Contribution du discours scolaire à la formation de l’identité nationale : le cas des manuels de lecture de l’école primaire belge (1842-1939)

Abstract

This article is a synthesis of the conclusions of my research into Belgian identity, which resulted in a doctoral dissertation recently defended at the Universidad de Valladolid. Based on the analysis of a corpus consisting of primary school reading manuals for French speakers published between 1842 and 1939, this project attempts to demonstrate not only the method employed to instill a national conscience in Belgian school children but also the basis on which it was founded. In more specific terms, the research suggests a double hypothesis, which consists of observing the construction of identity as reflected by educational discourse: on one hand, the denial of three more or less recognized great collective complexes and, on the other hand, the harmonization of educational and official institutional discourse.