The impact of the cold war on perception of identity in social studies textbooks in U.S.A., England and Turkey

Education have become more important with the increasing role of the nation state on the world?s stage. Nationalization efforts had big impact on this emphasis, besides the wish for bringing up generations of knowledge and vision.Within a framework of a common national curriculum a great deal of information or at least a common cultural experience would be taught and the youth of this generation would look together in the same direction. Cohesion and consensus and thus existency of the nation state would be maintained. Nations need a story of a common past, in other words a collective memory and they unite around this memory. Simply, the memory, which the common memories of the land and the people shape upon, has mainly a social content and social studies subjects are considered from a distinctive perspective.Nationalist feelings could be livened up with a patriotic history rhetoric, based on national identity. However, it?s obvious that in many states the dominant ideology has an impact on the content of the textbooks used at schools.During the Cold War, the era of tense international relations as a result of reactions of Western capitalism against the rising communism, national values and Western democracy was repeatedly told in order to avoid communism spread and penetrate their people.Key Words: identity, the Cold War, elementary Social Studies, school books.