Globalisation, Nation-Building and History Education

This book uses historiography and discourse analysis to provide a new insight into understanding the nexus between ideologies, the state, and nation-building-as depicted in history school textbooks. It focuses on the interpretation of social and political change, significant events, and examining possible new biases and omissions in school textbooks. The 'Europeanization' of history textbooks in the EU is an example of western-dominated Grand Narrative of pluralist democracy, multiculturalism, and human rights, according to the canon of a particularly European dimension. Various public debates in the USA, China, the Russian Federation (RF), Japan, and elsewhere, dealing with understandings of a nation-building, national identity, and history education point out to parallels between the political significance of school history and the history education debates globally.

The book demonstrates that the issue of national identity and balanced representations of the past continue to dominate the debate surrounding the goals, dominant ideologies and content of history textbooks, and historical narratives. It concludes that competing discourses and ideologies will continue to define and shape the nature and significance of historical knowledge, ideologies and the direction of values education in history textbooks. This book provides an easily accessible, practical, yet scholarly insights into local and global  trends in the field of history education, and should be required reading for a broad spectrum of users, including policy-makers, academics, graduate students, education policy researchers, administrators, and practitioners.

Joseph Zajda is a professor at the Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University (Melbourne Campus). He specialises in globalisation and education policy reforms, social justice, history education and values education. He has written and edited 45 books and over 150 book chapters and articles on globalisation and education policy, higher education and curriculum reforms. He is also the editor of the 24-volume book series Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research (Springer, 2009 & 2021). Recent publications include: Zajda, J (Ed). (2020a). Globalisation, ideology and neo-liberal higher education reform. Dordrecht: Springer. Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020b). Human rights education globally. Dordrecht: Springer. Zajda, J. (Ed). (2020c). Globalisation, Ideology and Education Reforms: Emerging paradigms. Dordrecht: Springer. Zajda, J. (2018). He is an elected fellow of the Australian College of Educators (FACE).

John Whitehouse is a senior lecturer in Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne. The focus of his teaching and research is on history education, curriculum and pedagogy. He held a range of leadership roles in secondary and tertiary education. As a humanities coordinator, he works with an outstanding team to deliver transformative learning experiences in the Master of Teaching programme. He leads a suite of subjects that are characterised by engagement, relevance and rigour. He frequently works with schools, subject associations and education authorities at state, national and international levels.