ABSTRACT
The lecture deals with 25 years of unsuccessful attempts to carry out a comprehensive reform of education in Croatia. It examines ideological confrontations over the content and aims of education since 1990, as well as political efforts to re-define contemporary Croatian identity through education. It will also focus on the main issues arisen from the last proposal of the comprehensive curricular reform that started in 2015. Since the end of the 19th century, history teaching has constantly been considered as one of the so-called “national subjects” (subjects such as language, history, geography and music). This term clearly indicates the special status given to these subjects: they are supposed to convey specific cultural and political traditions of the nation and to influence the construction of students’ individual and collective identity through attachment to affective values, such as common language, culture, and memory. Furthermore, the teleological notion of the historical process that is still strongly present in the history education in Croatia – especially when the national history is concerned – has consequently led to inclusion of the most recent/current events in the content of history teaching on a regular basis. The interpretation of these events in history curricula and textbooks thus frequently becomes a medium to express different and often conflicting viewpoints and attitudes, as well as interests of different groups in the society. The lecture will thus focus on the latest debates over the proposal of the history curriculum, as well as professional, political and public expectations of its aims and contents. It also shows how attempts to change the paradigm of history teaching – from a school subject that transfers “one truth” and “proper interpretations” of the past to a subject that perceives history as a critical engagement with the past – reflect views of Croatian historians about the public role of history.
CV
Snježana Koren is a historian at the History Department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She holds a PhD in modern and contemporary history and teaches courses in history didactics and modern and contemporary Croatian history. Her research interests and the areas in which she has published extensively include the politics of history and memory in socialist Yugoslavia and its successor states, history of historiography and history education, comparative analysis of history textbooks and curricula, initial teacher training in Europe, intercultural education etc.