TY - JOUR
T1 - History textbooks, narratives, and democracy
T2 - A response to Majid Al-Haj
AU - Gordon, David
PY - 2005/9/1
Y1 - 2005/9/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33845361657&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-873X.2005.00332.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-873X.2005.00332.x
M3 - Comment/debate
AN - SCOPUS:33845361657
VL - 35
SP - 367
EP - 376
JO - Curriculum Inquiry
JF - Curriculum Inquiry
SN - 0362-6784
IS - 3
ER -