The state of history teaching in private-run confessional schools in Lebanon : implications for national integration

Abstract

History curriculum gravitates towards understanding differences among pluralistic societies. However, the Lebanese case has exacted a range of differences promulgated by the number of confessional-run private schools, with little control over their administrative or curricular policies. Since the establishment of the Republic in 1926, public policy gave the private schools their own constitutional prerogative maintaining their own educational programmes, each with a distinctive value system. This paper looks at the policies towards history curriculum by the seven major confessional schools in Lebanon. Through textual analysis of history books, reviews of policies, and interviews with students, educational decision-makers, and history teachers, the paper argues that confessional schools have propagated their own line of discourse for history teaching, without accommodating for a pluralistic discourse of integration.