Diver­si­ty and violence

Ret­hin­king appro­a­ches in history education

This year, the Sum­mer School will take pla­ce in the beau­ti­ful set­ting of Osi­jek, Cro­a­tia, from 22 to 24 August 2019. The Cro­a­ti­an History Tea­chers Asso­ci­a­tion (HUNP) and the Muse­um of Sla­vo­nia (Muzej Sla­vo­ni­je) are co-orga­ni­sing the Sum­mer School.

The the­me this year will be “Diver­si­ty and vio­len­ce”. The set­ting of the sum­mer school in Cro­a­tia offers a gre­at opportu­ni­ty to deal with this the­me, as vio­len­ce and diver­si­ty have sha­ped the coun­tri­es’ history up until today. The Bal­kan region is famous for its mul­ti­cul­tu­ral com­po­si­tion, with sub­stan­ti­al mino­ri­ties in past and pre­sent. In this sum­mer school we will expl­o­re the issu­es of mino­ri­ties in history tea­ching, and aspects of sepa­ra­te schoo­ling systems for dif­fe­rent groups wit­hin socie­ty. This is con­nected to a focus on local history in history tea­ching, look­ing at both Cro­a­ti­an and inter­na­tio­nal examp­les. At the same time, vio­lent epi­so­des in the past, inclu­ding Wor­ld War 2 and the 1990s war (Homeland war) have influ­en­ced how socie­ty deals with its diver­se popu­la­tion and history.

Poli­ti­cal eli­tes often con­ti­nue wars through col­lecti­ve memory. In this con­te­xt, history and citizens­hip educa­tors have the pivo­tal role of coun­te­ring this ten­den­cy by pro­mo­ting a cri­ti­cal look at natio­nal and wor­ld history, hel­ping stu­dents ana­ly­se the cau­ses and con­sequen­ces of into­le­ran­ce, and, ulti­ma­te­ly, pre­ven­ting history from repe­at­ing itself. To enab­le educa­tors to ful­fill this deman­ding role, it is neces­sary to ret­hink the appro­ach to history educa­tion.

Til­mel­ding her