Education and the teaching of history in the light of encouraging conflict resolution in Cyprus

Abstract

This paper focuses on the different interpretations of the history of Cyprus that have surfaced in recent years, and how the resultant literature has affected the way history had been taught in the North and South of the island. The study highlights two approaches. An earlier approach where in the long period of the geo-political transformation of Cyprus, education served the national, political and ideological division of the island and stressed ethnic differences, and images of the other as the enemy. This was followed by a later more contemporary phase, which has attempted to use the pedagogy of history as a tool to further reconciliation and understanding across the geographical and cultural divide of the Green Line. The paper argues that these approaches, both at the level of the writing and the teaching of history, have been largely determined by the changing demands of both domestic and external interests. Thus educational usages and methodologies in the teaching of history often reflect in part, the changing parameters and praxis of international relations practice and theory.