About Us

In order to prove the importance of peaceable and democratic future societies, textbooks, curricula and other educational media must be free from prejudice, images of the ‘enemy’ and stereotypes. In this way, the next generations can acquire knowledge and skills that promote understanding and cooperation between countries.

The experiences of the two world wars in the twentieth century were the key impetus that led to curricula and educational media for history and politics education being subject to critical analysis. The education sector has made an invaluable contribution to the success reconciliation and understanding, and has strengthened international willingness to cooperate, both within Europe and beyond. New curricula and standards emerged that promoted education oriented toward peace and democracy.

However, the new standards have in recent years been criticised or called into question through nationalist or xenophobic discourse in numerous countries. This requires new methodological and conceptual approaches to deal with different challenges:

1. At a political level, the return of military conflicts or threats (frozen conflicts), new nationalism and populist movements, shook the European conception of its post-war society being based on principles of peace building and cooperation.
2. At the level of education in schools, history teaching lost its dominant position within general political education in many countries and subject-specific teaching had to be reimagined within skills-oriented education.

3. At the organisational level, organisations that had traditionally addressed bi- and multilateral curricula and textbook reform (for instance UNESCO or Council of Europe) were confronted with an increasing number of civic initiatives.

    

With the foundation of EFREC, the  Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute has found an effective response to these new challenges. Within EFREC we can achieve structured communication between the numerous initiatives and create a foundation for joint projects.

EFREC organises the cooperation and exchange of ideas and experiences between bi- and multilateral initiatives related to the production of curricula, textbooks, and other educational media in Europe and beyond. The goal of EFREC is to develop methods, standards and products that promote historical and political education geared towards understanding and cooperation.

The European Forum for Reconciliation and Cooperation in History and Social Sciences Education (EFREC) is conducted in framework of „International textbook work” and financed by the German Federal Foreign Office. EFREC is aiming to explore new directions in international textbook and curricula revision and development of teaching materials. The project is conducted by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute (GEI).

Alongside the European Association of History Educators (EuroClio), the Federation for Education in Europe, the International Society for History Didactics and the House of European History, EFREC is part of the Transnational History Education and Cooperation Laboratory (HISTOLAB), a project initiated by the EU and the Council of Europe.

Read here about our Activities and Products.