rhetoric have become increasingly dysfunctional, a colossal waste of time. What worked to define one’s space in the historical world no longer works as well in achieving one’s goals in the post-historical world, where economic policy, negotiation, and accommodation have an increased value.
History teaching largely focusing on differences between nations, and experiences that make a group of people unique, or distinct, ignores the fact that nations have always influenced each other.
Part of the problem is that most teachers are not aware that the narrative they are conveying is exclusive, or even nationalist. A study by Jaskułkowski and Surmiak conducted in a mid-sized Polish city has found that most teachers are not fully aware of their role in conveying nationalist politics in representations of the past. In this study the authors
concluded that teachers so deeply internalized nationalism that they see its reproduction in the classroom as natural;26 a sort of propagation of outdated practices. If history is an
interpretation of the past for the present, Europe needs to explore ways of presenting the past that is suitable for our present.
24
Stokes, “Purposes of the Past,” 42. 25
Charles S. Maier, “Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era.”
The American Historical Review 105, no. 3 (June 2000): 807. doi:10.2307/2651811. 823.
Nation-centric history textbooks may be prone to other problems. Most history textbooks shy away from describing episodes from a nation’s history which are negative. James Loewen found that most of the history textbooks he researched were guilty of what he calls heroification, a process of turning flesh and blood creatures into pious and perfect individuals, a sort of “Disney version” of history.27 Elites have routinely used heroes in order to construct a positive national identity. This however does not objectively portray history since it does not present history as contingent, as a series of outcomes based on choices made in the past. When bad things happen, these events are presented passively and not as a result of flawed leadership.28 Textbooks often omit the negative aspects of leaders and the crimes they may have committed. Japanese textbooks for example simply gloss over much of what happened between 1931-1945. In one Japanese textbook, only 19 out of 357 pages dealt with this period; a period from which most of the geopolitical conflicts in East Asia derive from. Furthermore, in Japanese textbooks there is little mention of the Nanjing Massacre, where it is described in only one or two sentences as a “battle”, while Chinese textbooks devote pages to what they call “the Rape of Nanjing.”29
This last example illustrates the problem associated with textbooks being mouthpieces for a certain political party in power. Since textbooks are still the domain of the nation state or smaller regions within, this lack of oversight can lead to textbooks that imitate the extremist views of the party in power.
An assumption of this author is that transnational history textbooks are an attempt to deal with these problems. After all, when responsibility for a narrative is shared by groups from different organizations or countries they are much harder to manipulate for political purposes. The next section outlines the two major traditions of teaching history as well as some alternative approaches to teaching history and history textbook production. This
overview introduces the major groups of thought which is a useful departure for analyzing the outlook of the groups which are involved in the production of transnational history textbooks and analyzing their epistemological outlook.
27Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, (Touchstone, 2007), 11.
28
Loewen argues that imparting information in a passive voice helps to insulate historical figures from their own unheroic or unethical deeds.
James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, 18. 29
Chapter 3 – Pedagogical theory
1) Two traditions to teaching history
Today two groups largely dominate the debate when it comes to discussing school history. On one side there are scholars, educationalists and policymakers that view school history in a more progressive, global, learner-centered model based on inquiry. This group believes that school history’s primary aim is to prepare students for life in an increasingly complex and globalized world. On the other hand are the traditionalists that believe that history should primarily be used in a way that transmits the narrative of the place where they live, an in depth history of the nation state that enables the youth to build their identity around a group, and help them learn the social codes so that they may function in their civil society.
There have been a number of scholars that have recently written about these 2 camps. Ross E. Dunn puts these groups of educators, policymakers and academics into two general groups: Arena A and Arena B.30 Chris Husbands, Anna Pendry and Alison Kitson have written about school history as being taught using a learner centered model on one hand and the great tradition on the other. Joke van der Leeuw-Roord has called it a new history vs. a
national history. Others have called it an alternative history vs. the grand narrative.
The next section will be an attempt to bring the reader closer to these two most common viewpoints and then survey the latest research on how history teachers can improve the teaching of history.
2) Ross E. Dunn – Arena A vs. Arena B
Educationalists in Arena A believe that the primary field of investigation should be the planet as a whole: the human species in a changing physical and natural environment. From this point of view history teaching should center on:
• history of connections and interactions among the human species in a changing physical and natural environment
• patterns of change that cut across transient countries or civilizations
30
Arie Wilschut and Linda Symcox, National History Standards : The Problem of the Canon and the Future of
Teaching History, International Review of History Education, (Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing,
• comparison of historical phenomena in different parts of the world.
This group is interested in exploring patterns, connections and comparisons within limited frames of time and space rather than consuming the whole history of humankind. Focusing on “big history” and not necessarily on grand sweeps of the past from the point of view of
aggregates, such as major civilizations or nation-states.
Educationalists in Arena B have a different point of view on what school history should be for. This group views history and the social sciences as expressions of the nation, its values and purpose. At its core, it views history as a way to transfer knowledge about how to be a good citizen in a particular nation. It is an answer to the question: “what knowledge will form the best citizens?” The principal aim should be to transfer the values of the current generation of leaders to the rising generation in order to condone national unity, inspire civic participation, and to combat any social forces that may fragment the society. William Bennet, a former Secretary of Education in the United States, claims that the teaching of history is “the glue that binds together our pluralistic nation.”31
3) Christ Husbands, Anna Pendry and Alison Kitson – learner centered model vs. great tradition
In the opening chapter of their Understanding History Teaching, these authors have decided to categorize the 2 traditions of school history as the learner centered model and the
great tradition.
Educationalists in the learner centered model camp view the role of the teacher as a neutral chair, serving the role of an arbitrator: introducing learners to sources of information and supporting them as they search for meaning and understanding, questioning the purposes of generating historical knowledge itself.
This group is similar to educationalists in Arena A in that they choose the content based on reflecting on world history through the experiences of various groups. This group is interested in focusing on especially those issues, rather than subjects, about which “society had failed to give a wholly consensual or clear answer.”32 The content therefore is chosen in order to complement the inquiry-based approach or the pedagogical approach of this group.
31
Symcox and Wilschut, National history standards: the problem of the canon and the future of teaching
history, 59.
This group believes that history should be about asking big questions about our world; using history to work out why it looks the way it does today. School history should help students understand society and the world they inhabit rather than the world as it once was; the topics that should be chosen from the repertoire of the past should be chosen based on its helpfulness to students in making sense of the present. Lawrence Stenhouse, the architect of the Humanities Curriculum Project believes that the only way history will be important to students is if it helps them achieve this.33 Topics in history which are of enduring human interest are interesting because of their relevance to the human situation. Students will internalize that which is of importance to them and their future roles as members of their current societies.
Proponents of the great tradition however believe that they do have clear answers in the form of a history—told through the prism of the nation. In this classroom the teacher constructs active interpretations of history while the student assumes a generally passive role. In other words, an empty vessel to be filled with pre-established knowledge which one was expected to then assimilate, organize and reproduce.
The content in the great tradition model was largely organized chronologically. Since Husbands, Pendry and Kitson are writing in the context of British history, the content focuses on moving from the Roman invasion in 43A.D. through the 20th century “using the frame of high politics to sequence and structure knowledge about the past.”34 Primarily, this was taught in order to get students acquainted with a shared national political culture. The former
Secretary of Education, Kenneth Baker insisted that school history should “help pupils come to understand how a free and democratic society has developed over the centuries, placing at its ‘core the history of Britain, the record of its past and, in particular its political,
constitutional and cultural heritage.’”35
The debate between educationalists and policymakers, proponents of these two camps takes many forms, within smaller debates in the classroom and larger debates between
politicians responsible for the educational system of entire regions and nations. Textbooks being used in certain education systems are a good indication of which camp a certain group of people (or the current party in power), subscribes to. Before this paper moves on to the
33
Chris Husbands, Anna Pendry, and Alison Kitson. Understanding History Teaching. (Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education, 2003), 10.
34
analysis of the case studies chosen a short survey of some of the more recent research in the field will be discussed.
4) Didactical approaches to the teaching of history in the 21st century
The nation state perspective is no longer sufficient.36 The nation could feature prominently in the curricula, but when it appears it should be presented as part of larger developments, part of a larger story since nations do not develop in isolation from one another. Teachers should be able to choose from resources that draw on large scale changes from a global/humanist perspective, a continental, state, regional and even family/individual perspective. History should be about big questions, such as: how is power exercised in a way
which contributes to human fulfillment? Young people should be able to understand “how the
nature of power has changed over time.” Away from those kings and queens mentioned earlier, towards elected officials, then powerful transnational corporations and
organizations.37 In other words, students should be able to to think about “big picture history,” make connections to larger historical processes (like: industrialization, urbanization, etc.) and connect it to what is happening in their own society. When students see the value in
something they are learning and can see how it affects their lives they are more engaged. To help students understand the multiplicity of voices and cultures in Europe, teachers should also consider incorporating the idea of multiperspectivity into their classrooms in order to develop a “common historical awareness.”38 K. Peter Fritzsche has described
multiperspectivity as39:
a process, “a strategy of understanding”, in which we take into account another’s perspective (or others’ perspectives) in addition to our own. That process entails understanding that we too have a perspective which has been filtered through our own cultural context, reflects our own standpoint and interpretation of what has happened and why, our own view of what is and is not relevant, and may also reflect other prejudices and biases. In this respect, multi-
36
“History News Network | No Borders: Beyond the Nation-State.” Accessed August 1, 2016. http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/23913.
37
Haydn, “History in Schools and the Problem of the Nation,” 282
38 Pfeil, Ulrich. Conference Paper. Proceedings of Citizenship Education Facing Nationalism and Populism in
Europe, Bulgaria, Sofia. November 6-8, 2008. www.nece.eu
perspectivity is not just a process or strategy, it is also a predisposition, “[it] means to be able
and willing to regard a situation from different perspectives”. The preconditions for this are,
first, a willingness to accept that there are other possible ways of viewing the world than one’s own and that these may be equally valid and equally partial; and, second, a willingness to put oneself in someone else’s shoes and try and see the world as they see it, that is, to exercise empathy.
On a continent so rich in different cultural traditions, languages, nations, it is important to sensitize students to the multiplicity of voices, narratives, points of view. The ability to look at an issue or situation through the eye of the other is a skill that is of paramount importance. Multiperspectivity is so powerful because it does not require certain sensitive narratives to be neutered or changed to be less controversial, something that some groups refuse to do because they feel it is threatening their version of history. Therefore, it is possible to put these
narratives side by side, on equal footing, and then begin to understand why they are so different in the first place. This also applies to students themselves. Students should
understand that their own perspective will be bound by the place they are from and that this environment has a big influence on their frames of reference.40 When looking at a border that has shifted throughout history between 2 nations, multiperspectivity will allow viewing this space not as a defining line, as exclusive, but rather as a shared space that has been inhabited by both groups. This idea is the cornerstone of such bilateral projects like the German-Polish history textbook and the French-German history textbook.
Another key aspect of teaching is the necessity of teaching students that history is contingent. History should not be taught as a done deal but part of an ongoing process. A history that is investigated by examining choices that people have made in the past allows students to understand that situations could have turned out differently based on the choices that were made. In other words, understanding the human effect, the “what could have happened” is a key to understanding history.41 University of Virginia Professor Philip Zelikow stresses this when he teaches his world history courses. Professor Zelikow bases his teaching style on the importance of looking at specific situations. Each situation has a
problem that needs to be resolved and he stresses that by analyzing the options first, and then the choices that were made are the key to understanding history. Asking questions like what
40In Dutch, this could be explained by the word “standplaatsgebondenheid,” in English “frame of reference.”
41 Philip Zelikow, "The Study of History." Lecture, The Modern World, Part One: Global History from 1760 to
could have happened if other choices were made? What could have been the outcome? It is also important to understand that choices are different from circumstances, like a volcano or a natural disaster, because of the human effect. Humanizing history, and not making it the domain of historical heroes is a key in the process of teaching history.
The use of overarching questions (also known as: essential questions or historical questions), is another recommendation mentioned by many researchers associated with history pedagogy42. By posing big questions and using history to try to answer them, students are involved in a process of inquiry that has been shown to help them become more engaged with the study of history. When students are prompted to find an answer to a question it guides their reading and research into the history they are studying.
Other teaching strategies and principles key to improving the teaching of history include approaching history using a “laboratory approach,” just as historians do. For example, engaging students in and helping them to understand the process of historiography—
essentially understanding why we should trust historians and believe what they say. How do they come to know what they write? What processes does this entail? Understanding the process of source selection by historians is also important, since sources are at the root of our historical knowledge. This in turn develops historical memory shared by societies and forms distinct historical cultures.
Another important aspect is the temporal dimension of teaching history. Students should understand that in history we can recognize the roots of today’s problems. In other words, this is the skill of zooming in and out from large historical processes to specific examples. This helps students to make generalizations, establish connections, compare and contrast different people’s experiences and also realize that the historical experience and that of their ancestors has also been the experience of other groups in Europe.
The theory presented in this subchapter is important because it is useful in helping to understand the latest trends of history textbook production and will help to analyze the textbooks which have been chosen for this study. It will be helpful to see if these textbooks are in fact being influenced by the latest trends in history textbook production.
42
5) Alternate models of teaching history
The nation-centric model of history textbook production is the model that most
education systems in the world use today. There are however other models that are being used in classrooms around the world and are the subject of ongoing research. These alternate models are taking as their starting point history from different strata of society, not just political history but history from the point of view of common people such as workers and farmers. Other history textbooks are widening their scope and teaching history from a regional, world, or global point of view.
A good example of a textbook that takes the global approach is Felipe Fernandez-Armesto’s aptly titled The World: a History43. The textbook takes as its guide two themes that
structure the text of the book: our interactions with nature (environment) and with each other (cultural and political). Armesto revisits certain concepts like shelter, disease, energy and technology in the environmental theme and migration, war, trade, imperialism, diplomacy, travel in the human interaction theme and discusses the effects of these on the environment and our societies on each of the inhabited continents. This textbook takes advantage of sweeping themes and is then able to weave the experiences of different civilizations, countries, people into truly a common human story.
Another example is A People’s History of the United States. The author, Howard Zinn, is credited with including that which Loewen found missing from most American history textbooks: the human impact and the human cost of decisions made by politicians and businessmen. Zinn strives to give students the story of a nation’s past from different perspectives, from people that are traditionally voiceless: the slaves, workers, immigrants, women, etc. An example of this are letters addressed to the mayor of New York City from desperate housewives, “husbands out of work and their children hungry”—all during the period known in textbooks as the “Jazz Age” or the “Roaring Twenties.”44 For Zinn, evidence from all strata of society is what can allow for a more complete vision of the past. Studying the past may not give us the absolute truth about the present, but it may “cause us to look deeper than the glib statements made by political leaders” and what is written in the press.45 Zinn believes that by giving students access to more primary sources from different strata of
43
, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, The World: A History, Combined Volume. 2 edition. Upper Saddle River N.J.: Pearson, 2009.
44
society, we can get a more complete picture of the past, and not necessarily only what the “official” sources say. This is because these different sources add a layer of comparative analysis. With these sources we can check what one source says against another, because in a subject as complex as history all sources can tell us something important, but only when we are conscious of their subjectivity.
Hermeneticians base their thought on exactly this principle. Knowledge is not looked
at as something being further or closer from the truth, like something to be placed on a
spectrum, but rather a circular ongoing relationship, where only by realizing that something is subjective can you reach a level of objectivity. In other words, attempting to find a place for the subjective. 46 An example of a hermeneutic approach in the classroom would be to assign different students different textbooks, from different perspectives (in terms of regions, political parties, years, countries, for example).47 In this scenario the student becomes a type of a researcher, where the class works to pinpoint the differences between textbooks. This activity serves to promote among students a certain type of mentality, and promote the consciousness mentioned earlier in this paper. Students are no longer receivers of a pre-conceived official knowledge, but more like scientists in a laboratory, practicing their ability to measure and analyze sources and come to their own conclusions.
6) Who is doing work today in regards to history teaching and what are they doing?
Specifically, there are 3 different strategies that organizations are engaged in with the aim of promoting and developing the area of history education. Identifying these groups and presenting an overview of their work in the most recent years will shed light on the textbooks presented later in the case studies. By presenting the organizations involved in the field, outlining some of their major achievements (some of them are coming up with their very own history textbooks), and outlining the approaches taken to improving history education, we can get a better understanding of the textbooks presented later in the study and the context from which they were produced.
46
Nicholls, “The Philosophical Underpinnings of School Textbook Research,” 29. 47
The first strategy deals with introducing recommendations and guidelines based on research in the field. These recommendations and guidelines are put in place to help ministries or organizations create a curriculum that is in line with the latest research. UNESCO for example has organized a guidebook that helps teachers understand what makes a certain history textbook a good textbook, and also provides a framework for researchers who use textbooks as their areas of inquiry.48 The Council of Europe has also come up with
recommendations and guidelines for teachers of history, this time focusing in on 2 specific areas.
The first, Multiperspectivity in History Teaching: a Guide for Teachers focuses in on the idea of how to teach students to understand multiple perspectives. The handbook, and the idea of multiperspective learning grew out of 3 distinct developments. The first development was the movement of the so called “new history” approach. This approach promoted a new way of teaching history because the people promoting it were dissatisfied with the way
history was being taught in Western and Northern Europe in the 1970s. They were dissatisfied mainly with these aspects often used in schools: knowledge transmission, weighing of the course content heavily in favor of political and constitutional history, focus on predominantly on events and personalities, construction of the syllabus around a content-rich, chronological survey of national history, and the underlying assumption that the national historical narrative mainly coincided with the history of the largest national grouping and the dominant linguistic and cultural community. The proponents of this “new history” approach wanted to establish a better balance, teaching students about the past and providing them with means to think historically. They pushed for a greater emphasis on students learning: how to analyze, interpret, and synthesize evidence obtained from a variety of primary and secondary sources. Most importantly that historical phenomena can be interpreted and reconstructed from a variety of perspectives. The second broad educational development that has spurred interest in multiperspectivity is the recognition that in the past history education has mostly been taught from a perspective that was mono-cultural, ethnocentric, exclusive rather than inclusive and based on the assumption that the national narrative coincided with the history of the largest national grouping and dominant linguistic cultural community. The third
development arose out of a growing concern that schools needed to do more to prepare young people for life in a world characterized by ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. 49
48
Falk Pingel. UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision. 2., rev. and updated ed. Paris: UNESCO, 2010.
The 2001 Teaching 20th century European History, on the other hand, focuses on dealing
with the era that has had the biggest impact on Europe and the different societies which inhabit it. This guidebook takes into consideration the changes in the teaching of history from the last 20 years. Some of the major trends that have changed the theory of history teaching mentioned by the author include:
• need for students to understand the Cold War and the European Union
• align approaches to teaching of history with trends in academic history—mainly to include social, economic, cultural and even intellectual history and not just political and diplomatic
• need for students to adopt a critical attitude to historical facts and evidence and to develop and apply the thinking processes essential to historical awareness and interpretation—these thinking processes include:
o understand that historians, reporters, directors are themselves interpreting historical facts and evidence
o understand that facts and evidence can be used in different ways by different people
o understanding that multiple perspectives are usually possible on any historical event and that these perspectives represent a diversity of experiences
o distinguishing facts from opinions, bias, prejudice and stereotypes in textual accounts and visual representations of an event
o learning how to analyze and use material from primary and secondary sources o understanding and applying key concepts: chronology, change, continuity,
causation, significance, sense of period
o recognizing that proximity to event does not ensure that the eye-witness account is not biased
o appreciating that any historical account is provisional and liable to
reassessment in light of either new evidence or new interpretations of existing evidence
According to this guidebook, these recommendations are indispensable to teaching a well-balanced, research-based 21st century curriculum.
of historical memory. The document stresses the importance of developing in students a critical “culture of remembrance,” one that helps nations deal confidently with their pasts in an unbiased way and at the same time embrace common European principles and values.50 The document outlines developing future European memory policies, stressing the role of education. In order the achieve a “critical culture of remembrance”, history teaching in Europe must:
• increase awareness of the diversity of cultures, histories and memories in Europe, and promotes mutual respect
• provides students with the necessary knowledge and skills to assess their own local and national past unbiasedly in comparison and relation with other European as well as global realities
• encourages young Europeans to become active critical thinkers and participants of 'historical remembrance'
The paper reiterates that the most important thing about building a critical culture of remembrance is the realization that historical memory is not necessarily about reflecting “historical realities” but instead incorporating a distinct degree of subjectivity, since the choice of how to remember the past involves value judgments.51
The second strategy devoted to improving history education in Europe is through activities and programs organized by research centers or institutes devoted to history education.
Probably the best known institute working in this field is the Georg Eckert Institute for
Textbook Research. This research institution was founded in 1975 with the goal of helping to
develop a better understanding of the past, the present and future through research activities. The institute has put on workshops, events associated with history textbooks, organized research projects, awarded fellowships, all in the hope that future generations are brought up with open minds, able to reflect on their attitudes and beliefs and embrace responsibility and democracy.
Another organization that is active in promoting a better way to teach history through research and workshops is the EUROCLIO Association, or the European Association of
50
Markus Prutsch, "European Historical Memory: Policies, Challenges and Perspectives." E uropean
Parliament: Policy Department B: Structural and Cohesion Policies, 2013, 7.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/note/join/2013/513977/IPOL CULT_NT(2013)513977_EN.p df.
History Educators. EUROCLIO engages with the community of teachers in Europe by organizing workshops, training sessions, mapping trends and needs, supporting research and helping to fund collaborative projects and educational resources. EUROCLIO’s mission statement is in support of: responsible and innovative history, critical thinking,
multiperspectivity, mutual respect and the inclusion of controversial issues, connecting professionals across boundaries of communities, countries, ethnicities and religions, capacity building for educators and implementing innovative teaching tools. The organization’s 3 pillars are: building capacity through innovative teaching tools, fostering knowledge exchange and networking and sustaining a professional civil society.
The CDRSEE, or the Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, is another organization that takes history education as its primary focus. The objectives of this organization are to utilize the power of history education in helping to mitigate the animosity felt between peoples of the Balkans, a region that quite recently has been scarred by ethnically spurred conflict. The organization implements programs and projects in the region, organizes meetings and symposia, facilitates intercultural dialogue and interaction between groups, issues publications and has more recently come out with a textbook based entirely on primary source documents, this is the third strategy in developing history education in Europe.
authoritarian regimes of the 1920 to 1940s and the effects effects of the Soviet regime on society in the Baltic States from 1945 to 1991. In 2000-2003 EUROCLIO brought together experts from Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia creating the textbook Change and Continuity in Everyday Life. The Georg Eckert Institute has produced what is probably the best known bilateral publication in 2007, a joint French-German History textbook written by historian from both countries. The textbook has been seen as a success with over 30,000 copies sold. Teachers praise that the textbook since it offers what they want, a global and multiperspective approach with a focus on common French and German experiences and perspectives
complimented by engaging question and suggestions about methodology.52
GEI has recently published the first volume in a similar project, this time between Germany and Poland in what is to be one of the first transnational projects to cross the former Iron Curtain. The first
textbook has been released in June of 2016 with later volumes to follow in the next few years. Attempts have also been made at creating a European-wide textbook. In 2014, the Council of Europe has built on its success with regional textbooks and has decided to publish a European-wide textbook entitled Shared Histories. The textbook is not a traditional
textbook as it is organized thematically around 4 major themes: impact of the industrial revolution, development in education, human rights as reflected in the history of art, and the relationship of Europe with the world.
More recently, calls for an even broader perspective have become a realization thanks to a group of professors from the University of San Diego and other universities from
California, in cooperation with teacher scholars, who have created a world history curriculum from a truly global, humanist perspective.53
The World History for us All curriculum stresses the importance of looking at the whole of human history, from Paleolithic times to the industrial revolution . The curriculum is organized around 9 Big Eras, ranging from 200,000 BCE to 10,000 BCE in Big Era 2, to 1900 to 1950 in Big Era 8. Each Big Era is organized around examining 3 broad essential questions. The Essential questions are centered around interactions between: humans and the environment, humans and other humans, and humans and ideas. An example of an essential question (humans and other humans) goes like this:
52van der Leeuw Roord, “A Common Textbook for Europe? Utopia or a Crucial Challenge?” 12. 53
Why have relations among humans become so complex since early times? We live in a world of intense, complicated, and diverse relationships among billions of people. Throughout most of its history our species has lived in small, scattered communities of foragers and hunters. Questions about the ways in which humans have multiplied on the earth and come to relate to one another in such a variety of ways are fundamental to historical investigation.
Further, 7 essential themes are then explored in each of the lessons. These themes are:
patterns of population; economic networks and exchange; uses and abuses of power; have and have-nots; expressing identity; science, technology and the environment, spiritual life and moral codes. A Big Era teaching Unit for example may look like this:
Big Era Eight A Half Century of Crisis 1900 - 1950 CE Panorama Teaching Unit Teaching Units Teaching Unit 8.1
The causes and global consequences of World War I 1900-1920 CE
Teaching Unit 8.2
The search for peace and stability in the 1920s and 1930s 1920-1930 CE
Teaching Unit 8.3
The Great Depression 1929-1939 CE Teaching Unit 8.4
Social change and resistance in colonial empires 1914-1950 CE
Teaching Unit 8.5
The causes and global consequences of World War II 1939-1945 CE
Teaching Unit 8.6
Revolutions in science and technology 1900-1950 CE Teaching Unit 8.7
Environmental change: the great acceleration 1900-1950 CE
Closeup Teaching Unit 3.2.5 Korea: From Calm to Conflict
The Big Era table contains an introductory overview (in narrative form accompanied by a power point presentation) of the large scale changes in society based on the 3 essential questions and 7 themes. The Panorama Teaching Unit will deal with broad developments for the chronological time period in question, in this case colonization or imperialism,
militarization, and the rise of socialism for example. The next table further focuses in on specific time periods in teaching units. Teaching Unit 8.1 for example deals with “The causes and global consequences of World War I.” The Close-up Teaching Units go into detail even further, this is helpful when the experience of one country exemplifies the broad themes that have been presented in the previous sections.
The core ideas that make this an innovative project are presented in the Curriculum at
not use civilizations as their chronology, it teaches students that particular subject matter is connected to larger patterns of historical meaning and significance, teaches history at various scales of time—this offers the teacher an opportunity to then delve in and focus on specific periods that are important to understand the modern world, and searches for questions about the past that may lead the searcher straight across the boundaries of nations, empires and civilizations.
What makes this curriculum unique is the emphasis on teaching both the particular and the general. This has been done in part because of research that has shown students make sense of history when they have an “overarching narrative framework or pictures of the past” and then can relate new information to specific historical processes. This allows students to “make the particular intelligible and relevant for their experience.”54
Chapter 4 – Methodology
1) Introduction
By looking at the didactics of history textbooks, this paper sets out to investigate what different groups (politicians, educationalists, policymakers), in a transnational and a national setting want to pass on to the next generation. It sets out to answer the question, to what extent do the didactics present in traditional history textbooks differ from textbooks written by bilateral, multilateral or transnational organizations? What can these differences tell us about the role of history education in Europe and the way history teaching is being used? And also, how or why are these different groups promoting alternative visions of teaching history?
The focus of this study is based on 2 separate case studies. Each case study is
comprised of 3 history textbooks. The first group consists of a bilateral, multilateral as well as a transnational textbook. These textbooks are different from the second group because they have been written for an audience that is different from the traditional nation-state
perspective. The second group of textbooks are 3 textbooks written from this perspective. These textbooks are specifically written for the Polish educational system.
These textbooks/workbooks have been chosen based on their date of publication. The time period and content of these textbooks is less important since the focus is approaches to teaching history. The transnational history textbooks identify themselves as “alternative” resources for teaching history, therefore, this study will focus more on a learner centered approach model. Epistemologically, this paper will analyze the following textbooks from within this school of thought and the research presented in the earlier chapters.
2) Methods
“To ‘design’ the ‘instrument’ researchers must formulate a framework or criteria of categories and questions fine-tuned to the specific aims and objectives of a particular textbook
project.”55
At a 2009 conference of the International Society for History Didactics (ISHD), held in cooperation with the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in
Braunschweig, Germany, entitled “History Textbook Analysis: Methodological Issues,” researchers from 26 countries met and outlined the most recent trends in history textbook research. The conference revealed that there was a clear trend—away from the much used content analysis of traditional history textbooks—towards research of new trends in
historiography, of which 3 are specifically mentioned.56 First, an increased emphasis on the didactics of textbooks, influenced by new structural appearances of textbooks and changing teaching practices. Underestimated or marginalized parts of a textbook, such as iconography, activities and the layout of the textbooks are becoming the focus of textbook research. Second, more research is being done on the movement towards a kind of text that does not simply give answers but supports procedures of learning that fits in with the laboratory learning environment promoted by other school subjects. Lastly, research is focusing more on the way that students and teachers interact with the textbook. These developments have altered the way researchers approach textbook research. The old methods of written content analysis and quantitative approaches have become less useful when it comes to analyzing the multimodality of new history textbooks and that is why new qualitative methods based on a more holistic approach are being favored. Since individuals are considered active negotiators of the messages, and the influence of social context is seen as having greater influence, researchers are developing new methods.57
Because of the new emphasis on elements of the textbook outside of the text, a
hermeneutic approach will be employed in order to draw some conclusions from these two
case studies. This type of analysis is valuable because it can help the researcher “reveal underlying assumptions that cannot be measured.” This approach aims to “give insight into the mode of presentation”58, an important area of interest of this research paper. For example, does the textbook take a multiperspective approach or does it mainly rely on monocausal explanation as the main pedagogical method for teaching? This approach will allow for a reflection on the textbook, but also enable reflection on elements outside of the text. Taking into account the context the textbook was written in is important since the “ideological character of the system in which a history textbook is situated influences its contents and its
56
Maria Repoussi and Nicole Tutiaux-Guillon, “New Trends in History Textbook Research: Issues and Methodologies toward a School Historiography.” Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society 2, no. 1 (January 1, 2010). doi:10.3167/jemms.2010.020109, 155.
57
Ibid, 156. 58
layout, offering more or less space for autonomous thinking and debates.”59 In other words, it is also important to look at who are the stakeholders when it comes to history textbook production and how these stakeholders can influence the outcome of publication.
This research will analyze the case studies using an inductive approach, which tries to find out what content areas, leading interpretative concepts and methods of presentation the books offer. This approach enables the unfolding of patters of understanding or worldviews that have guided content selection and modes of presentation.60 The comparative aspect of this research, drawing on two groups from different contexts, will enhance this study and give a more nuanced view on textbook research. Comparisons between the proposed activities in a textbook, the relationship between text itself and media, the curriculum, and any didactic apparatus constitute new objects of research, one that this paper assumes reflects a dynamic political situation in Europe.
In order to guide this analysis and give it a specific framework, I will draw on the work of Robert Stradling and his series of questions from the handbook: Teaching 20th
Century European History. Stradling has organized his “evaluative questions”61 into three
main categories: first, questions designed to evaluate the content and the pedagogy of history textbooks; second, questions which focus on the intrinsic qualities of textbooks (checking for bias, ethnocentrism, point of view); and finally, questions which focus on the extrinsic factors which are external to the process of writing, publishing and using textbooks and yet which impinge on and influence those processes.62 This research is specifically concerned with the pedagogical aspect of the textbooks.
First, the pedagogical aspect of these textbooks will be analyzed based on Stradling’s questions from the category “pedagogical approaches”. These questions will focus on the way in which the material is presented. The following questions will guide the analysis:
1. Does it function as a workbook as well as a “text” book? (Does it include source material, activities and tasks as well as narrative text?) If it does where are the other elements located in the book and how are they organized? For example, is there source
59
Maria Repoussi and Tutiaux-Guillon, “New Trends in History Textbook Research: Issues and Methodologies toward a School Historiography,” 157.
60
Pingel, UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision, 70.
61These are questions Stradling designed to help teachers judge and help choose textbooks for their classroom, and also to help guide researchers doing new types of textbook research.
62
