In this section of Campus, EuropeNow features a selection of scholarly articles and books on topics pertinent to the teaching of Europe or teaching in Europe that were published within the last 5 years. This dynamic bibliography, with monthly installments, seeks to highlight both pedagogy research and critical analyses of debates taking place in higher education in and about Europe.
1. “Less USSR, More Democracy Please!”: Hope and Discontent In Georgia’s Quest for Academic Freedom
By M. Nutsa Kobakhidze and Lela Samniashvili
In Higher Education Quarterly
Abstract: In Georgia, the question of academic freedom emerged only after the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and its universities could begin reckoning with a heavy past of ideological pressure, censorship, governmental control and top-down management. Despite official declarations of the right to academic freedom and its recognition within Georgia’s legal framework, actual practice in the country’s higher education system tells a different story. The paper draws on qualitative data obtained from sixteen academics representing diverse institutions and disciplines, as well as the secondary data including educational legislation, government regulations, ministers’ decrees, various reports from non-governmental organisations, think tanks and media archives. The findings of this paper reflect how academic freedom is understood in Georgia and two major threats to its exercise in universities, namely, interference from external politics and internal managerialism. We argue that academic freedom as a concept does not yet have its own place in Georgia’s higher education system, protected de jure but with different de facto realities. The paper sheds light on how Soviet legacies of self-censorship, hidden mechanisms of control and a culture of conformity continue to create tensions inside universities and an environment in which academic freedom cannot flourish.
2. Reconciling Opposing Discourses: Narrating and Teaching the Cold War in an East-German Classroom
By Eva Fischer
In The Cold War in the Classroom
Abstract: Fischer analyses how a history teacher in East Germany, who is also a member of the ‘integrated generation’, the generation of people who experienced life in both the GDR and post-reunification, approaches the Cold War. Fischer explores the strategies teachers use to construct coherent narratives from an ambiguous past and the types of discourse that the teacher consciously and unconsciously uses, through linguistic analysis. She also draws on theory from memory studies, such as Wertsch’s concept of ‘narrative templates’. Fischer uses a biographical interview with the teacher, then a textbook-led interview and two of the teacher’s lessons, noting alternative narratives emerging alongside Western hegemonic discourse and how this teacher particularly focusses on the concepts of reconciliation, victimhood, family and nationhood.
3. Tear Down This Invisible Wall
By Katrin Frisch
In Elephant in the Lab
First Paragraph: In class we were reading John Milton’s ‘On Education’, a treatise in which the poet laid out his ideas on an ideal education. After many years of theoretical learning, the students – so Milton argued – should head into the world to learn about different cultures, but ultimately to realise the superiority of their own. One of my fellow students was outraged and he sought to embellish his argument against this type of chauvinism by voicing his love for Italian opera. Who, in the face of Italian Opera, would be able to diminish other cultures and not be in awe and truly appreciate the richness of diverse cultures, he asked rhetorically. But then he remembered: Well, everyone except the two East Germans, with whom he had to share a box at the opera. Unable to appreciate high culture, they had left during the break. No surprise, he continued without any self-awareness, for East Germans are known to be stupid and lacking in culture.
4. Non-Inclusive Education in Central and Eastern Europe
Edited by Katarzyna Górak-Sosnowska and Urszula Markowska-Manista
At Bloomsbury Academic Press
Abstract: This book presents research into inclusive education in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), written by scholars based in CEE. Inclusive education has become a framework for understanding and embracing diversity but most of the research in this area has been carried out in intercultural or culturally diverse settings within a relatively inclusive and open framework of democratic/liberal and multicultural Western societies. Unlike many Western societies, the realities of CEE countries are often much less diverse and connected with different fragile historical and political processes, which puts tackling sensitive topics in a different context. The editors and contributors address the dominant Western ways of looking at inclusive and global education in CEE. They argue that Western leveraged pedagogy has been imposed on CEE and outline the context-specific problems of teaching global education in CEE. Collectively, the chapters offer critical responses to the issues of exclusion and exclusionary practices of ‘silenced’ minorities in CEE. Written by academics based in Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary Poland, Romania and Russia, the book cover topics including Roma genocide in Poland, teaching about Islam and teaching about LGBTQ+ issues. The book includes a preface written by Jacqueline Bhabha, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, USA.
5. Inclusive Education in Eastern European Countries: A Current State and Future Directions
By Inna Stepaniuk
In International Journal of Inclusive Education
Abstract: Inclusive education is key to the development of civic democracy. Its role is to transform schools into platforms of excellence and equality for all students. This literature review aims to summarize the current state of inclusive education in Eastern European countries and former Soviet states and to identify conditions necessary for their educational systems to become more inclusive. The review: (a) discusses the concept of inclusive education as a platform for civic democracy; (b) conceptualizes how historical contexts affect societal attitudes and values towards difference and disability; (c) explores the extent to which available research captures the current state of inclusive education in Eastern Europe, and (d) describes the barriers to inclusive education implementation in these countries. The results of the review show the majority of studies examined attitudes toward inclusive education and people with disabilities. In this regard, although most of participants surveyed accept inclusive education initiatives in principle, they identify a range of barriers that need to be addressed to secure its meaningful implementation in the region. The review situates the possibility of inclusive education in the region’s historical context, identifies the structural and cultural barriers to its meaningful implementation, and suggests directions for future research.
Photo: Shutterstock | The interior of the Mihai Eminescu Central University Library, Iasi, Romania
Published on August 15, 2024.
