Hungary:

Abstract

Purpose: To provide a comprehensive picture of Hungarian social science education. To review the constituents of social science literacy. To provide a systematic analysis of the curriculum and its changes since 1989. To present the available research in this field. Methods: The findings are based on the analysis of educational documents (e. g. curricula) and the review of the research publications in the field. Findings: Social science education is cross-curricular in Hungary. Among the different knowledge fields history has a decisive and dominant role. Other social science topics are mostly abandoned in everyday teaching practice. There is a growing centralization of the educational arena (e.g. government approved limited number of textbooks) and a growing emphasis on national identity and patriotism and a decreasing emphasis on Europe. The cross-curricular nature of social science education would require well trained teachers who are able to think critically and in a complex way themselves, however teacher training and classroom practice also support the hegemony of history teaching. These circumstances and the lack of research point to the fact, that this knowledge field is not represented well in its complexity in the Hungarian public education and needs more attention and more research.

Keywords

• social science education
• Hungary
• National Core Curriculum
• textbooks
• teacher training