프랑스의 세계사 교육 ― 고등학교 역사교과서를 중심으로 ―

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the history textbooks employed in the high schools and to examine the education of world history in France. The history subject in French secondary education is not separated into world history and French history. The two categories of history are integrated into a single course of “History”. In the tenth grade the course of history covers the period from the ancient times to the mid-19th century; in the 11th grade it covers that from the mid-19th century to 1945; and in the 12th grade it covers that from 1945 to today. History textbooks in France are not up to standard of world history. With the exception of the medieval Islam civilization the histories of the non-European regions covering the period from the ancient times to the mid-19th century are not dealt in the textbooks. And their history of the subsequent to the mid-19th century entered “History” only as the history of the regions “dominated” by the Europeans. 1945 began to see the world history proper appearing, since the European hegemony broke down after that year. It means that even today the history textbooks in France are prepossessed with the 19th century Europeans’ ideas that only Europe deserved studying and that the ‘stagnant’ Asia belongs to the subject of the Oriental studies and Africa ‘without history’ does to that of anthropology. The Euro-centrist history textbooks are desirable no longer.