From Clio to Cassandra

Perceptions of the European Union in portuguese History textbooks

Abstract

This paper proposes to study how the themes related to the European Union (EU) are presented in the Portuguese 9th grade History textbooks. The methodological approach was mainly qualitative, based on the analysis of the content of five textbooks, but also included some quantitative data, to determine the importance given to European topics. Thus, it can be concluded that although the history textbooks contain some information about the political construction process, the institutions, the economic and social policies, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of Portugal's integration in the EU, they present it mainly in a linear perspective, not giving priority to the development of students' critical thinking about the EU. The present study also points to a predominance of contents related to national citizenship, being European citizenship presented to the students in a brief and normative way.