The teaching of history in Greece

The Greek educational system attaches particular significance to national history. The continuity of Hellenism from antiquity to the present constitutes an essential component of Greek national identity and is continuously reproduced in school through the teaching of history and other courses and activities. In the highly centralized Greek school system, history teaching is organized around a detailed official syllabus and its single corresponding textbook. In the national narrative reproduced in school, the Greek nation is understood as natural, unified, eternal, and unchanging entity, not a product of history. The teaching neither moves beyond this ethnocentric concept of the nation nor familiarizes students with the production of historical knowledge.