Religion, church, national identity, and the solidarity movement in school history textbooks in Poland

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the Solidarity movement narratives, focusing on church representatives, religious issues, and symbols in the Polish history textbooks for upper secondary schools between 1991 and 2018. The analysed textbooks prove to reinforce Poland’s national and religious identities, with John Paul II and the priest Popiełuszko being the primary national heroes of the Solidarity movement. The Catholic Church is presented as a protector of national values during the Solidarity period. The study also reveals the gradual reduction and simplification of the textbooks’ content. This tendency is a trigger for the polarisation of the historical discourse, posing a weapon for secular policies to misuse the ideological and symbolic roles of the Church in reproducing the Pole-Catholic pattern in history textbooks.KEYWORDS: Textbookshistory educationreligionPoland Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsDaria Hejwosz-GromkowskaDaria Hejwosz-Gromkowska is a professor in the Department of Sociology of Education at the Faculty of Educational Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Her scientific research is located in the sociology of education and comparative education. The main problem areas explored in her research are social changes in higher education and citizenship education. Her current studies revolve around the problems of citizenship and national identity in textbooks.Dobrochna Hildebrandt-WypychDobrochna Hildebrandt-Wypych is an associate professor in the Laboratory of Comparative Education at the Faculty of Educational Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. Her scientific research is located in the sociology of education and comparative education. The main problem areas explored in her research are citizenship education, national identity, and the hidden curriculum in textbooks.