The Reproduction of the Dominant Ideology in School Practice: A Critical Debate with the Contents of the Course of History in Greek Primary School

Abstract

In this study we present a critical discourse analysis to the contents of a section of the textbook of History of the 5th grade in Primary Education. The selected chapters (13-16 of the third (C) section) are included in the student's school book and they are chosen because of their deep political hue and individual political messages emerging in symbolic or declaratory field. The researching historic interest is focused on the main frame transition from the Roman to the Byzantine world, with references to the social, juridical-legal, economic, cultural and political structures. The constructed narrative shows off the presentation of the Byzantine Emperor. The main objective is to understand and study the epistemological potential of a marxistic proposal posed as an open issue: a) What is the subject in the process of teaching history? b) What we teach in history class (content), to whom we address (configuration personal characteristics), why, who pose the questions and why? Thus we suggest three possible methods: a) qualitative content analysis -and particularly critical discourse analysis -of textbooks, b) a review of education policy, c) a pedagogic composition through critical dialectical analysis in order to comprehend the marxistic historicity which seems to be hiding.