School history textbook narratives of a nation's past often present limited perspectives, which may impede the aim of teaching history from multiple perspectives. Less is known about the influence of including multiple perspectives on students' representations of the past. This study examines the extent to which students include multiple…

Textbooks are among the most important means of education in terms of instilling leadership skills in students. The characters presented as models in the textbooks play an important part in building up such leadership skills with the help of quotes from such characters, texts written with reference to them, and the activities developed…

Within post-conflict and conflict-affected settings, as a national identity is contested, shaped, negotiated, and re-negotiated, history and social studies education can serve to develop a sense of unity among a nation's citizens and a shared vision for the future (Bekerman & Zembylas, 2011; Korostelina, 2019). At the same time, history and…

In February 2019, two nations with the largest nuclear arsenals announced their withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Russia's interference in U.S. elections and the invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated tensions between the U.S. and Russia. These actions bring renewed attention to nuclear nonproliferation efforts…

This study explores the narration of China as a nation in history education in two regions -- mainland China and Hong Kong -- that share cultural roots but different socio-political contexts. Inductive analysis of data from junior-secondary Chinese history textbooks used in the regions in the late 2010s revealed that whereas mainland China's…

Polarization in the United States and controversy over the teaching of content some deem "divisive" has resulted in the enactment of restrictive legislation in many states. Such constraints contribute to a fraught environment in schools today and significantly impact the work of teaching. Utilizing frameworks of "ambitious…

Citizenship education has been a feature of the school curricula in many western democracies since the 1990s. Consequently, there is a proliferation of research which explores its efficacy in instilling political literacy and encouraging democratic engagement amongst pupils. Less is known however about how citizenship is taught in societies…

In 2005, Kitson and McCully introduced the 'risk-taking' continuum, representing the multiple ways in which teachers in post-conflict societies deal with the history of conflict in the classroom. 'Avoiders', at one extreme, refrain from teaching the violent past, while at the other extreme 'risk-takers' analyse multiple perspectives on what…

History education that deals with the controversial and sensitive past is a vehicle for peacemaking in conflict-affected societies. However, its success is dependent on teachers taking risks to challenge entrenched 'us versus them' views of history. How does a student teacher in Northern Ireland grapple with risk-taking when learning to teach…

This article reflects on tensions arising in multiple perspectives approaches as they are deployed in response to histories of atrocity and conflict. We call attention to the ways that multiple perspectives intersect with the challenges posed by competing memories of violence and questions of responsibility. Focusing on a peace education programme…

Purpose: In this reflective essay, the authors explore how thinking with the notions of implication and complicity may encourage or hinder efforts to engage teachers in problematizing victim-perpetrator binaries in conflict-affected societies. Design/methodology/approach: This reflective essay draws on lessons learned from the authors' long-time…

Assessment remains a power nexus in Higher Education, where remnants of coloniality pool. The power that assessment holds makes it an important site for decolonisation. The purpose of this article is to present an experiment, and open a discussion, on the decolonisation of assessment. We argue that bringing assessment into the decolonisation…

We propose a new framework for understanding post-conflict history education based on ethnographic fieldwork in the same South African school two decades apart. We explore how and why teachers engage with the legacies of conflict in 1998 and 2019 by investigating how they draw boundaries around 1) time, what the conflict period is and how stark…

In Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most fundamental political and moral issue current and future citizens face. If we accept the maxim that schools should prepare citizens for participation in determining the future of their state, Israeli students must be introduced to the historical, political and moral questions at the heart of…

Formal schooling in the U.S. has a long and violent history towards Indigenous peoples, today morphing into exclusion and erasure. Using a novel longitudinal dataset of U.S. textbooks (n = 193) from California and Texas, published from 1850 to 2019, we seek to shine light on the issue through a comprehensive analysis of depictions of Indigenous…