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In his examination of American history textbooks, Loewen (1995) found that the
political economy, the political climate, pressure groups, regional interests, and racial
considerations all influence what is included in these textbooks, what is omitted, and
how material is presented. Loewen demonstrates that the pervasive ideology of the
textbooks is one of ‘progress’, such that facts and interpretations are made to fit in
with this ideology—even when, far from there being progress, there is an actual
worsening of the state of affairs.
Loewen argues that, in the US, one of the aims of history teaching is to instill
patriotism, national unity, and pride in the nation. Thus, a mythic version of history
is inevitably taught. Such mythic versions of history tend to serve the group interests
of particular sections or classes of society. Loewen’s (1995, 1999) work is
interesting, in that he lays stress on how language is used to create meaning, and the
ideological significance of this. (Barnard, 2001, p. 520)
CDA enables an investigation of the discourses of progress which may exist in textbooks, as
Loewen found, and the effects this has, especially of maintaining the hegemonic discourse
present in society in any given time. CDA is used in this research primarily to provide a
framework for analysis, more so than following an exact replication of a version of CDA
applied in other research. Given the large corpora or body of data available for this project, a
detailed investigation of each text is not possible; therefore the macro approach selected for
analysis is the most appropriate, whilst still maintaining integrity and validity in research.
3.3.1 Establishing contexts as part of CDA.
Emphasizing the importance of data being situated by the researcher in its proper context van
Dijk writes, “discourses should preferably be studied as a constitutive part of its local and
global, social and cultural contexts” (1997, p. 29). This view is applied in this project,
particularly in the ideological considerations and the contextualising of selected textbook
content. In addition, the incorporation of historical methodology ensures that context is
rigorously framed within education and socio-political contexts, thus avoiding a concern
raised by van Dijk that “despite the general recognition of the importance of contextual
analysis, this principle is unfortunately more preached than actually practiced (1997, p. 29).
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