Procedure
The project thus continued a thematic focus of the institute. By adding a contemporary perspective and a cross-disciplinary and cross-national approach, the project aimed to identify similarities and differences in national perspectives. In addition, research gaps were to be identified against the background of the debate about Muslims in European immigration societies.
Results
The pilot study concluded that contemporary textbooks in European countries adhere to simplistic representations of Islam, perpetuating the perception of Muslims as a religiously marked collective of non-European "others." The majority of the history and politics textbooks studied from Germany, Austria, France, Spain, and England create the impression that "Islam" and "a modern Europe" exist as mutually exclusive entities with confrontational touches, but largely without overlaps or similarities. Fundamental to this perspective is the lack of distinction between Islam as a religious model, on the one hand, and Muslim-influenced cultural and political practices in the past and present, on the other. Thus, essentializations of a difference justified as religious and collective attributions dominate. Today, however, the focus of the polarizing distinction is not primarily on the presentation of Muslims as religious opponents in violent conflicts, but rather on a portrayal of Muslims as pre-modern Others who therefore do not fit in with Europe. Historical representations that appreciate and valorize the Arab-Islamic Middle Ages do not shake this polar view, but rather support it.
Study
- Kröhnert-Othman, Susanne; Kamp, Melanie; Wagner, Constantin (2011): No chance of belonging? - Textbooks of European Countries Keep Islam and Modern Europe Separate; Results of a Study by the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research on Current Representations of Islam and Muslims in Textbooks of European Countries. Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, Eckert. Expertise. repository.gei.de/handle/11428/172
