History education and the construction of identities in divided societies: the case of Lebanon

ABSTRACT

A major concern in religiously divided societies, is identity formation, as the different communities in such societies aim to pass their religion and culture on to the next generation. Research looking at the socialization function of education shows that history education plays a significant role in identity formation. For instance, [Korostelina, K. V. (2013). History Education in the Formation of Social Identity: Toward a Culture of Peace. Palgrave Macmillan] identifies three conceptions of national identity, an ethnic, a multicultural, and a civic one, and argues that these can be shaped through history education. Linking this back to divided societies, existing research shows that communities generally promote an ethnic or a civic identity through history education, but not a multicultural one. Lebanon is an example of a religiously divided society where the school system, which is mainly composed of private schools, is divided along sectarian lines. We draw on Korostelina’s model to develop our own analytic framework, which we subsequently use to analyze history textbooks used in different Lebanese religious schools. We find that these textbooks generally promote sectarian identities corresponding to the three main religious communities, despite recent attempts to promote a civic identity in some Christian and Sunni private schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Divided societies
• sectarian conflict
• Lebanon
• history textbooks
• national identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although language and religion are changeable and therefore strictly speaking not ascriptive criteria, they are often understood as primordial markers defining a person’s identity and lumped along with ancestry and race in the ‘ethnic’ category (Kymlicka, 1999)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hanan Fadlallah

Hanan Fadlallah is a secondary teacher at Al-Sadiq and Al-Zahra schools in London. She has received her master's degree in comparative education from UCL. She's interested in how education is used by governments and communities to influence and inculcate identity. Her dissertation on “History Education and Language of Instruction in Divided Societies: The Case of Lebanon” received the 2022 Master's Dissertation award from the British Educational Research Association.

Jan Germen Janmaat

Jan Germen Janmaat is a professor of political socialisation at UCL Institute of Education. He's interested in how education, broadly conceived, can promote democratic values and has published widely in this area. His latest book is “School Councils across Europe: Democratic Forums or Exclusive Clubs”, co-authored with Isabel Kempner. In January 2024, he is starting a four-year Leverhulme Trust funded project aiming to develop the Education for Democracy Index. This index intends to measure how well an education system promotes democratic values.