History and History Teaching in Southeast Europe

             History and History Teaching in Southeast Europe is a project focusing on the whole sub-continent of Southeast Europe led by the Centre for the Study of Balkan Societies and Cultures at University of Graz, Balcanistic Seminar of the University of Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria) and the Association for Social History from Belgrade (Yugoslavia). Project partners are Council of Europe, Euroclio, Kulturkontakt Austria, Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in SEE, Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research and Textbook Committee of the Joint History Project.

            The project works in three lines: Academic Publication Programme (Belgrade), Creation Additional Teaching Materials Programme (Belgrade, Blagoevgrad) and Project Development Programme (Graz). In the framework of the Project the Academic Readers and Additional Teaching Materials are supposed to be published devoted to three main topics: Childhood in SEE, Gender relations in SEE and Family in SEE. The whole project is supposed to last for 18 months and in financially supported by the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and the OSCE.

            The initiative has risen from the belief that the background of the conflicts in Southeast Europe is to the great extent the existence if the negative image of the others. In the strengthens and petrifying of the existing prejudices the educational system, and particularly the history teaching plays a very important role. In most of the Southeast European countries history teaching is usually nation-oriented, and the teaching the neighbours' history is very often one-sided. The main aim of the project is to offer teacher alternative teaching materials by stressing the otherwise neglected common cultural heritage and social history.

links: http//www-gewi.kfunigraz.ac.at/csbsc/History_Teaching.html