History Textbooks and Transitional Justice

Abstract

Abstract In both academic and policy studies of history textbooks, there is a widespread assumption about the centrality of history education to transitional justice processes. Yet the actual effectiveness of textbooks in practice is rarely explored. In this chapter, the author first reviews the assumed expectations of the way in which textbooks should act as a mechanism of transitional justice. The author then turns to an assessment of the effectiveness of history textbooks in transitional justice processes, highlighting several problems: the destructive potential of textbooks when used as nation-building tools, the numerous obstacles to implementation of history textbook reform even in cases when agreement on the new narrative exists, the impossibility of evaluating the effectiveness of textbooks and low transferability of findings across contexts, and the perpetuation of inequalities via Eurocentric and Anglo-American discourse in many of the textbooks aimed at reconciliation. The author concludes with a critique of the expectation that textbooks can and should serve as a transitional justice mechanism, pointing to the conditions under which the dark side of education reform is more likely to occur.