Journal of Educational Memory, Media, and Society

This article explores ways in which textbook content can reflect national identity over time via a case study of Swedish textbooks. To this end, it analyzes and contextualizes descriptions of Finnish labor migrants in Sweden in seventy-four compulsory school textbooks. The Finnish labor group emigrated from Finland to Sweden mainly from the 1950s to the 1980s. Initially, the Swedish authorities saw them as temporary laborers, but as time went by, the authorities had to realize that they had become permanent residents. In 2000, Finns were defined as an official national minority, “Sweden-Finns,” and their status changed. This article examines representations of Finnish labor migrants in Swedish history, geography and social science textbooks published between 1954 and 2016, tracing their journey from temporary laborers to a permanent national minority.

The stormy transition to the Second Italian Republic during the 1990s produced a “memory boom” that evoked the previously marginalized foibe massacres. From the complex and violent events that took place on the Italian-Yugoslav border at the end of the Second World War, a national victim narrative was created which downplays fascist crimes. In 2004, the law establishing the Italian National Memorial Day also made the foibe a compulsory subject in schools. This article explores how the narrative of the foibe has developed since then in Italian history textbooks, which are not subject to state control. The analysis reveals a broad spectrum of interpretations, ranging from a national victim narrative to the evaluation of historical findings concerning Italian crimes committed during the Second World War.

In 2014, the National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won the general election with the highest number of seats won by any party since 1984 and went on to win a second term victory in 2019. Since the rise of the BJP, Hindu nationalist interventions into education have increased. Their agenda has been to “indigenise, nationalise and spiritualise” education in India. To this end, textbooks were written to promote a Hindu majoritarian idea of India that sees Hindus as the primary citizens of India and categorizes Muslims as the “other”. This article outlines the political context in which Hindu nationalists have recently attempted to rewrite Indian history by focusing on the period of Muslim rule in India. It looks at textbooks published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and media reports about regional history rewriting in India.

This article addresses memory studies from an educational perspective. In order to encourage pupils and students as independent agents in memory cultures they are part of, it is not enough to (as history education prescribes) learn history as a narrative about the past based on official sources or via the analyses of different uses of history. Rather, today history should also be considered as one of many different dynamic memory acts that define and redefine the past and the societies we live in. We therefore develop the concept of critical memory consciousness and argue for a memory pedagogy that gives learners the possibility to analyze memories that arise out of collective, cultural, and dialogic processes.

Foreign language documentary films offer limitless possibilities for language teaching and are an ideal medium for the integration of the target culture and for the promotion of serious and committed discussions about human rights, diversity, global issues, and sustainability. Language learning is based on current cultural contexts so that students become more engaged with the world. In order to integrate this world into my class, I became a documentary filmmaker and filmed everyday life while I was living in Nantes, France. In my interactive documentary (i-doc), students can explore the different opportunities that Nantes has to offer, from street art to socially engaged activities and student demonstrations. The learner watches and listens to interviews in the i-doc at their own pace and engages with the francophone community.