A challenging educational reform: politics of history textbook revision in North Cyprus

Abstract

History education has been continually challenged by political competition in Cyprus. The education systems on both sides of the divide reflect the ongoing ethnic conflict and suffer from ethnocentrism. In particular, the history textbooks are used to convey and legitimise official narratives and reinforce identities defined vis-à-vis the other. As a result of the political debates in the early-2000s, a challenging process of educational reform and revision of history textbooks started in North Cyprus. This paper provides a historical perspective on the changes in the Cypriot history textbooks, and undertakes an in-depth comparative analysis of the old, revised and re-revised Cyprus history textbooks that have been used in schools from 1971 until the present day. The data was collected from document analysis of the textbooks used in lower- and upper-secondary schools both before and after the education reform.