“Educational Media as Political and Societal Case of Conflict” – IGSBi Conference 2025 in Vienna
From 26 to 28 September 2025, the annual conference of the International Society for Research on Textbooks and Educational Media took place at the University of Vienna (Austria) under the topic “Educational Media as Political and Societal Case of Conflict". Academics and teachers from eleven European countries and Canada discussed various aspects of this topic from a historical and current perspective.
The first panel dealt with textbook conflicts in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries in Latvia, Bavaria, Canada, France and Germany, such as questions of admission and of competing images of history; the second panel dealt with conflicts over educational media in and after 20th century dictatorships, e.g. the film Jud Süß and its reception after 1945 and competing textbooks for educational history in Hungary in the 1950s. The contributions in the third panel focused on the struggle for national identity in educational media from the post-war period to the 1970s in Austria, Switzerland and Romania. The fourth panel dealt with the struggle for the “correct” representation of history in current educational media; this included, for example, dealing with the “1619 Project” in the USA and the representation of Israel and the Middle East conflict in Austrian textbooks, as well as the fundamental challenges of multilateral textbook work. In the panel “Struggles between Science, the State and Social Actors for the ‘Right’ Content and Its ‘Appropriate’ Presentation in Current Educational Media”, the contributors presented, among other things, conflicts surrounding educational media from companies in Germany, the presentation of controversial topics in Spanish textbooks and the banning of certain media in US school libraries. In a further panel, the Reading Primers Special Interest Group presented “Primers as Subject of Political and Societal Conflicts”, referring to historical and current examples from Estonia, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. In the concluding panel, the use of artificial intelligence in educational contexts was critically reflected on, among other things, using position papers from German educational institutions on the use of AI at universities.
The contributions stimulated lively discussions and inspired further research questions.
Contributions from this conference and further texts on this topic will be published in a conference volume in 2026.
Newsletter of the Reading Primers Special Interest Group
New Publications
Sylvia Kesper-Biermann & Anna Strunk (Eds.): Comics in Bildungskontexten. Entwicklungen, Diskurse Praxis [Comics in Educational Contexts. Developments, Discourses, Practice] (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2026)
This volume provides new insights into the historical and current role of comics in educational contexts, in particular the multi-layered approaches pursued in research, (university) teaching and artistic practice. Particular attention is paid to developments from the history of comics to the 21st century, the associated (pedagogical) discourses and various fields of practice, including the creation of comics and their use in different educational settings. The contributions shed light on the educational medium of comics from different specialist perspectives and can thus serve as a prelude to an educational historical and educational scientific debate that goes beyond the concrete (subject) didactic application of the medium and provides impulses for further research.
Anna Strunk was honoured for her work with the Julius Klinkhardt Prize 2025.
Free download of the whole book (Open Access)
Eva Matthes, Péter Bagoly-Simó, Britta Juska-Bacher, Sylvia Schütze & Jan Van Wiele (Eds.): Nachhaltigkeit und Bildungsmedien. Sustainability and Educational Media (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2025)
According to the United Nations, education for sustainable development (ESD) should enable people to actively, responsibly and autonomously shape the future in a globalised world. In addition to the careful use of the earth and its resources, this also includes shaping a peaceful and just society. The contributions in this volume demonstrate that educational media can make a significant contribution to ESD. Scientists from various disciplines from numerous countries deal with perspectives on sustainability in historical and current educational media, both for schools (such as primers or Geography textbooks) and for extracurricular and adult education (e.g. educational comics). Furthermore, media for teacher training are introduced, and didacticised places in nature (such as nature trails) are presented as educational media. Contributions on the sustainable creation and distribution of educational media complete the range of topics of this volume.
Free download of the whole book (Open Access)
Results of an initiative of the Reading Primers SIG have recently gained prominent recognition:
The “Edited Book Award Committee” of the “Children’s Literature Association” (ChLA) unanimously voted for the volume Learning to Read, Learning Religion. Catechism primers in Europe from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries to be recognized as an Honor Book for this year’s “Edited Book Award”. The honored book, edited by Britta Juska-Bacher, Matthew Grenby, Tuija Laine and Wendelin Sroka, has been published in 2023 by John Benjamins, Amsterdam:
https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027254955.
The ChLA, with headquarters in Purcellville, VA (USA), is a non-profit association of scholars, critics, professors, students, librarians, teachers and institutions dedicated to the academic study of literature for children (
https://www.childlitassn.org/). The “Edited Book Award” is presented annually by the ChLA to recognize the contribution of outstanding collections of essays to children's literature scholarship and criticism. Eligible titles have been published two years prior to the award date.
In a message to the editors of Learning to Read, Learning Religion Naomi Lesley, professor in the English department at Holyoke Community College and Edited Book Award Committee Chair of the ChLA, states: “Each of the committee members noted the unique contribution this volume made to the field, and recognized the thoughtfulness of its editorial design as well as the impressive archival work and coordination involved. Thank you for your efforts to bring this book into the world!”
With all editors and many authors being members of the RP-SIG network, the award acknowledges the efforts of all those who have been involved in the preparation of the volume. The award is a welcome support to increasing the visibility of historical primer research internationally, and not least an incentive to continue the transnational historical study of reading primers as a research field that crosses the boundaries of countries, languages, and monodisciplinary scholarship.