Chapter 1: Introduction

The initial idea for proposing the theme of the sixth volume of the International Review of History Education sprang from basic issues and questions concerning history education arising in our countries (Greece and Portugal) and the recent public debates associated with these questions. More precisely, although public debates in Greece seem mainly to refer to school history textbooks, revealing the broad public acceptance of traditional ideas about school history and their strong resistance to any intention to reform it, debates in Portugal seem mainly to refer to political decisions aiming to change the place, status, and importance of history in the curriculum and teacher education policies. Comparing the two different situations, we realized that there was an underlying common basis namely how national, political, social, cultural, educational, and historical parameters in each country intervene in the formation of both school history education and public ideas about it. Thus, the editing of a volume on public debates over history education was considered an important tool that could allow us to investigate relevant situations in different countries and to discover if and how these parameters form the background of history education in other different environments.