Dual Narratives approach to Teaching History: A Bottom up formula to Peace education in Palestinian-Israeli Context

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues over self-determination, territory, natural resources, holy places and security for more than a century thus far. Contradictory goals and interests in different domains have to be addressed in conflict resolution. Resolution of these disagreements is made more difficult by powerful socio-psychological forces which fuel distrust and hostility. These forces include beliefs, perceptions, images, myths or attitudes about the rival, the collective self and the conflict. Such beliefs and images are often part of each society's national narrative, and these narratives can be important as societies continue to marshal human and material resources demanded by the conflict. The narratives are propagated through many years by various channels of communication and various institutions in each involved society, including the education system. However, these collective narratives often leave little room for the acknowledgement of the historical past, culture, and future aspirations of the other collective. Thus, while these narratives help sustain cultures of wars/conflicts, they also stand as a major obstacle to any peace-making process and later the processes of reconciliation. The narratives may need to be modified in order to facilitate building a new reality of peace. In this endeavor there is a need to modify school textbooks which may serve as one agent among others in socializing new generations toward peace and co-existence.

This seminar will focus on the researches done on Palestinian and Israeli schoolbooks and PRIME's experiences in the "Dual Narratives approach in teaching History" project: recruiting Palestinian and Israeli teachers to work together and separately in uni-national and bi-national groups to write their own historical narratives of the 20th. Century of both sides, side by side with empty space between them, teachers' preparation and experiences in teaching both sides' historical narratives in their classes, challenges and opportunities, successes and failures and lessons learned. This is a bottom-up formula to construct a model of peace education and is considered a model for education development and a formula for personal reconciliation, social integration and cultural understanding. Palestinian and Israeli historical narratives of the 20th. Century is available in Arabic, Hebrew, English, Germany, French, Italian and Spanish languages.
Participants in this seminar will learn about the experiences of dealing with different narratives.

Föreläsare: Sami Adwan, vicerektor och associate professor vid Universitetet i Hebron samt årets gästprofessor till Torgny Segerstedts minne vid Göteborgs universitet.

Datum: 2017-02-15

Tid: 13:00 - 16:00

Kategorier: Forskning

Arrangör: Segerstedtinstitutet

Plats: Campus Rosenlund (Pedagogen), hus A, Västra Hamngatan 25, Kjell Härnqvistsalen

Kontaktperson: Robin Andersson