History Education in the Formation of Social Identity : Toward a Culture of Peace

In order to determine how history education can be harnessed to reduce conflict attitudes and intentions and create a culture of peace, this book examines how history curricula and textbooks shape the identities of their students through their portrayals of ingroup and outgroup identity, intergroup boundaries, and value systems. Despite the widespread acknowledgement that how people and groups understand their history plays a key role in the formation of their social identity, there has heretofore been only limited research on the mechanisms that bring this about. This book examines the critical points in identity formation that history education helps to create. It establishes how history curricula and textbooks shape the identities of their readers through their portrayals of borders and boundaries between social groups, their depictions of relations between minority and majority groups, the value systems they embody, the leaders they hold up as exemplars, and the stories they choose to tell. Korostelina shows how all these attributes of history curricula can be harnessed to reduce conflict attitudes and intentions and create a culture of peace, beginning with the history curriculum "Despite the widespread acknowledgement that how people and groups understand their history plays a key role in the formation of their social identity, there has heretofore been only limited research on the mechanisms that bring this about. This book examines the critical points in identity formation that history education helps to create. It establishes how history curricula and textbooks shape the identities of their readers through their portrayals of borders and boundaries between social groups, their depictions of relations between minority and majority groups, the value systems they embody, the leaders they hold up as exemplars, and the stories they choose to tell. Korostelina shows how all these attributes of history curricula can be harnessed to reduce conflict attitudes and intentions and create a culture of peace, beginning with the history curriculum"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-vii Introduction....Pages 1-17 Identity-Based Approach to the Formation of Peace Culture in History Education....Pages 19-45 Forms of Social Identity....Pages 47-71 Meaning of National Identity....Pages 73-100 Borders: From Divisive to Inclusive Borderlines....Pages 101-124 Collective Axiology: From Moral Denigration to Universal Morality....Pages 125-152 Nation Building and National Identity Formation....Pages 153-173 Conclusion....Pages 175-181 Back Matter....Pages 183-235