Building the 'Sri Lankan nation' through education: The identity politics of teaching history in a multicultural post-war society
type: CreativeWork
description: Abstract Driven by the overarching objective of promoting reconciliation through education, this thesis strives to unpack the first national goal of education set out by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education, which involves nation building and the establishment of a Sri Lankan identity through the promotion of social cohesion and the recognition of cultural diversity in Sri Lanka’s plural society. Within education, history teaching in secondary school acts as the main focus of the research, due to the relevance of this goal to the subject of history as well as the ability of history to shape the attitudes and perceptions of youth. As such, the original contribution of this thesis is the development of an understanding of how the goal of nation building is being carried out through the Sri Lankan education system by focusing on the subject of history, which in turn facilitates an analysis of the identity politics of teaching history in a multicultural post-war society. With the intention of developing such an understanding, the study aims to answer three research questions: 1) What type of nation is being built through history education in Sri Lanka?; 2) How is the ethnic and religious diversity which characterises the Sri Lankan nation being dealt with through history education?; and 3) How are Sri Lankan youth being aided in understanding the sensitive matters which impeded the nation building exercise in the recent past and resulted in the break out of the ethnic conflict? The thesis draws on an inductive approach, using qualitative research and secondary literature. Findings are generated from field work and textbook analysis. Conducted in four different districts around the country chosen based on their ethnic and religious compositions, field work involves the conducting of interviews with youth, history teachers, curriculum developers, textbook writers and other academics. This thesis argues that an ambiguity regarding the composition of the ‘Sri Lankan nation’…
abstract: Abstract Driven by the overarching objective of promoting reconciliation through education, this thesis strives to unpack the first national goal of education set out by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Education, which involves nation building and the establishment of a Sri Lankan identity through the promotion of social cohesion and the recognition of cultural diversity in Sri Lanka’s plural society. Within education, history teaching in secondary school acts as the main focus of the research, due to the relevance of this goal to the subject of history as well as the ability of history to shape the attitudes and perceptions of youth. As such, the original contribution of this thesis is the development of an understanding of how the goal of nation building is being carried out through the Sri Lankan education system by focusing on the subject of history, which in turn facilitates an analysis of the identity politics of teaching history in a multicultural post-war society. With the intention of developing such an understanding, the study aims to answer three research questions: 1) What type of nation is being built through history education in Sri Lanka?; 2) How is the ethnic and religious diversity which characterises the Sri Lankan nation being dealt with through history education?; and 3) How are Sri Lankan youth being aided in understanding the sensitive matters which impeded the nation building exercise in the recent past and resulted in the break out of the ethnic conflict? The thesis draws on an inductive approach, using qualitative research and secondary literature. Findings are generated from field work and textbook analysis. Conducted in four different districts around the country chosen based on their ethnic and religious compositions, field work involves the conducting of interviews with youth, history teachers, curriculum developers, textbook writers and other academics. This thesis argues that an ambiguity regarding the composition of the ‘Sri Lankan nation’…
author: Warnasuriya, Mihiri Saritha
language: en
keywords: history education, nation building, identity politics, Sri Lankan education, secondary education, Sri Lankan history curriculum, Sri Lankan history textbooks, reconciliation through education
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/54c0cb5a-9ba8-40bd-87da-2ba03546d8a7/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2019-07-19
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:08Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.37376