Over the past few years, the civics curriculum for Israeli high-schools has become the centre of a heated political debate. Following this debate, in May 2016 a revised official textbook was introduced. This paper draws on an in-depth analysis of the revised official textbook, comparing it to the previous official textbook published in 2000. The…

Civic education has always been an ancillary subject in the Italian school system. Introduced at the end of the 1950s as a sort of appendage to the history programs, it has recently been subject to multiple reforms although little or nothing has changed in reality. The analysis of a sample of civic education textbooks in use in schools explains…

Purpose: We intent to provide a comprehensive picture of Hungarian social science education, to review the constituents of social science literacy, a systematic analysis of the curriculum and its changes since 1989 and of the available research in this field. Design/methodology/approach: The findings are based on the analysis of educational…

Over the past ten years a strong debate has been introduced and initiated by the government of Cyprus on reforming the structure and goals of education. A comprehensive report, prepared by a group of academics, pointed to the need to reshape the highly Greek-centralized Cypriot system (Committee on Educational Reform, 2004) and introduced the…

Purpose: This article shows the effects of competing political forces on citizenship education in Turkey during the period of commitment to European Union (EU) accession (1999-2005). Methodology: It draws on textbooks, archival documents and interviews. Whilst Turkey had a history of civic education to promote a secular national ethos and…

Responding to the identity-based claims of discriminated-against minorities while maintaining a shared national identity in and through education is a continuing challenge for Turkey, as it is in many other national contexts. Through a systematic analysis of 245 Turkish textbooks, this study explores the presentation in them of Turkish national…

Citizenship education has been an important part of the European Union's (EU) agenda to integrate a European dimension into schools' curricula. The usage of European symbolism in citizenship education curriculum material has been an especially important (yet understudied) means not only to promote a distinct European identity and increase…

What happens to traditional civic notions of nation, national identity, and constitutional rights when national curricula incorporate ideas of global citizenship, other national identities, diversity, and human rights? Using a longitudinal, mixed-methods approach, we address this issue by analyzing the nature of changes in South Korean civic…

This paper examines the Europeanization of citizenship education policy through a comparative analysis of two European states, Germany and Spain, with strong traditions of regional control of education policy. While previous studies have tended to focus on national responses to and implementation of EU initiatives, they often disregarded the…

The analysis of a sample of prescribed history textbooks in the Russian Federation (RF) show there has been a visible ideological shift in interpretation and emphasis of historical narratives. It signals a pronounced exercise in forging a desirable new identity, nation-building and a positive re-affirmation of the greatness of the present Russian…

What is the role of the humanities in the modern school? Should geography, history, RE and Citizenship teachers remain faithful to long-standing subject cultures and pedagogies? Or is there another way to consider how the curriculum, and the notion of individual subjects and teachers' pedagogy, could be constructed? Drawing on case studies taken…

Curricular reform in any educational system should be to balance national, European or international elements and should integrate diversity. European education calls for a democratic citizenship education that includes a political, cultural, social and economic education--an overall European dimension, which implies an awareness of the drive and…

This study set out to better understand the changing links between geography and citizenship. Content analysis was conducted on eighteen high school world geography textbooks and state/national standards. Interviews were conducted with teachers and textbook authors. Five significant changes were noted: decline of national orientation and a greater…

In this article we describe the background to the recent development of citizenship education in Australia, Canada and England and then, following an account of our methods, discuss issues arising from an analysis of a sample of textbooks from these countries. We suggest that the current policies to introduce versions of citizenship education have…

This paper analyses Kazakhstan's new generation literature textbooks for Kazakh-medium schools, with a focus on national identity and citizenship constructs that the revised textbooks promote. By comparing the literature textbooks of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the paper discusses Soviet institutional and cultural legacies that continue to…