The representation of civic education in Madagascar: exploring the evolution of textbook contents

Abstract

Despite the government and the population’s agreed opinion on the importance of civic education in Madagascar today, the real meaning of such education remains blurred. The purpose of this study is to understand the representation of civic education as introduced in the Malagasy civic education textbooks and how it has evolved from the independence of the country until the present time. Seventeen textbooks, used since the first republic, have been analyzed to draw the understanding of the subject. The focus of civic education changes according to the political regime, from learning about institutions, and moral education, to the introduction of education for sustainable development and global citizenship education. The findings show that the textbooks have been used to establish the successive regimes’ political, ideological, and financial interests, but they also explicitly or tacitly inculcate traditional values that nurture the cultural identity of the Malagasy citizen. The textbooks try to represent the civic education subject as the ideal subject that would transform the students into “decent Malagasy citizens” who firstly recognize their traditional values and principles, and who are socially and civically engaged moral citizens, aware of the local and the global society they are living in.