Peace Watch

Teaching History in Divided Societies
What are we trying to do when we teach history?

April/May 2006

At a public event held in late November, Vice President of the Grants and Fellowships program Judy Barsalou and several Institute grant recipients presented findings from their research and practical experience on teaching history at the secondary school level in societies emerging from violent conflict.

The Institute had sponsored a large conference earlier in November at Airlie House in Virginia, and Barsalou observed that the subject encompassed a broader range of issues than she had initially imagined. "What are you trying to do when you teach history?" she asked. "Are you promoting national identity? Developing social cohesion? Teaching tolerance? Or are you simply trying to give a more accurate account of the nation’s past than the distorted histories that are often promulgated in times of war?"

Teaching history in the aftermath of conflict has been a long-standing concern at the Institute, said Barsalou. "We have made more than twenty grants totaling $1 million on this topic, because we see it as critical to post-conflict and conflict management, and to the prevention of renewed conflict."

Charles Ingrao of Purdue University observed that textbooks often reflect a nation’s hegemonic culture and propagate a national myth that can dramatize the wrongs done to it byothers and sweep its own misdeeds under the rug. "The general effect is devastating," he said. "Once you educate a generation one way, you make it impossible to teach history any other way because other histories may undermine the legitimacy of the very politicians who decide what schoolbooks get published." Speaking of his own work with historians from the former Yugoslavia, Ingrao said that in practice, even historians of formerly a consensus view of their history if Western scholars prod them enough. If this more complete and intellectually honest vision gains enough legitimacy, it may eventually filter down to the high school level and displace the parochial and tendentious histories currently taught in schools.

Karen Murphy, of the nonprofit organization Facing History and Ourselves, focused on her work in Rwanda along with the University of California at Berkeley to build indigenous capacity. In the aftermath of genocide, with the poisonous legacy of ethnoracial myths still prevalent, the government issued a moratorium on the teaching of history. "Seventy-five percent of teachers were murdered or subsequently imprisoned for participating in the genocide," she said. In such an environment, the refracted lens of a similar event—in this case, the downfall of the Weimar Republic. "I gathered a diverse group of refugees, survivors, and so on, and they drew their own parallels regarding the collapse of the economy and the impact ofdemagogic propaganda. They began to ask questions, and that’s the most critical thing. With support from the Institute, we’ve developed a project to encourage teachers to get their students to ask why, rather than simply to lecture to them. The specifics of the curriculum really do come later."

Tony Gallagher of Queen’s University, Northern Ireland, observed that structural features of the Irish school system tended to dampen the resonance of messages of unity. Students are segregated by religion and sex; religion, an integral part of students’ education, is rarely presented in ways that foster critical thinking; and an abiding sense of fatalism, of cultural pessimism, encourages passivity and silence. Elizabeth Cole of the Asia Society outlined the huge commitment of time and knowledge that it takes to adequately evaluate pedagogical programs. So far, she said, the key to success seems to be giving teachers a sense that they are safe and supported.

Barsalou closed the session by noting nine topics that need further study. Among them: the need for a more thorough review of the cross-disciplinary literature about history teaching and learning; relates to other social processes,such as identity formation, and to recovery from psychological traumaresulting from exposure to violence; the gap between public history as learned in the classroom and through civic institutions and the more private histories that circulate in families and other social groups; the relationship between educational reform and other transitional justice interventions; and, not least, the need to "get a fix on what’s really happening in classrooms."