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The Danish Nation-State as Crafted in Textbook Narratives
... Accordingly, scholars are interested in elucidating 'the nature of the relationship between citizenship and education' (ibid.; see also the chapters authored by Michèle Hofmann, Kevser Muratovic , and Johannes Westberg; for the need of more such research see the chapter by Nicole Gotling in this volume). Thus far, this has been achieved by examining what happens in civics, history, and even physical education classes (Meissner, 2009;Busch, 2015;Dahn & Boser, 2015;Horlacher, 2016;Legris, 2017;Gardin & Lenz, 2018;Gotling, 2022), and analyzing school acts, curricula (Boser, 2016;Westberg et al., 2019; see also the chapter by Berit Karseth), textbooks, and public discourses on education (Harp, 1998;Williams, 2014;Gotling, 2020;Muratovic & Gimpl, 2020;Hogarth et al., 2021, Kopin ska, 2021. ...
Although traditional philosophy of science is mostly individualistic, in this introductory chapter Stephanie Fox and Lukas Boser argue that science in its core is a social endeavor. To prove their claim, they refer to their own book in which eminent educational scientists and up-and-coming young researchers discuss the concept of ‘national literacies’. This concept was proposed by Viennese professor of education Daniel Tröhler in 2018. It derives from Tröhler’s methodological suggestion to analyze ideological languages in order to get empirically sound knowledge about how educational systems all over the world were supposed to make future citizens for modern nation-states. National literacies are not to be mistaken for the literacy rates in a nation-state, but they are the individual’s ability to make sense of symbols, acts, and signs related to a particular nation and thus to live a meaningful life in this nation.
In their introduction, Fox and Boser show that analyzing the nexus of nations, nationalism, and education is highly relevant as it is important in order to understand the functioning and the global aspirations of modern Western educational culture, as well as it is important to analyze national thought styles, which affect all science even though most scientists are not aware of it.
... One of the key takeaways from the first section is the close interweaving of nation building and the Nordic dimension -i.e. interconnected trajectories between the Nordic states in terms of nation building (Gotling, 2022). However, although 'new lessons of history mapped the nation within a Nordic community, [they] did not result in patriotism being replaced by any form of Nordicism' (Hovland, 2022, p. 32). ...
Book review: Tröhler, D., Hörmann, B., Tveit, S., & Bostad, I. (eds.). (2023). The Nordic Education Model in Context: Historical Developments and Current Renegotiations. RoutledgeTaylor & Francis Group, 368 pages.
... The complications arising from these were at the base of many conflicts and even wars between the Danish and German territories over the next five and a half centuries. As nationalism grew in Denmark during the nineteenth century, the Schleswig Question was tied to the nation-building agenda (see, e.g., Mügge, 1846;Rosenberg, 1891), and the history of Schleswig, especially in relation to its history with Denmark, was increasingly inserted into Danish national discourse, educational historiography, and schoolbook narratives (see, e.g., Gotling, 2023). With the history of this nationally critical issue stemming in large part from the actions of the German Count Gert who worked to divide and destroy Denmark in the fourteenth century, it is no wonder that it is the man who rose up and killed Gert, Niels Ebbesen, who became Denmark's national hero. ...
Heroic figures and their exploits are at the heart of national histories. This chapter analyzes the use of the biblical trope of David and Goliath in the depiction of three such heroes—namely William Tell, Niels Ebbesen, and William Wallace—and their respective foes in Swiss, Danish, and Scottish schoolbooks and other school materials. We use these Swiss, Danish, and Scottish cases to argue that the translation of this well-known biblical trope into nationalist discourse was used to create national imaginaries of who “we” are and how “we” differ from “others.” Thus, the case studies are telling examples of how schools help to create and promote national consciousness and national literacies. Moreover, they demonstrate the importance of exploring the role of schools and educational historiography as tools in the nation-building process in order to understand the development and perseverance of national imaginaries.
We aim at not just focusing on the “heroes” but also diverting attention to their “foes”: while children have been socialized around their national “David,” how were they also learning to discern and depict their “Goliath”? When William Tell resisted Austrian Habsburg rule, Niels Ebbesen thwarted Germans from deteriorating Denmark, and William Wallace stood up to the English throne seekers, they were fighting with principle against some “evil,” outside enemy force that caused suffering and pain. But who were those “Goliaths,” and why is it worthwhile to analyze their stories? Drawing upon Ernest Renan’s
remark in the context of his discussion of the phenomenon of the nation that “suffering” unites as much as “joy” (Renan, 1882 ), we explore the narratives that are constructed in formal education by portraying these heroes as initially seemingly disadvantaged in the fight against great (figurative and literal) evil.
We argue that while “national heroes” are embedded in school curricula as prime examples of the desired national citizen, “arch foes” are equally important. They give the “heroes” a “foe” to rise against, while, at the same time, the suffering they caused unites the people behind those “heroes.”
To explore the use of the David-versus-Goliath myth in formal education as a tool for nation-building, our analysis draws upon textbooks and other teaching materials used in Swiss, Danish, and Scottish schools. The tale of William Tell’s fight against a Habsburg bailiff is looked at as it has been depicted in the imagery of mid-nineteenth century to mid-twentieth-century reading books, teaching materials, and school wall charts. Niels Ebbesen’s heroic stand against the Germans with the murder of Holstein's Count Gert III is drawn from analyzing primarily nineteenth but also twentieth-century Danish school reading books, songbooks, history textbooks, and wall charts. William Wallace’s valorous actions against King Edward I of England during the Wars of Independence is examined in Scottish English, History, and Geography textbooks which were published in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
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