Can history teaching make young people ready for war? – It would be difficult to answer this question on the basis of irrefutable evidence, but it seems reasonable to assume that textbooks and teacher narratives contribute to shape collective “perceptions and misperceptions” (Robert Jervis) relevant to issues of war and peace. In my introductory remarks I would like to focus on some examples of narratives that are likely to generate tension between nations. In some cases it is quite difficult to trace a clear line between politics of memory and history teaching – and this seems to be part of the problem: The politics of memory is about “making sense” in some (often national) way or another, it is not always linked to sincere effort to understand what happened and why it happened. This effort, however, is crucial for peacebuilding between hostile nations or groups. People will hardly be able to overcome the tensions between them as long as one side denies or trivializes facts crucial to the experience and memory of the other, even if they know each other’s narratives perfectly well. What scholars studying German history teaching call “multiperspectivity” is without doubt an important element in processes of history-based peacebuilding, but it is by far not enough.

If we really want to overcome history-based conflict, it will only be the first step to acknowledge different interpretations of the past. We will have to transcend the mere comparison of conflicting narratives, because people did not – and do not – live in different universes.

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Quelle: http://histrhen.landesgeschichte.eu/2020/02/peaceteachingbonn-introductory-remarks/

Since the Interwar Period, history teaching is considered simultaneously an important source of international conflict and a means of overcoming it. Textbooks and history lessons undoubtedly play a vital role in the creation of mental maps and stereotypes. Other nations are constructed as enemies, rivals, partners, or even friends. This continues to be important even in the era of digital mass communication. Historical narratives transmitted in the authoritative context of educational systems possess a high level of political power – and their influence extends to millions of students without any realistic chance of avoiding it. It is therefore highly plausible that their perception of and their attitude towards other nations or groups will be affected in some way by the “lessons” learned in history classes, thus influencing their participation in processes of international decision-making (for the majority of them as voters, few of them as decision-makers). In other words: History teaching matters for issues of conflict and peacebuilding. By combining the specific approaches and competences of peace research and history didactics in an international conference we want to shed some light on some of today’s most relevant questions:

• How can we evaluate the impact of history teaching in conflicts and processes of peacebuilding compared to other factors?


[...]

Quelle: http://histrhen.landesgeschichte.eu/2020/02/peaceteachingbonn-concept/

Since the Interwar Period, history teaching is considered simultaneously an important source of international conflict and a means of overcoming it. Textbooks and history lessons undoubtedly play a vital role in the creation of mental maps and stereotypes. Other nations are constructed as enemies, rivals, partners, or even friends. This continues to be important even in the era of digital mass communication. Historical narratives transmitted in the authoritative context of educational systems possess a high level of political power – and their influence extends to millions of students without any realistic chance of avoiding it. It is therefore highly plausible that their perception of and their attitude towards other nations or groups will be affected in some way by the “lessons” learned in history classes, thus influencing their participation in processes of international decision-making (for the majority of them as voters, few of them as decision-makers). In other words: History teaching matters for issues of conflict and peacebuilding. By combining the specific approaches and competences of peace research and history didactics in an international conference we want to shed some light on some of today’s most relevant questions:

• How can we evaluate the impact of history teaching in conflicts and processes of peacebuilding compared to other factors?


[...]

Quelle: http://histrhen.landesgeschichte.eu/2020/02/peaceteachingbonn-concept/