Myths and Fallacies around the colonial history teaching in Costa Rica: a case study through education programs and books 1970 - 2010

Abstract

This paper makes a literature review about the traditional and hegemonic way it has taught and written history specifically about the colonial period in our country between the seventies and today. This is to demystify some prevailing discursive constructions that depicting the history of our country as harmonious, egalitarian, peaceful and without social unrest, where the development of the nation was through a distribution of wealth and more equitable power than the rest of the region. All this through curricula and textbooks to history teaching in high schools, where the hegemonic groups that conduct educational processes is to disseminate the historical processes in a conservative perspective that does not encourage in the future generations a critical spirit about the society they live and was not invited to find the big transformations needed in building a more equitable, just and democratic society.