Samira Alayan, Sarhan Dhouib, Achim Rohde (eds.): Education Reforms in the Middle East: ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in the School Curriculum. Amman: Dar Alshoruk, 2010

As joint editors, Samira Alayan , Sarhan Dhouib and Achim Rohde, research fellows at the Georg-Eckert-Institute for International Textbook Research, Germany, summarize major trends in the area of school education and textbook development in various countries of the region, with an eye towards the dynamics of identity politics reflected through representations of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in curricula and teaching materials in use. The book also assesses the scope and the limits of educational reform initiatives undertaken in recent years in some of these countries. This book includes a number of studies focusing on education systems in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The book is organized along three major themes. Part one focuses on educational reform policies undertaken by various countries in the region during recent decades, part two focuses on a number of case studies analysing textbooks, including comparative studies regarding representations of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ in various countries of the region. Part three focuses on questions of identity in history textbooks.

Robert Maier (Hrsg.): Istorična osvita. Evropejs’kij ta ukraïns’kij dosvid. Vikladannja nacional’noï istoriï v školach Central’noï i Schidnoï Evropi [Geschichtsunterricht. Europäische und ukrainische Erfahrungen. Nationalgeschichte im Geschichtsunterricht in Ostmitteleuropa]. Kiïv: K.I.S. 2010, 288 S.

Das in Kiew erschienene Buch stellt formal eine bearbeitete Neuauflage des Bandes 112 der Studien zur internationalen Schulbuchforschung in ukrainischer Sprache dar. Faktisch ist es eine neues Buch geworden, was auch der abgewandelte Titel und die Cover-Gestaltung nahelegen. Übernommen wurden die Lehrplananalysen zu Polen und Tschechien (in Vergleich gesetzt zu deutschen und französischen Lehrplänen), sowie je eine Analyse dazu, wie sich in Tschechien, Polen, Deutschland, Slowakei, Belarus und Frankreich der Nationalstaat im Schulbuch geriert – mithin acht von achtzehn Aufsätzen. Zusätzlich hinzu kamen fünf Analysen ukrainischer Schulbücher, wovon das GEI zwei beisteuern konnte: Ein Beitrag entsprang einem Gutachten zur neuen Generation ukrainischer Geschichtsbücher, um die der Europarat das GEI gebeten hatte, der andere untersucht nation building anhand ukrainischer Schulbücher und konnte der Zeitschrift Internationalen Schulbuchforschung (3/2007) entnommen werden. Drei Beiträge wurden von ukrainischer Seite eingeworben. Sie befassen sich mit dem Europabild, der europäischen Selbstverortung der Ukraine und der Neubewertung der Kosakenaufstände in ukrainischen Schulbüchern.   

Achim Rohde: State-Society Relations in Ba'thist Iraq. Facing Dictatorship. Abingdon: Routledge, 2010
(SOAS/Routledge studies on the Middle East)
ISBN 978-0-415-47551-8

Scholarship on Iraq under the Ba’th regime has traditionally focused on the rule of Saddam Hussein and his narrow inner circle. The centrality of the former president in Iraqi politics until spring 2003 and the tyranny of his regime were evident, and available sources concerning developments inside Iraqi society during that period were scarce.
This book explores whether traditional paradigms of totalitarian rule can be applied to Ba’thist Iraq, closely examining state-society relations and uncovering the nature of the regime and how Iraqis lived with it. The study creates a conceptual framework for understanding the inner dynamics of a dictatorship that encompasses a variety of disciplines - comparative historiography, political science, literary and art criticism, and gender studies. Drawing on a comparative reading of the historiography of other regimes commonly perceived as totalitarian dictatorships, particularly Nazi Germany, the author looks beyond the spheres of state politics, economy and jurisdiction to also include the so called ‘soft issues’ of social norms, cultural and ideological production. By interpreting recent Iraqi history along such lines, the author demonstrates how cross-regional comparative perspectives and an interdisciplinary approach can contribute to the study of Iraq.

Viktor Shnirel'man, Zh. Abylkhozhin, S. Abashin u.a.: Mnogolikaja  Klio: boi za istoriju na postsovetskom prostranstve [Vielgesichtige  Klio: Kämpfe für Geschichte im postsowjetschen Raum].  Hrsg. vom Georg-Eckert-Institut für internationale Schulbuchforschung,  Braunschweig. - Berlin: Logos-Verlag, 2010, 142 S.
ISBN  978-3-8325-2407-4

The book contains selected essays which were originally presented at the conference 'War of Imaginary Worlds? The Connection between Textbooks and Conflict in post-Soviet Central Asia, South Caucasus and Moldova', which was conceived by the Georg Eckert Institute, sponsored by the German Exchange Association (DAAD), and held in Braunschweig from 12 until 18 July 2009.

Falk Pingel: UNESCO Guidebook on Textbook Research and Textbook Revision. 2nd revised and updated edition. Paris: Unesco. Braunschweig: Georg-Eckert-Institut. 2010. 83 S.
ISBN 978-92-3-104141-9                   978-3-88304-028-8

The UNESCO Guidebook is now available in an updated and extended edition taking into account recent developments in textbook production and textbook research: the rapid growth of the market for electronic educational media, the diversification and regionalisation of textbook production, and the continuing trend to introducing educational standards and quality criteria.
Since its first appearance in 1999, the Guidebook has proven to be a useful instrument for researchers, textbook authors, teachers or curriculum developers, who are involved in analysing, comparing and developing educational media in the field of social sciences on a national or international level. It has been translated, amongst others, into Albanian, Serbian, Croatian, and Turkish language.

The new edition places textbook revision into the wider framework of transitional justice and reconciliation measures such as trials, truth commissions, and remembrance ceremonies. The pros and cons of different formats of textbooks projects as well as the production of joint bi- or multilateral history textbooks deserve special attention in this regard. Accordingly, more weight is given to the methodology and pedagogy of bi- or multinational projects, and the construction of group identity in textbooks.

However, also the extended Guidebook provides quick orientation and functional information; it serves as a practicable point of reference for all experts who work in the broad field of international textbook research and schoolbook revision.

Robert Maier und Genadij G. Slyškin (Hrsg.): Pamjat' o Vtoroj mirovoj vojne v sovremennych kommunikativnych technologijach [Die Erinnerung an den Zweiten Weltkrieg in modernen Kommunikationstechnologien]. Wolgograd: Paradigma 2009. 100 S.

Dieser in russischer Sprache erschienene Band fasst die Ergebnisse eines Round-Table-Gesprächs zusammen, das 2008 im Rahmen der Konferenz „Stalingrader Schlacht: Rückblick nach 65 Jahren“ geführt wurde. Er entsprang der Zusammenarbeit des GEI mit der Wolgograder Akademie des Staatsdienstes (VAGS). Neun russische und sieben deutsche Beiträge befassen sich mit modernen Formen des historischen Erinnerns an den Krieg. Zentraler Bezugspunkt war die Lautsphäre des Krieges. Historiker, Museumspädagogen, Sprachwissenschaftler, Didaktiker und Künstler versuchten mit ihren jeweiligen Methoden dieses Feld zu erschließen, indem sie sich dem Sprachgedächtnis, tönender Erinnerung, sprachlichen Neologismen, Liedermodellen, Tondokumenten und psychologischen Mechanismen der akustischen Erinnerung zuwandten.

Gerdien Jonker and Shiraz Thobani (Eds): Narrating Islam. Interpretations of the Muslim World in European Texts.
Basingstoke: I.B. Tauris, 2009. 304 pages

ISBN 9781845119782

Mapping the diverse images of Islam and Muslims in educational texts as reproduced in national contexts across Europe and neighbouring regions, Narrating Islam explores both historical perceptions and contemporary representations of Islam and Muslims as projected through instructional media.  Based on interdisciplinary research, it seeks to excavate the layered images of Muslims and Islam which have been historically embedded in semantic reservoirs and which feed into the modern scripting of the ‘other’ in a global context.  Narrating Islam offers a framework to critically discuss European identity through interrogating how pedagogical discourses negotiate the Muslim presence in and around Europe.

Hanna Schissler and Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal (Ed.): The Nation, Europe and the World. Textbooks and Curricula in Transition.
New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2005. 258 pages

ISBN 1-57181-549-X HB
ISBN 1-57181-550-3 PB

Textbooks in history, geography and the social sciences provide important insights into the ways in which nation-states project themselves. Based on case studies of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Turkey Bulgaria, Russia, and the United States, this volume shows the role that concepts of space and time play in the narration of "our country" and the wider world in which it is located. It explores ways in which in western European countries the nation is reinterpreted through European lenses to replace national approaches in the writing of history. On the other hand, in an effort to overcome Eurocentric views,"world history" has gained prominence in the United States. Yet again, East European countries, coming recently out of a transnational political union, have their own issues with the concept of nation to contend with. These recent developments in the field of textbooks and curricula open up new and fascinating perspectives on the changing patterns of the re-positioning process of nation-states in West as well as Eastern Europe and the United States in an age of growing importance of transnational organizations and globalization.

Verena Radkau, Eduard Fuchs, Thomas Lutz (Hg.): Genozide und staatliche Gewaltverbrechen im 20. Jahrhundert. 2004.
126 pages.,illustrations
(Konzepte und Kontroversen, Bd. 3)

ISBN 3-7065-4060-6
€ 14,-

The final issue of  "Informationen" (no. 51) was published in 2007. This brochure will be replaced by "Eckert. Das Bulletin".

No 51, July 2006 (7,5 MB) 

No 50, December 2005 (2,5 MB)

No 49, August 2005 (3,7 MB)

No 48, December 2004 (4,8 MB)

Issue 2007/2008

Issue 2006/2007

Issue 2005/2006

Issue 2004/2005

Das Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges in deutschen und internationalen Schulbüchern

Der Zweite Weltkrieg in deutschen Schulbüchern seit den 50er Jahren 

Beide Ausstellungen können vom Institut kostenlos ausgeliehen werden.
Kontakt: Brigitte Depner,  E-Mail: senden

Table of Class Hours per Week for the Subjects Geography, History and Civics in the States of the Federal Republic of Germany,
can be downloaded as a pdf-file.