The ‘Problem’ of the European Dimension in Education: A Principled Reconstruction of the Greek Cypriot Curriculum

Abstract

The European dimension in education has been a term increasingly used by the European Union and the Council of Europe to denote some of their educational policies and initiatives. It has also been a contested term in academic writing, as some researchers critique the elitist, exclusionary and Eurocentric educational implications it may have, while others welcome its pedagogic and intercultural potential. This article explores the possibilities of using the European dimension as a tool to alleviate ethnocentrism and traditional pedagogies in curricula and textbooks. To achieve this, the essay presents some principles which have been used for the development of History and Geography curricula with a European dimension in Greek Cypriot state primary schools in Cyprus. The curriculum development process drew upon the literature around the ‘political’ history of the European dimension, as well as upon academic discussions of social constructivist approaches to the notion of Europe. The principles employed to guide the curriculum development process were structured under the perspectives of curriculum location, content and pedagogy. The curricular location principles were concerned with the European dimension as a cross-curricular innovation, the question of its form within subject-based curricula and of its contextualisation within existing educational localities and contexts. Concerning content, it is proposed that such curricula need to acknowledge the constructedness and fluidity of the frontiers of nation-states and of Europe, the multiplicity and hybridity of identities, as well as Europe's socio-cultural and conflictual past. Finally, the pedagogic principles encourage critical approaches to knowledge, the development of concepts and active learning through cooperation.