Construction and Legitimation of Political Power in Textbooks: A Case Study

Abstract

Broadly, a textbook is a fundamental educational resource that supports teaching and learning by organising and presenting instructional content in a systematic, accessible way. In other words, it provides students with information and guides teachers' instructional practice. Furthermore, it is also a curricular material through which governments communicate and implement educational and social priorities. As a result, school textbooks can also serve as a source of research data.

Through their content and structure, textbooks present models of discourse, multiple and sometimes conflicting discourses. However, this perspective is not sufficiently represented in existing literature. This study extends this analytical perspective by examining how textbooks represent and reproduce political power discourse.

We engaged in an extensive analysis of history textbooks in upper secondary schools, published during the communist period in Romania. This allowed us to analyse how the reproduction or contestation of dominant discourses contributes to the (re)construction of social hierarchies and the shaping of intergroup relations, collective memory, social representations, and identity.

From this perspective, it argues for more inclusive and critical approaches to history education.