History textbooks are often perceived as “national biographies” (Lozic & Hintermann, 2010, p. 33) of a country and are thus connected with issues of identity, belonging, and representations of us and them. This article focuses on the question of how pupils perceive the representations of migration in their textbooks. Drawing on evidence from eight selected school classes in Austria, it analyzes and challenges the role of school textbooks as sites of collective memories. Through the active participation of pupils in school-based workshops and the inclusion of multiple perspectives, such as forms of representation in textbooks, pupils’ family backgrounds, and classroom dynamics, in the analysis, the article identifies different ways pupils perceive and remember migration.

Schlagworte
History textbooks; Representations of migration; Collective memories; School workshops; Pupil participation