Citizenship Education in Recent Polish and Chilean History Textbooks: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This paper comparatively analyzes how citizenship is discursively constructed in history textbooks in Chile and Poland. We are interested in a particular historical period, namely the transition from totalitarian regimes to democracies. We focus on textbook tasks in the unit regarding the transition to democracy, and analyze it according to Cox et al’s (2014) categories of citizenship education. The analysis was conducted on two levels. First on the descriptive level, using the cooccurrence method with the software Iramuteq. It showed that institutions play a major role in teaching recent history. Secondly, on the explicative level, major differences between Chile and Poland were discovered, mostly related to the current political situation and the discourse on the return to democracy in both countries.