Prior to the 1980s, Turkey experienced a period of vicious political polarisation and even violent conflicts. The 1980 coup administration strived to reach an agreement regarding nationalism, religion, and Kemalism. Following the military coup of 1980, the Social Studies course was abandoned in secondary schools in 1985 and the National History,…

Based on the potential of educational materials to forge and shape the collective memory, this article analyses the representations of the Francoist Hunger Years (1939-1952) in recent history textbooks for secondary schools by a wide range of publishers. The main thesis of the paper is that while there are textbooks that provide a complex…

Over half a century since the last wave of political decolonisation, the handling of "dark" colonial histories remains topical. Influenced by the postcolonial turn, this study aims to examine, from a novel historical and comparative perspective, evolving textbook representations of Belgian colonialism and its legacy in Belgian and…

Within the polarised political culture of the 1970s, in which political differences were emphasised instead of being played down, Dutch right-wing politicians frequently accused left-wing politicians and educators of indoctrination in educational settings. In this period of economic stagnation and an ongoing Cold War, peace education -- which was…

Scholars have observed a re-emergence of biological racism in the Netherlands. I question whether this form of racism is also making a comeback in Dutch secondary schooling, by drawing on critical race theory and Bonilla-Silva's frames of colour-blind racism. Data for this study were gathered through an analysis of 200 history textbooks…

For some time now, images in science have been an object of study in the history of science. The multiple roles that images play in scientific practice have been recognised and discussed. However, little attention has been given to science related images in educational contexts. The case of geology is all the more relevant because it is considered…

History curriculum and textbooks, as a key mechanism of constructing collective memory, play a critical role in shaping national, social, and cultural imaginations of the young. This paper analyses history textbooks in Taiwan during the martial law period (1950-1987) to explore narratives about Taiwan and examines the ways in which those…

French has played a central role in Congolese education since its independence in 1960. Its dominant position at the postcolonial school is subject to controversy on the national and international level. However, the way that pupils themselves have experienced the role of French at school has not been researched so far. This paper investigates the…

The earliest legislation aimed to give comprehensive organization to the Italian education system was the Casati law, from the name of the then Minister for Education Gabrio Casati who drafted it. Promulgated by King Vittorio Emanuele II on 13 November 1859, the new law was designed to reorganize the school system in Piedmont and Lombardy, and was…