Eurocentric History in Spanish Textbooks

This paper examines the presence of Eurocentric bias in mainstream Spanish textbooks used to teach history in secondary education. The research objective is to analyse how the relationships between Europe and colonised populations are presented in history textbooks. The research hypothesis is that Spanish textbooks have a Eurocentric bias, involving not questioning colonialism. To this purpose, a representative sample of six textbooks was selected, and those chapters related to imperialism, colonialism and decolonisation processes were subjected to content analysis, in three dimensions: written information, pictures and maps. The methodology involved comparing the textbooks' narratives, conveyed both through text and images, with the consensual historiography about colonisation processes. The results show the persistence of a 'Rosy Tradition' sustaining certain continuity with the old colonial propaganda, for instance minimising or ignoring colonial violence; treating colonised territories and metropolis asymmetrically, disregarding non-European history; conveying a stereotypical image of colonised and colonisers through pictures, and resorting to maps with a colonial perspective. The conclusions bring forward some proposals that could improve the teaching and learning of the history of colonialisms, in order to avoid reinforcing the Eurocentric bias already existing among secondary students