Citizenship and the intertwined educational subject of civic education are highly contested, as the notion of citizenship is strongly dependent on the type of government with its specific political...Show moreCitizenship and the intertwined educational subject of civic education are highly contested, as the notion of citizenship is strongly dependent on the type of government with its specific political system and the cultural-historical development of a nation. The Russian Federation as the multinational successor state of the Soviet Union (SU) faced major struggles concerning notions of citizenship during the 1990s. After the collapse of the SU and leaving the notion of citizenship as ‘the builder of communism’ behind, the main focus of Russia was on democratization, but this changed after 2000, when patriotism was getting more prominent. A way to get access to Russia's conceptions of civic education is examining high school textbooks. An analysis of their content can provide a deeper understanding of how civic education is approached and practised in nowadays Russia, in shaping its next generation. This analysis applied three general conceptions of citizenship, namely liberal individualism, republicanism and communitarianism and argues that Russia fits the the communitarian approach the most.Show less
The Dutch historical narrative on slavery and slave trade is part of a debate in which ignorance tends to be painted as the source of contemporary disputes. This refers to the debate around racial...Show moreThe Dutch historical narrative on slavery and slave trade is part of a debate in which ignorance tends to be painted as the source of contemporary disputes. This refers to the debate around racial inequality that arose in early 2020 in which racism was claimed to be institutionalized. With slavery being an obvious example in history that shows how racism took on a structural and institutionalized form, it is essential to critically analyze how the narrative on the inhumane and degrading treatment of black Africans is told. In this thesis, two senior year havo-level secondary school history textbooks, Feniks and Geschiedeniswerkplaats, will be analyzed using a Critical Discourse Analysis. The storyline on the slavery period will be assessed critically, focusing on the selection of narratives and phrasing. The results show the presence of the Color-blind discourse, in which storylines take on a passive voice, and Racially essentialist discourse, where the selection of black Africans is biologically justified. Both textbooks lack a description on the wider social opinion towards the black community and therefore fail to address these racist attitudes.Show less
Primary school textbooks are filled with images and text that provide information about other countries, even if the intention of those books is not to teach about world orientation, but how to...Show morePrimary school textbooks are filled with images and text that provide information about other countries, even if the intention of those books is not to teach about world orientation, but how to read and write. This thesis studied Dutch “Lijn 3” reading and writing books of Malmberg through Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), which encompasses both textual Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Visual Discourse Analysis (VDA), and found that there is a significant amount of information on China within them. This information is often stereotypical, and corresponds to existing prejudice and humour on China and the Chinese ethnic minority in the Netherlands. Furthermore, interviews with teachers showed that they are aware of harmful effects of stereotypes and prejudice, but they are reluctant to intervene when they encounter stereotypes in books. They prefer to ignore stereotypes because they argue that children do not see them. This incorrect observation, that children are unable to see and understand stereotypes, creates a non-critical environment for children and teachers, in which stereotypes and prejudice teach children a power hierarchy. In this hierarchy, the Caucasian Dutch are dominant, and the rest is subordinate. This thesis suggests that stereotypes in textbooks need to be acknowledged by teachers, and communicated to children, or illustrators and authors need to eliminate stereotypes out of books, in order to change this problematic power hierarchy.Show less
