History Education and Reconciliation: The Ukrainian National Underground Movement in Secondary School Curricula, Textbooks, and Classroom Practices (1991–2012)

Myshlovska, Oksana (2021). History Education and Reconciliation: The Ukrainian National Underground Movement in Secondary School Curricula, Textbooks, and Classroom Practices (1991–2012). Journal of Soviet and post-Soviet politics and society, 7(1), pp. 37-73. ibidem Press

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Using the history education and conflict transformation lens, this article studies the representation of the Ukrainian nationalist underground in secondary school curricula and textbooks during the period between 1991 and 2012. In particular, the article reviews the
representation of the conflict between the nationalist organizations and the Soviet regime, a topic that has not been studied in detail to date. In addition, the article discusses the role of history teachers as mediators of official curricula and textbook narratives about the nationalist movement in different regions of Ukraine on the basis of focus group discussions conducted with schoolteachers in thirteen regions in 2011 and 2012. The article finds that textbooks generally offer mono‐perspectival, simplified, and mono‐causal narratives when
it comes to the history of controversial issues and conflicts. These narratives are presented in a positivist manner, with an emphasis on recounting “historical facts.” The parties in the conflict are presented in an asymmetrical manner, with the nationalist movement increasingly “indigenized” and the Soviet side delegitimized. Overall, such representations serve to limit the possibilities for conflict transformation and reconciliation. Focus group discussions with teachers show that, in some cases, teachers play a conflict mitigating role by presenting multiple perspectives on conflictual issues in the classroom and inviting discussion of wrongdoing by all parties in the conflict. In other cases, teachers see their role as reproducing the official narratives and teaching their students “historical facts.”

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