Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

‘Decolonise’ has been a keyword in recent years in political, academic, intellectual and social debates. Portugal’s relationship with the memory of its colonial empire is often presented in a narrative that follows the luso-tropical ideology of the Estado Novo [New State] authoritarian regime. In this sense, Portuguese colonisation would have been ‘benign’ and even non-racist. However, as a result of this debate, much of it driven by anti-racist activist movements, the role of the school and the subject of History in deconstructing those assumptions has been re-examined. Thus, criticism of Eurocentrism and structural racism in history textbooks has appeared in several studies and official recommendations. See, for example, the studies by Cristina Roldão. This sociologist argued that Africans are generally ‘absent’ and are always ‘discovered’. On the other hand, the recently approved (2022) National Plan to Combat Racism and Discrimination (2021-2025) calls for significant changes in how students recognise the violent subjugation of diverse peoples and human trafficking as a reality of the Portuguese empire. Using a comparative and analytical methodology, the aim of this communication is to examine the visions that 8th-grade History textbooks portray of the First Portuguese Empire (1415-1578) in the last five decades (1973-2023). We should keep in mind that the 8th grade is decisive, as it is the last moment of the school career in which all students address the themes of the First Portuguese Empire and slavery. We will approach the themes of a) the memory of the ‘Discoveries’; b) Slavery; c) representations of ‘Otherness’.