School textbooks, particularly in the field of Social Sciences (Civics, Geography, and especially History), became recently subject of discussion and even controversy in many parts of the world. Divergent concepts of national identities and the use of textbooks to foster and legitimise specific identities are the background of these debates. The role of the books as teaching media - their use(fulness) by (for) pupils and teachers - are often excluded from these political and public disputes.

The project intended to reflect on recent debates in South Asia. While in Bangladesh the debate is centred especially on the influence of political parties on the narrative of independence and the role of their party 'progenitors', tendencies of Islamisation in and through textbooks came into discussion in Pakistan. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist and Hindu / Singhales and Tamil narrations of history had become point of conflict. And in India, the debates on the 'Saffronisation' of textbooks point not only to divergent interpretations of the past from antiquity to independence, but also to their political utilisation in fostering different models of society.

The foci of the distinct debates might seem different, but in all cases divergent concepts of identity are the background. These concepts of identity are interconnected, and the respective neighbour is in some way involved in the construction of every country's own concept - as "the other" and as a challenge, because the approaches of identity construction jeopardise one another. Meanwhile, a discussion started between Indian and Pakistani historians and other people concerned about their mutual textbook images and narratives. But the relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh and India's relations with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are also involved. This suggests to analyse the controversies in a common frame.

The debate about the political utilisation of textbook content might partly be based on a critical attitude of intellectuals and the media. But often, the 'claims' of opposing parties seem to be the background of the debate, which contest the approaches of the other without challenging this kind of ideological implementation in principle. The pupils' needs and pedagogy are mostly ignored.This project aimed to analyse the controversies not only in their political but also in their educational context. Aspects to be investigated were: the ways national identity is constructed, the course and political context of the controversy, its arguments, the role of the media, the reference made to textbooks as teaching resources (inter alia the mostly neglected methodical and didactical reasoning), the effects of the controversy on schools. Finally, references and interconnections of the different debates and their function were intended to scrutinise.

Duration: 2004-2008

Funding: German Foreign Office

 

Publications:

Textbook Controversies in India and Pakistan / Schulbuchkontroversen in Indien und Pakistan, ed. by Georg Stöber =  Internationale Schulbuchforschung

Michael Gottlob: "Changing Concepts of Identity in the Indian Textbook Controversy", pp. 341-353

Basabi Khan Banerjee: "West Bengal Hiostory Textbooks and the Indian Textbook Controversy", pp. 355-374

Elisa Giunchi: "Rewriting the Past: Political Imperatives and Curricular Reform in Pakistan, pp. 375-388

Georg Stöber: "Religious Identities Provoked: The Gilgit 'Textbook Controversy' and its Conflictual Context",  pp. 389-411

"Indian History Syllabuses prepared by NCERT" [Documentation] , pp. 413-433

 

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