Nation Focused Political Change as a Challenge for Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.22.2025.98.21Keywords:
Education, national identity, democracy, teacherAbstract
In recent years we haved observed the meaningful rise of a new nationalism around the world. This neo-nationalistic trend has a significant impact on education. The aim of the article is to indicate the areas of knowledge that should be included in teacher education programs in order to broaden teachers’ competences in the field of understanding the relationship between education and politics, visible in the directions of reforming education and creating a collective, national identity, which determine in-group and intergroup relations. In this article I refer to empirical research concerning the attitude towards democracy and the nation as well as some theories explaining the phenomenon of autocracy and nationalism, among others: Integrated Threat Theory, Social Dominance Theory and The Dual Process Motivational Model, and the Cumulative, Structural Model of National Attitudes. Taking into account the recent changes in education. especially in school curricula and textbooks, for example in Hungary and Poland, I will pay attention to changes among the universal aims of education: human values, relationships, individual and collective identity, meaningful benchmark groups and sources of social bonds.
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