In many parts of the world, textbooks, especially in the social sciences (politics, geography, and especially history), are currently the subject of public debate and even controversy. The background of these debates are different concepts of national identity and the use of textbooks to promote and legitimize specific identities. The role of textbooks as teaching tools-their utility for and use by learners and teachers-is often left out of these political and public debates.
Recently, Indian and Pakistani historians and other stakeholders began a discussion about each other's images and narratives in their textbooks. But Pakistan-Bangladesh and India-Bangladesh-Sri Lanka relations are also tangential. This suggests a common framework for analyzing the controversies.The debate over the political use of textbook content may be partly due to a critical stance taken by intellectuals and the media. Often, however, "claims" by opposition parties seem to be the background of the debate, countering the views of the other side without questioning the ideological use of textbooks themselves in principle.
Aims
The needs of learners and pedagogy are usually ignored.The project aimed to analyze the controversies not only in their political but also in their educational context. Aspects to be studied were: the way in which national identity is constructed, the course and political context of the controversy, the arguments used, the role of the media, the references made to the instructional nature of textbooks (among other mostly neglected methodological and didactic considerations), the school implications of the controversy. Finally, the connections between the respective debates and the function of possible references to them should be questioned.
Methodology
The project intended to review the current debates in South Asia. While in Bangladesh the debate revolves primarily around the influence of political parties on narratives about independence and the role of their "progenitors," in Pakistan Islamization tendencies by means of textbooks came into the discussion. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist and Hindu or Sinhalese and Tamil historical narratives conflict. And in India, debates about "saffronizing" textbooks point not only to divergent interpretations of the past from ancient history to independence, but also to their political instrumentalization in promoting different models of society.
The focal points of the diverse debates seem different, but in all cases different concepts of identity form the background. These identity concepts are interconnected; the respective neighbor is involved in one way or another in the construction of one's own concept - as "the other" and also as a challenge, since the various approaches already question each other.
Results
- Schulbuchkontroversen in Indien und Pakistan / Textbook Controversies in India and Pakistan, ed. by Georg Stöber = International Textbook Research 29 (2007), issue 4.
therein:
- Michael Gottlob: "Shifting Concepts of Identity in Indian Textbook Controversies," pp. 341-353.
- Basabi Khan Banerjee: "West Bengal History Textbooks and the Indian Textbook Controversy," pp. 355-374
- Elisa Giunchi: "Rewriting the Past: Political Imperatives and Curriculum Reform in Pakistan," S. 375-388
- Georg Stöber: "Religious Identities Provoked: The Gilgit 'Textbook Controversy' and its Conflicting Context," pp. 389-411.
- "Indian History Curricula Prepared by NCERT" [documentation], pp. 413-433.
