New Thesis: Framing the Israel/Palestine Conflict in Swedish History School Textbooks

The portrayal of the conflict between Israel and Palestine in Lower Secondary school textbooks is presented on the basis of ideological assumptions without any adequate basis in research or the curriculum's objective of a critical approach, reveals the thesis of Michael Walls from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The author looks at how the conflict between Israel and Palestine is presented in Lower Secondary school textbooks, how the textbooks reflect the research, and what 13 Social Science/Civics teachers think of how the conflict is presented in the books.

He compares the presentation of the conflict in Swedish textbooks with those in Israeli and points out that although the presentation of the conflict is apparently more balanced on the Swedish side, both are very much characterised by ideological assumptions and a weak link to established research. This means for him, among other things, that the unequal power relationship that has existed in the conflict since the very beginning does not find its way into the textbooks: "Which in turn leads to an unbalanced presentation of the history of the conflict"... "The ever-present idea that the conflicting parties have an equal claim to the land stands in the way of a more critical reflective orientation of the history of the conflict".

Walls marks this problem as one of the tasks of History as a subject to encourage a critical and analytical approach for both teachers and students. In order to be able to explain and understand the complex historical causes of the conflict, the presentation needs to be more research-based and less ideological.

Information:
The full text of the thesis is availlable at http://hdl.handle.net/2077/23789