History Education in the Formation of Social Identity: Toward a Culture of Peace

By K. Korostelina

In order to determine how history education can be harnessed to reduce conflict attitudes and intentions and create a culture of peace, this book examines how history curricula and textbooks shape the identities of their students through their portrayals of ingroup and outgroup identity, intergroup boundaries, and value systems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Dec 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781137374769

Book preview

HISTORY EDUCATION IN THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY

TOWARD A CULTURE OF PEACE

Karina V. Korostelina

HISTORY EDUCATION IN THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL IDENTITY

Copyright © Karina V. Korostelina, 2013.

All rights reserved.

First published in 2013 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®

in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN: 978–1–137–38078–4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Korostelina, K. V. (Karina Valentinovna)

History education in the formation of social identity : toward a culture of peace / Karina V. Korostelina.

   pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978–1–137–38078–4 (hardback)

 1. Educational sociology. 2. Critical pedagogy. 3. History—Study and teaching—Social aspects. 4. Group identity. I. Title.

LC196.K67 2013

306.43—dc23                                  2013025812

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.

Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

First edition: December 2013

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Conclusion

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to express my gratitude to all my colleagues who supported me in this endeavor and to my two reviewers who helped shape the book. The research presented in this volume was supported at various stages by the Frederic Ebert Foundation, George Eckert Institute for International Textbooks Research, Spenser Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace. The volume could not have been completed without the support of Andrea Bartoli and Kevin Avruch, deans of my home institution, the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University.

I offer special thanks to Sarah Nathan and Scarlet Neath, the editors of Palgrave Macmillan, for their support, professionalism, and efficiency at various stages of this work.

I am also very thankful to my family for their interest in my work and support.

INTRODUCTION

The desire for peace and justice has been a feature of human consciousness since the earliest civilizations and has taken many different forms, modes, and appearances. It has been shaped and promoted by different groups of people and social movements representing diverse agendas and understandings of what peace and justice mean. Peace culture has been evident in the daily lives and habits of people dealing creatively with differences in lieu of engaging others in conflicts. This has always appeared mixed with a culture of war in the complex dynamics of social and political relationships.¹ Through the centuries, the culture of peace has been shaped by a persistence of social images of life at peace, the ineradicable longing for that peace, and the numbers of social movements working for a more just and peaceful world.²

Although the value of peace culture was stressed by the League of Nations and other international organizations, only at the end of twentieth century, with the termination of colonial systems and the end of the Cold War, has humankind realized the possibility of defining the culture of peace as a collective concept and a universal value. The systemic approach to the construction of a culture of peace was discussed at the International Congress on Peace in the Minds of Men, held in Cote d’Ivoire in 1989; the first International Forum on the Culture of Peace, held in San Salvador (El Salvador) in 1994; and the 44th session of the International Conference on Education, held in Geneva in 1994. In 1995, the 28th General Conference of UNESCO introduced the Medium-Term Strategy for 1996–2001 (28 C/4) centered around this concept: To counter the culture of war, let us build a culture of peace, that is to say a culture of social interaction, based on the principles of freedom, justice and democracy, tolerance and solidarity, and respect for all human rights; a culture that rejects violence and, instead, seeks a solution to problems through dialogue and negotiation; a culture of prevention that endeavours to detect the sources of conflicts at their very roots, so as to deal with them more effectively and, as far as practicable, to avoid them.³

The core meaning of the culture of peace as defined by UNESCO is a moral code in action that actively combats injustice, inequality, and oppression, and promotes the construction of a just and peaceful world. It is not just negative peace⁴—defined as the absence of overt and structural violence—or a negative peace movement⁵ that involves fighting against the culture of war. A culture of peace reflects a deep commitment to produce change and sustain a humane world founded on justice and equality.

The consolidation of a culture of peace can be achieved by education, democratization, and participation based on dialogue, mediation, and recognition of the equality and dignity of every state, group, and person. It should become a common task of the international community, embracing solidarity and unity in mitigating different forms of violence,⁶ and involving four crucial dimensions: (1) liberal development, including education, social and democratic development, and gender equality; (2) reduction of inequality and human rights violations; (3) prevention of the use of violent means by states; and (4) promotion of nurturance (tolerance of refugees, commitment to education, and gender equity).⁷ Education also occupies the first position among eight areas for the building of a peace culture as defined by UNESCO (the others are sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, democratic participation, tolerance and solidarity, participatory communication and the free flow of information, and international peace and security).

This book concentrates on the role that history education can play in developing or discouraging a culture of peace. History education is increasingly recognized as a powerful tool that can alter the dynamics of identity-based conflicts, reducing negative perceptions and intergroup tensions and promoting mutual understanding and reconciliation between conflicting parties. It works by challenging existing prejudices, stereotypes, and justifications for conflicts by providing alternative interpretations, multiple perspectives, and narratives of positive intergroup relations and cooperation. It targets basic beliefs in the causation of violence, reduces biases toward the other party in a conflict, and develops shared perceptions and overarching identities.

The specific focus of this book is the development of a culture of peace based on the role of history education in the formation of social identity.⁸ It is widely accepted that teaching about the shared past is a major factor in the formation of national, ethnic, religious, and regional identities. The main function of history education is to provide identity, cohesion, and social purpose.⁹ A history curriculum not only helps to shape a group identity defined by common experience and belief but also aids in understanding who is marginalized and who is excluded from the group.¹⁰ By developing group identity, history education facilitates social cohesion and leads to the development of a compelling moral framework. History textbooks connect current events, policies, and decisions with the past in the context of a social purpose, which can involve ideas of sovereignty, human rights, or equality. People with similar social positions and common histories develop comparable social identities and define common allies and enemies. Despite the wide acknowledgment of the role of history in the formation of social identity, there has only been limited research in social psychology on how history informs identity.¹¹

This book aims to examine the critical points in identity formation precipitated by history education and to identify ways to reduce conflict attitudes and intentions and create a culture of peace through the revision of history curricula. This analysis is based on the view that the culture of peace manifests through values, attitudes and modes of behavior that eschew violence and change the ways in which we undertake conflicts and debates.¹² Identity management, by which we mean challenging the perception of the ingroup as an innocent victim; questioning ingroup moral superiority; cultivating positive acceptance of outgroups; redefining social boundaries; and improving intergroup relations,¹³ plays a critical role in the formation of a culture of peace through history education.

First, history education creates a narrative that favorably explains the conflict for the ingroup, justifying its position; it also denigrates the outgroup and establishes its responsibility for ingroup suffering, legitimizing collective aggressive ingroup action in response. By challenging this narrative about the ingroup and outgroup and improving relationships between parties involved in conflict, history education encourages peaceful interaction that resists violence and resolves conflicts, thus promoting a culture of peace.

Second, instead of stressing incompatible differences and permanent competition between ethnic, national, and religious groups, history education can represent diversity as a source of richness and strength in societies. It can cultivate a common regional identity and concept of humanity that rests on values of tolerance, solidarity, collective well-being, and shared prosperity, thus forming common ground for a culture of peace.

Third, history education can present multiple examples of how people and communities move away from destructive conflict and violence toward justice, equality, shared prosperity, and peace. Such historic narratives encourage critical thinking and reflection on identity, power, and dominance, promoting relational values and ethical principles of mutuality and cooperation, resulting in movement toward a culture of peace.

Therefore, I analyze the development of a culture of peace through changes in representations of ingroup and outgroup identity, intergroup boundaries, and relations in history textbooks and curricula. In this context, the process of developing peace culture rests on the production and maintenance of new meanings of social identity that construct and reconstruct the realities of intergroup relations. I posit that the process of development, establishment, and shaping of social identity and intergroup relations involve three main processes: (1) establishment of connotation of ingroup identity, (2) justification of intergroup relations and social hierarchies, and (3) legitimization of power structure and the mobilization of collective actions. This book shows how at each of these levels mechanisms of identity formation such as forms, modes, and concepts of social identity, prototypes, social boundaries, and collective axiology can be redefined and modified in historic narratives to produce a culture of peace that encourages sustainable social change.

*   *   *

The employment of history education in promoting the values of peace and justice has gone through several stages. At the end of nineteenth century, the international community began to realize the important role history education plays in combating nationalistic and ethnocentric ways of thinking. To promote positive revisions to history textbooks the First Interparliamentary Conference was founded by the World Peace Congress held in Paris in 1889. One year later, the Permanent Interparliamentary Union was established in Berne to foster contacts, coordination and the exchange of experience among Parliaments and parliamentarians of all countries; consider questions of international interest and express its views on such issues with the aim of bringing about action by Parliaments and their members; contribute to the defense and promotion of human rights, which are universal in scope and respect for which is an essential factor of parliamentary democracy and development; and contribute to better knowledge of the working of representative institutions and to the strengthening and development of their means of action.¹⁴ One of the main tasks of the union was to assist in textbook revisions. This initiative was unfavorably perceived by an overwhelming majority of countries, which considered the idea of modification of textbooks exclusively a state affair. Only a few countries remained involved in the process and introduced changes into their history textbooks; these included the United States in 1899, France in 1905, and the Netherlands in 1910.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, pacifist organizations at the national and international level had undertaken an active advocacy campaign against the use of history education for nationalistic and militaristic purposes. Their activities arose from the ideas of the peace and international labor movements of the second half of the nineteenth century. Among the first organizations that called for the revision of history textbooks in the 1910s were the Carnegie Foundation, the Dutch association Vrede voor Recht, and various French teachers’ associations. The issue became more pronounced after World War I, when the major concern of pro-peace organizations—including teachers’ associations of various countries, peace groups, and women’s organizations—was dealing with contamination of information about other nations presented in history textbooks. These initiatives were internationally oriented and aimed to push the issue of national history education onto the international agenda. For example, Article 148 of the Weimar Constitution (1919) proclaimed the importance of deleting all untruthful information from textbooks, presenting the achievements of foreign countries, avoiding generalizations, biases, and stereotyping, and proclaiming the positive agenda of the League of Nations. In 1921, the European Committee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace emphasized the crucial role of history education in fostering international understanding and mitigating interethnic violence. The League of Nations addressed the issue of history education by passing the Casares Resolution in 1926 and created a special committee on the revision of history textbooks.¹⁵ In 1928, the International Union of Teachers’ Association convened in Berlin, and stated that the issue of history textbook and international reconciliation was a major topic needing discussion. The importance of promoting better international understanding through history education was again discussed during the international conference held in the Hague (Netherlands) in 1932. The aim of the conference was to provoke a discussion on the idea of bringing together better understanding between countries.¹⁶

Several binational initiatives were created during 1930s. German and French and then German and Polish historians began bilateral consultations on the biased presentation of the other in history textbooks. These initiatives came from teachers and teachers associations of different countries, but also, for example, from peace and women’s organizations who often challenged the official education policies. They were ‘internationally minded,’ stood opposed to the ‘nationally minded’ teachers, and sometimes, especially in Germany, experienced severe hostility.¹⁷ These consultations resulted in 40 recommendations on textbook revision but the majority were not implemented because of numerous objections from the governments of participating countries. In 1933, Argentina and Brazil signed the first bilateral textbook agreement to revise existing textbooks on history and geography in both countries. In December 1933, all Latin American countries joined the agreement and accepted the regular examination of all textbooks by the associations of teachers. The experiences of these bilateral projects were systematized in the Model Bilateral Accord of 1934, which provided recommendations for states on the revision of history textbooks. This framework was rejected by the United States, Great Britain, France, and Switzerland because the federal structuring of educational systems impeded the introduction of any changes from the state level. Responding to this resistance, in 1937 the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation proposed the Declaration Regarding the Teaching of History, which suggested close collaboration between governments and textbook authors to insure unbiased and broad presentations of other nations and promotion of international cooperation. Regrettably, national governments denied most or all of these initiatives, and all efforts to improve history textbooks in Europe during the 1920 and 1930s produced very limited effects.¹⁸

Nevertheless, the interwar period provided the first example of successful cooperation in the field of history education. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland created an agreement that all new and reprinted textbooks would be submitted for common examination by representatives of all participating countries for required revisions.¹⁹ They established cooperation between publishers and school authorities that involved regular examination of history textbooks.

The issue of revising history education became crucial after World War II with the realization of the role that the teaching of history can play in facilitating the reconciliation of former enemies and fostering tolerance among nations. UNESCO and the Council of Europe proposed two methods for revision of history textbooks: positive as curing deficiencies caused by serious omissions and negative as the elimination of erroneous, false, exaggerated and offending statements about other nations and ethnic groups.²⁰ During the 1950s, UNESCO organized conferences and meetings of educators and published recommendations for teachers. In addition, national commissions were established in different countries to facilitate revision of history curricula and textbooks. Several binational committees became active again: for example, the French teachers association started a bilateral dialogue with German teachers’ associations; another dialogue was organized between French and German teachers’ trade unions. But progress in revision of national history education was not significant: Although the Council of Europe organized a series of seminars on topics such as ‘The European Idea in the Teaching of History’ and ‘The Common Factors of and the Divergences between Various Areas of European Civilization’ in the 1950s, the results of these events only came to light in the form of recommendations for writing national textbooks . . . As the communist states had also been founding members, the development of Europe-wide teaching materials for the subjects of history or civics—the very subjects in which it could have had any effect at all with regard to its peace mission—had been forbidden from the very beginning.²¹

In 1951, the German Commission for UNESCO founded the International Textbook Institute that later became Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research. Since its inception, the institute has promoted the inclusion of topics relating to European history, the environment, human rights, and multiculturalism in German curricula. It develops recommendations for developing objective historical, political, and geographic representations of Germany and other countries in textbooks, organizes international conferences on examining and revising textbooks, and provides recommendations for authors and publishers of history textbooks. Bilateral commissions between Germany and three other countries—France, Poland and Israel—have developed sets of recommendations for revising history curricula and reducing stereotypes, nationalism, and negative perception of former enemies. These recommendations included the German-French Agreement on Controversial Problems of European History (1951), the Recommendations for Textbooks of History and Geography of the Federal Republic of Germany and People’s Republic of Poland (a product of the German-Polish Commission on textbooks, which has been in place since 1972), and the German-Israeli Textbook Recommendations (1985). The French-German Commission has produced recommendations on the presentation of the Weimar Republic, National Socialism, and the Vichy regime. The foundation for common presentation of these events was derived from the discussions on coming to terms with the past, which were ongoing between researchers, teachers, and politicians of both countries for several decades. Overall, these changes already reflect a new era of international textbook work. They possess a discursive style and provide a short introduction to the opinions of researchers and possible means of interpretation; they make recommendations regarding specific aspects of a topic area, without apodictically stipulating what is to be addressed on the grounds of a joint resolution. The recommendations provide consultation, much as they themselves are the result of such a process.²² However, some issues remained controversial, including the relationship with the United States that was assessed by Germans as a protective force of the new federal republic and treated by French participants as having imperialist intentions. The description of communism and the people’s democracies also received stronger criticism from German side rather than from the French side.

The work of such dual commissions was organized based on specific model that included several stages. First, participating sides exchanged their collection of textbooks by sending them to the participants from other side. Second, each side reviewed the textbooks of other side that required the knowledge of a foreign language. This stage helped identify differences and similarities in the presentation of particular historic events. At the third stage, participating sides organized conferences to discuss the results of bilateral reviews. During these conferences, the participants met each other and developed interpersonal relations that went professionally beyond textbook issues. At the fourth stage, the results of the discussions were sent to the publishers with the specific recommendations on the improvement of existing textbooks. The conference reports and reviews, which contained descriptions of necessary alterations in the textbooks and in the curricula, were published.

Beginning in the 1990s, numerous conferences and teacher-trainings facilitating the revision of history textbooks were conducted by organizations such as the Council of Europe and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). They offered sets of recommendations on combating prejudice, intolerance, and ethnocentrism through history education.²³ These recommendations also include Parliamentary Assembly recommendations on: the Council of Europe’s European dimension of education (Recommendation 1111 (1989)); history education in Europe (Recommendation 1283 (1996)); trends and common issues in education in Europe (Resolution No. 1) adopted at the 19th Session of the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education (Kristiansand, Norway, 1997); and the conclusions and resolutions of the 20th Session of the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education on the project Learning and teaching about the history of Europe in the twentieth century (Cracow, Poland, 2000). These programs aim to improve history education and provide sufficient information about how to reduce xenophobia and negative stereotyping of others. Accordingly, Recommendation 15 on history teaching in twenty-first-century Europe adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe at the 771st meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies on October 31, 2001, stressed that the falsification and manipulation of history are incompatible with the fundamental principles of the Council of Europe as defined in its statute.

Several new nongovernmental organizations were founded to combat prejudice, stereotypes, and ethnocentrism in history education. For example, Facing History and Ourselves was established in 1976 with the aim of helping teachers around the world educate their students about critical moments in history, including genocide and other instances of mass violence. The organization’s mission statement states that, Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and anti-Semitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development and lessons of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives.²⁴ The organization focuses on teaching young people civic responsibility, dignity, equity, tolerance, and social action. Students must know not only the triumphs of history, but also the failures, the tragedies and the humiliations. Facing History believes that students must be trusted to examine history in all of its complexities, including its legacies of prejudice and discrimination, resilience and courage. This trust encourages young people to develop a voice in the conversations of their peer culture, as well as in the critical discussions and debates of their community and nation.²⁵ Through examination of critical periods in history, the model developed by Facing History and Ourselves encourages students to explore their individual and social identities and analyze how these influence various processes in a society. Using such historic events as the failure of democracy in Germany, the rise and domination of Nazism, the Armenian genocide, and the Holocaust, the program helps students to explore the decisions, perceptions, and feelings people are likely to have depending on their social identity (ethnic, religious, national, and so on). It also provides an opportunity for students to explore and attempt to understand the roles of perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and rescuers. The organization’s activities include in-depth professional development services, the development of curricular resources, and ongoing support to educators and students. The global network developed by the organization provides the opportunity to teach 1.6 million students in over 80 countries. Professional development seminars target mainly teachers of middle and high school students and address important skills that help teachers conduct effective classroom discussions on controversial topics. Materials developed by the organization, including books, pamphlets, videos, lessons plans, and study guides, help teachers and students to explore the roots and consequences of intolerance, mass violence, and genocide based on the examples of difficult periods in history.

Another organization, the European Standing Conference of History Teachers Associations (EUROCLIO), established in 1993, aims to promote and support the development of history education so that it strengthens peace, stability, democracy and critical thinking, and to eliminate nationalistic presentations of history and prejudice in the teaching of history by emphasizing positive mutual influences between countries, religions, and ideas in the historical development of Europe.²⁶ EUROCLIO currently represents 77 member organizations from 49 countries (mostly European) and involves 25,000 historians and history educators at the primary and secondary education levels as well as instructors from institutes and higher education. The Europeanization movement of concerned Europeanists (party members, heads of trade unions, business representatives, academics) founded the European Academy in Berlin; it is funded by German federal institutions, the German government, and the