2024/11/14 by Juliana Choque Apaza, Natasha Robinson · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy #Global Educational Policies and Reforms #Global Education and Multiculturalism
paper · pdf · doi:10.14324/herj.21.1.13
openalex publication_date 2024/11/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
This research offers a comparative analysis of how colonial history is narrated in Bolivian textbooks, before and after the 070 Educational Reform. The 070 Educational Reform, introduced in 2010, aimed to decolonize, depatriarchalise and reaffirm Indigenous and Afrobolivian identities. Three specific features of colonial narratives were analysed: ‘identity representation’ (the specific description of different groups of people within the narrative); ‘responsibility’ (the association between individuals and their actions); and ‘contemporary legacies’ (the causal relationship between the past and present). Text and images from six textbooks pre-070 Reform and five textbooks post-070 Reform were examined through sociocognitive critical discourse analysis (text) and multimodal critical analysis (images). Findings from this study indicate that textbooks have made partial adjustments post-070 Reform. ‘Identity representation’ showed the most progressive change. ‘Responsibility’, on the other hand, continues to omit the accountability of the Spanish and the Catholic Church for colonial abuses. Textbooks only briefly discuss colonial legacies, and characterise these legacies as positive. This research contributes not only to research on colonial narrations in school textbooks, but also on the educational impact of decolonizing reforms. It provides suggestions for publishing houses and the Bolivian government to improve the impact of the 070 Reform in textbooks.