Education, Collective Memory and Transitional Justice in postcolonial Britain
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- What role do textbooks and educational materials have in institutionalizing officially-sanctioned narratives of the past? How can history education be used to inculcate national identity and inform collective historical memory? My research seeks to answer these questions with regard to the case of modern Britain, specifically how the British education system has shaped the collective historical memory of the British Empire since 1900. Through textual analysis of history textbooks from 1900-1960 and an original survey connecting educational experience with opinions about the empire, I seek to critically analyze the dominant narratives of the empire within educational materials from the twentieth century to the present and analyze their impact on collective memory. My empirical research finds that the national history curriculum has institutionalized a glorified view of the past while omitting key historical episodes that do not fit the narrative of imperialism as a “civilizing mission.” The thesis concludes by examining how education reform can be leveraged to promote truth, reconciliation, and justice at the systemic level in Britain and other postcolonial societies.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 16, 2022 |
| Date modified | May 17, 2022; December 5, 2022 |
| Publication date | May 17, 2022; May 17, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Beyer, Brooke |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | British Empire |
|---|---|
| Subject | Education |
| Subject | Collective memory |
| Subject | Transitional justice |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Beyer, B. (2022). Education, Collective Memory and Transitional Justice in postcolonial Britain. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/rh152qb9581
Collection
Stanford University, Program in International Relations, Honors Theses
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
- Contact
- bbeyer@stanford.edu
Also listed in
Loading usage metrics...