Truth against truth: American and Arab history school textbooks portrayal of the Arab–Israeli conflict

Abstract

Textbooks reflect a national consensus regarding the knowledge, values and perspectives that a society wants conveyed to their students. Through textbooks, students are exposed to a dominant narrative that presents an official story that shapes contemporary patriotism (Hein and Selden, 2000). This paper centers on how the narratives of textbooks portray the Arab Israeli conflict and other relevant events. Textbooks from Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and the United States are examined to determine what knowledge is transmitted to students about the Arab Israeli conflict. Findings indicate that the conflict is oversimplified, important information is omitted and textbooks provide limited narratives of the conflict. The authors of this study suggest the implementation of a narrative-based approach to teaching history so that students are provided with opportunities to develop a critical analysis of textbook knowledge and to discover that historical events are composed of multiple narratives that should be examined.