Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The school texts herein investigated circulated in Brazilian elementary schools between the decades of 1950 and 1970 under a graded reading series named Série de Leitura Graduada Pedrinho. The series was comprised of four books written by Professor Manuel Bergström Lourenço Filho (1897-1970), an educator connected to principles of the Brazilian New School. These books were widely used as reading text, selling over three million copies during the studied period. This paper intends to examine the biographies of Brazilian historical figures that appeared frequently within these school texts. These biographies delivered complimentary and upbuilding representations of so-called «heroes of national history» expressed through a civic and patriotic hagiography reinforced by principles in the Republic which defended civil religiousness and secular celebrations. The presence of these heroic figures in texts constituted a symbolic community through their actions, represented as signs of Brazilianness. School texts were also analyzed as cultural artifacts of the time, which were to some extent vessels for representing and consolidating values for children as an audience

History manuals influence the individual imaginary of the pupil, as well as the creation of a collective memory and a number of cultural stereotypes. Similarly, they can contribute to the stigmatization of an epoch or of an historical figure, or to their lionization, for all eternity, of the figure of a certain king or social group. The textbook is the most widely used didactic resource for approaching the subject of History. The different perspectives of its analysis have propitiated an interesting line of investigation in Didactics of the History. This is the reason for our interest in scrutinizing the way in which these books have presented to our students the history, facts and prominent figures of the War of the Independence, one of the historical processes most resorted to in the creation and consolidation of collective identities in Spain. To obtain a significant sample in our study, we use examples of the most representative publishing houses as well as texts studied in Secondary Education and published at different times in the last four decades.

This article analyzes the curricular treatment of Ibero-American history and the construction of an Ibero-American consciousness in Spanish primary education social studies textbooks. From inclusive and intercultural perspectives, the study approaches the mechanisms of consolidation and strengthening of the Cultural Ibero-American Space in the educational realm. It examines the historical and iconographic school narratives by means of the design, validation and application of five instruments for the data collection, analysis and evaluation, integrated into five categories of analysis: I. Identification and iconographic classification, II. Ordering and iconographic function, III. Historical narrative and cultural identity, IV. Activities and cultural identity, V. Validation. The results confirm the solid adoption of Eurocentric and hegemonic perspectives resulting from the absence of any real capacity for integrating social, cultural and historical contents or working towards to the consolidation of a Cultural Ibero-American Space or the construction of an Ibero-American cultural identity. The results report of the solid adoption of eurocentral and hegemonic perspectives opposite to the eloquent absence of a real of integration capacity of social, cultural and historical contents orientated to the consolidation of the Cultural Ibero-American Space and the construction of the recognized Ibero-American cultural identity

This paper analyzes the historiographical approaches and national, European and extra-European social representations in Secondary Education textbooks in Spain, France and England. We have chosen for the sample 18 textbooks used in the first two years of secondary education in the three countries, and. we have selected three large, renowned publishers within each country (Anaya, Oxford and Vicens Vives for Spain; Belin, Bordas and Lelivrescolaire for France, and Collins, Heinemann and Hodder Education for England). The results show different historiographical approaches in the textbooks analyzed, with a greater pre-eminence of structuralism and positivism in the Spanish case; a clear influence of the latest generations of Annales in the French case; and a greater importance given to social history and history-from-below in the English case. The three countries also differ in social representations; French and Spanish textbooks treat historical accounts within a European framework to which they feel they belong, while the English textbooks present the construction of the English nation (especially in the Middle Ages and the Modern Age) from a very Anglo-centric perspective.

This article makes a comparative analysis of the ideological contents (identity, political culture, citizenship) of the editions of the Cyclic-Pedagogical Encyclopedia (intermediate level) of the Dalmau Carles-Pla publishing house in 1927 (Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, although the draft still corresponds to the prior Restoration), 1936 (Second Republic) and 1953 (Franco’s regime). The outstanding ideological features of the 1927 edition are corporativism, elitism, a liberalism respectful of the historical constitution (Monarchy, Catholicism) and a Spanish patriotism compatible with the foralism and catalanism. Monarchism, Catholicism, corporativism, elitism, patriotism.... These are all values shared by Franco’s regime: the 1953 edition retains many of the previous texts although it introduces several modifications that serve to legitimize the Franco regime, root out the Catalonian nationalism and exalt Spanishheritage. The 1936 edition legitimizes the Republican legal framework, but as it preserves the corporativism, elitism, monarchism and Catholicism... from previous drafts, it does not legitimize Republican values such as freedom of conscience, secularism, social reformism.... This tells us something about the difficulties involved in altering the value system imposed by the oligarchy which established the liberal regime in Spain.

This study addresses the different perspectives on civics and their representations in textbooks of Moral and Civic Education. For this, we have used a document consisting of three manuals used in the educational system of Florianópolis, capital of Santa Catarina / BR. We propose as our hypothesis that these documents contained elements that were responsible for social formation during the Brazilian dictatorial period. The editions studied are from the 1970s and their authors are: Jaldyr Bhering Faustino da Silva and Ayrton Capella (1971), Benedicto de Andrade (1978) and Almiro Petry, Joseph Odelso Schneider and Matthias Lenz Marinho (1972). The theoretical contribution of these works relied on the concept of representations as inscribed in Cultural History. The study highlights other dimensions of the teaching process concerning school textbooks related to the experience of historical time lived, to approaches to reading and to the multiple representations resulting from this interaction.

The interview with Rafael Valls Montés addresses the importance of the textbook in teaching history. It is the most-used didactic resource in both Primary and Secondary Education in Spain. Dr. Valls is the specialist who has most studied the use of textbooks by teachers as well as their contents and activities. With an eye constantly on historiographical and psycho-pedagogical advances (Spain, Europe and America) and political context, the overall evolution can be considered positive. Since the 1970s, the creation of textbooks has been influenced by the idea of «total history», of the Annales School, with the inclusion of political, social, economic and cultural contents. However, school textbooks are still marked by numerous stereotypes, both factual and positivist, that detract from their usefulness. In addition, they tend to contribute to a lack of innovation in the teaching methodologies employed (reduced to lectures), resulting in students’ becoming passive receivers, obliged to memorize conceptual questions. The other great drawback of the school manual is that it essentially functions as a creator of identities: Spanish, European and, to a lesser extent, regional. This derives from a legacy of nineteenth-century nationalisms, which do not fit the multicultural reality of society as reflected in today’s classrooms. However, the manual is ultimately the result of the spirit of a succession of educational laws and, although its format may change it is bound to remain an essential resource for teaching and learning history. Moreover, it should serve as a stimulus for civic and innovative education

Review of the book: Sanz, Profidio; Molero, Jesús M. and Rodríguez, David (eds.) La historia en el aula. Innovación docente y enseñanza de la historia en la educación secundaria (Lleida: Milenio, 2017)

El principal objetivo de la iniciativa es ofrecer un modelo educativo integrador que fomente la generación de ideas socialmente innovadoras y responsables. Al mismo tiempo, se busca trabajar las competencias generales para favorecer la interacción e integración de los estudiantes. Para ello, se ha utilizado la metodología de cascada. Concretamente, el instrumento utilizado es el poster. Los participantes de la iniciativa son 20 estudiantes de Bachillerato de la Excelencia y 4 del Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas de la Universidad de León. Los resultados alcanzados han sido cuatro ideas de negocio centradas en resolver problemas medioambientales a través de nuevas prácticas de gestión empresarial, y dos ideas socialmente innovadoras para mejorar la atención, cuidado y la satisfacción de personas discapacitadas. Así, la iniciativa desarrollada ha permitido mejorar competencias académico-generales de los estudiantes, y al mismo tiempo les ha proporcionado una visión más cercana de la realidad empresarial y social.