Textbooks in Conflicts

This area of research focuses on the role played by textbooks in conflicts, and is based on the premise that social and political conflicts not only have structural causes, but are the result of social perceptions. The following research questions are of central concern:

• While representations in textbooks may reflect various conflictual situations in society, the textbooks themselves do not necessarily have a direct influence on the conflict. The question arises as to whether such neutrality can be sustained in conflictual situations and under which conditions neutrality may be feasible.

• Textbooks cast conflicts in the form of print and contribute towards sustaining these conflicts by transmitting awareness of them to successive generations of school pupils. We explore types of representations and contents which fulfil this function. Typical examples of this are the polarisation of images in terms of us-and-them or the reproduction of territorial claims. Are such models based on state intentions or on internalised forms of perception, and do such representations necessarily lead to the results that are ascribed to them?

• Longstanding violent conflict generally influences textbook representations. Thus representations often portray asymmetrical relations between categories such as perpetrators and victims, or humans and subhumans. The main foci of questions explored in this area of research are the development of such representations in the wake of conflict and the significance ascribed to changes of perception resulting from conflict in the context of conflict management.

In addition to particular case studies, comparative studies will permit us to draw general conclusions. At the same time, these studies prove that textbooks need to be taken into consideration when dealing with conflicts in the field of 'textbook work', or that the results should be used in the field of conflict prevention. Currently, a project deals with the conflict exacerbating or peace promoting role of textbooks in South Asia.