Lay historical narratives and ethnic identity: High school students about the NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia

Abstract

The 1999 NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia is a historical episode of immense importance to Serbia?s society today. However, younger generation does not have any personal account of this event: their historical understandings are based on personal accounts from witnesses, mass media and social institutions such as the system of education. Previous research shows that historical narratives represent one of the most important contents of ethnic identity. With these issues in mind, the focus of our research was to examine high school students? narratives regarding the 1999 events and their relation to one?s ethnic identity. We used a combination of quantitative (correlational design) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methodology on a sample of 120 high school students. The quantitative aspect of this paper focused on the interplay between one?s degree of understanding national history and their ethnic identity. Our analysis suggests that individuals whose ethnic identification is stronger have a more detailed and specific representation of this historical event. On the other hand, our qualitative analysis showed that historical narratives of high school students often lack important information or structure (in worst case, they are completely absent). Nonetheless, themes contained in the few historically specific narratives consistently offer a black-and-white picture of this historical episode. Lastly, guidelines for future research as well as implications of our findings for educational process are discussed.