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The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies pp 281–292Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Colonialism

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Abstract

Recent years have brought increased interest in issues around representations of colonialism. This chapter provides an overview of textbook analyses on this subject published in the last two decades, to the end of identifying trends and pinpointing gaps in the research. Extant studies approach textbooks from perspectives relating to the Self and the Other or to memory studies or via the concept of knowledge. Many of them focus on European colonialism of the nineteenth century, with history textbooks predominating as objects of analysis. I will argue that there is a need to overcome these specific preoccupations and carry out a greater number of systematically proceeding comparative studies. Further approaches with potential for future research include taking the visual elements of textbooks into consideration in analysis and conducting comparative analyses of textbooks and other media.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    International Textbook Research 2008; Journal of Education Media and Memory Studies 2013; International Society of History Didactics Yearbook 2014.

  2. 2.

    This overview focuses on English-language analyses; there are more textbook analyses in other languages that cannot be covered here. Heylen (2004), for example, gives an overview of questions concerning textbooks and colonialism in Taiwan. Ribeiro (2007) offers an English abstract of his analysis of the colonial past in Brazilian textbooks.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of History, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    Lars Müller

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  1. Lars Müller
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georg Eckert Institute - Leibniz-Institute for International Textbook Research, Braunschweig, Germany

    Eckhardt Fuchs

  2. Georg Eckert Institute - Leibniz-Institute for International Textbook Research, Braunschweig, Germany

    Annekatrin Bock

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Müller, L. (2018). Colonialism. In: Fuchs, E., Bock, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Textbook Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53142-1_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53142-1_20

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