Historiography, Policy, and Publishing Industry: Contextual Factors Shaping Indonesian History Textbook Discourses

This study commences with the recognition that discourses never operate in a vacuum but are always situated in specific contexts. Drawing from Michael Apple’s (2012) ideas that history textbooks are simultaneously economic commodities, political objects, and cultural representations, this study seeks to unpack three contexts governing the production and reproduction of the discourses: historiography, educational policies concerning textbooks, and economic factors; and the way in which these factors influence the discourses and knowledge production in Indonesian history textbooks, particularly during 1950-2017. In this paper, I argue that even though the content and discourses varied and changed overtime, these three factors – historiography, policy, and commercial factors – are intertwined and always shaped history textbooks discourse.

In this research, I found that history textbooks are closely influenced by historiography as authors often rely on the publication of historians’ work and published historical sources. They are also shaped by historiographical trends and politics. These factors affect government’s policies related to curriculum and textbooks evaluation, which in turn also affected textbook publishing industry. In Indonesian context, publishers need to comply to government’s regulations on textbook’s content and design. In addition, paper industry and printing technology also play a role in shaping textbook content. These complex relationships of historiography, policy and commercial factors are crucial in the production of historical knowledge in Indonesian schooling context.