Nation-Building and History Education in a Global Culture

Abstract

The chapter offers a global overview of current research in history education reforms and school history textbooks. History textbook research has been characterised by the ‘highly explosive political nature’ of history textbooks design and research (Fuchs, 2011). National and global debates in relation to history textbooks and the construction on national identity in the nation-building process are also defined and controlled by the ambivalent nexus between ideology and political expectations (that history textbooks contribute to national identity and patriotism), curricular assumptions (that quality history textbooks impact on pedagogical outcomes) and academic rigour and objectivity. History education and history curricular reforms globally demonstrate that history textbooks and their new Master Narratives, depicting significant events in the nation-building process, have been used by different nations to instil the values of patriotism, national identity and cultural heritage (Zajda, 2015c). The chapter concludes that a methodology, based on a blend of critical theory and discourse analysis, focusing on evidence and sources, the role of power and the state, unbiased interpretation and the multiperspectivity, is very useful in critiquing the overall reforms in history curricula and the content of school history textbooks.