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In 2014 the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research will award its biennial prize for academic excellence in the field of international research into educational media. The prize, which is sponsored by the Westermann Publishing Group in Braunschweig, will be awarded to an academic work that addresses cultural, political, sociological or educational practice aspects of textbooks and educational media.
For a long time the most recent Balkan wars were either left out of school textbooks completely or were combined with one-sided assignments of guilt. This is now going to change and new perspectives on the wars of the 1990s will be taken up in the curriculum. In October, Natalija Basic (GEI) invited 20 textbook authors, teachers and educationalists from the region to an international workshop in order to discuss approaches for a multi-perspective textbook. The discussions focussed on the new "one textbook" policy in the Bosnian Federation, the quality of the history textbooks and the presentation of the wars. Further subjects were the training of the textbook authors, issues of copyright and textbook production. However, there is as yet no textbook which examines the different perspectives of the war. This is one of the aims of the educational policy interventions in Bosnia-Herzogovina. The GEI has contributed analyses and recommendations within the framework of the Southeast European stability pact. There is therefore a lot of work ahead, for the Georg Eckert Institute and for the others involved.
The conference "Translating Differences. On the (Mis)Understanding of Concepts in the German-Israeli Discourse" took place at the Foreign Office Berlin, Germany from December 3 to 4 2012. Together, renowned scholars from both countries, among them Prof Dr Simone Lässig, Prof Dr Dan Diner and Prof Dr Moshe Zimmermann examined the risks, possibilities and chances of the intercultural dialogue.
On 22 November Stand it was the firth time that the staff of the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research informed the Institutes Advisory Board about the results of 2012. The German History Educators Association and EUROCLIO are both represented in this Board. The Institute has in 2012 widened its focus, and the Library has stated collecting textbooks on religion and ethics. The digitalisation of German textbooks was also continued. The full collection of textbooks in use during the period of the German Empire and available, and now the institute has started to digitalise books from the period before. Unfortunately, there is no planning to digitalize newer textbooks, due to copyright issues. The Institute is getting more and more involved in on-line learning and is planning to intensify its relation with EUROCLIO especially in this field. The Europa division of the Institute will carry out an external assessment of the Historiana website.
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The work on the individual volumes of the “German Polish History Textbook” can now be commenced. The next phase in this project can now be completed after publishers have been secured on both the German and the Polish side. The textbook is curricula conform and identical (except in language) and can be used in both countries as conventional textbooks for history lessons in “Sekundarstufe I”. The book coincides with the traditional curricula contents (from prehistory to the present day) with a focus on German-Polish perspectives. With the “German-Polish History Textbook” the Georg Eckert Institute took responsibility for the coordination of a project with great importance for German-Polish relations with regard to education and academic policies. Both sides thus show their willingness to allow the historical experiences of their neighbouring country to be addressed in history lessons and to intensify the scholarly dialogue on historical topics.
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Photo: Presentation of the Recommendations for a joint German-Polish textbook, Warsaw 1.12.2010
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