History textbooks, narratives, and democracy: A response to Majid Al-Haj

David Gordon

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/debate

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

This response to Al-Haj's article, "National Ethos, Multicultural Education, and the New History Textbooks in Israel"argues for three theses: (1) history textbooks and the public and academic debates about their objectivity, truth, and bias fulfill a semantic function for the adults of the society; (2) contradictory ethnic narratives cannot be mutually legitimated, but instead, the educational challenge in areas where there are intractable conflicts is to invite students to participate in a process of continual creation of open-ended narratives for their own ethnic groups; and (3) ethno-national democracies can educate in an enlightened way if they invite the students to confront the deep dilemmas that their societies face.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)367-376
Number of pages10
JournalCurriculum Inquiry
Volume35
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2005

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education

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