Nationhood and Politicization of History in School Textbooks

This book explores how school history textbooks are used to perpetuate nationalistic policies within divided regions. Exploring the 'divide and rule' politics across ex-Yugoslav successor states, the editors and contributors draw upon a wide range of case studies from across the region. Textbooks and other educational media provide the foundations upon which the new generation build understanding about their own context and the events that are creating their present. By promoting nationalistic politics in such media, textbooks themselves can be used as tools to further promote and preserve ongoing hostility between ethnic groups following periods of conflict. This edited collection will appeal to scholars of educational media, history education and post-conflict societies.  

Foreword: Sarajevo in the twentieth century, or, the manufacture of European history; Anne Madelain.- Chapter 1. Nationhood and the politicization of history in school textbooks; Gorana Ognjenović and Jasna Jozelić.- Chapter 2. The ideologization of history education and textbooks in Slovenia (Yugoslavia) during socialism, 1945-1990; Mateja Režek.- Chapter 3. Ideological changes in the history textbooks of Montenegro; Saša Knežević and Nebojša Čagorović.- Chapter 4. Kosova under Yugoslavia (1945-1999) in the history textbooks of Kosova and Serbia; Shkëlzen Gashi.- Chapter 5. History, identity and curricula: Public debates and controversies over the proposal for a new history curriculum in Croatia; Snježana Koren.- Chapter 6. Phantoms of Neverland: The tale of three+ history textbooks; Gorana Ognjenović.- Chapter 7. Where and how do pupils in Serbia learn about the 1990s Yugoslav wars?; Marko Šuica, Ana Radaković, and Slobodan Rudić.- Chapter 8. To believe or not to believe: Current history textbooks in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Goran Šimić.- Chapter 9. The most golden age: A discourse analysis of representations of medieval Bosnia in secondary school history textbooks in the Federation of BiH; Sead S. Fetahagić.- Chapter 10. Teaching history with an ethno-nationalistic approach: History textbooks in the education system of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Jasna Jozelić.- Chapter 11. The myth of victimization in Macedonian history textbooks (1991-2018); Darko Leitner Stojanov and Petar Stojanov.- Chapter 12. Southeast Europe in history textbooks: A variety of selective perceptions; Zrinka Štimac.- Chapter 13. Afterword; Sabine Rutar.