The way that knowledge is chosen for curriculum is an ideological process serving certain stakeholders' interests (Apple, 2000). Reflecting on Raymond Williams' ideas about selective tradition, Michael Apple (1990: 20), asserted that his selective tradition meant “someone’s selection, someone’s vision of legitimate knowledge and culture, one that in the process of enfranchising one group’s cultural capital disenfranchise another’s”.

This ideological battle manifests itself also in history education. As Tony Taylor argues, history education has the potential to be on one hand one of the most empowering and on the other hand one of the most oppressing school subjects (Taylor, 2000). As he (ibid.: 843) puts it: “Oppression may come when, as has so often happened in the past, history becomes merely a means of political or religious self-justification”. In these instances we are talking about the political use of history, or history politics, which refers to the goal-oriented behavior to manipulate history in order to define the central values, symbols and objectives of a community through a certain past (Tilli, 2009; Torsti, 2008). Pilvi Torsti (2008) and Seppo Hentilä (2004) emphasize the intentionality of history politics as history is “twisted and turned” to attain certain societal ends. All regimes throughout history have engaged in such a behavior (Torsti, 2008). Schools' history education has also served as a venue through which history can be (mis)used to further political ambitions (Foster & Crawford, 2006; Jones, 2012; Torsti, 2008) 

Since then, however, the fight for the content of curricula has taken new directions. For some, it was no longer enough that history curriculum should present historical narratives free of intentional bias. Instead, the so-called New history movement has emphasized doing instead of knowing history. In other words, the focus has shifted from learning historical narratives to cultivating historical thinking skills. (Dickinson, 2000; Husbands et al., 2003; Seixas, 2000; Sylvester, 1994; Taylor, 2000) These developments reflect the Janus-like face of Taylor's (2000: 843) history education: “Empowerment may come from developing in students a rational capacity for examining evidence, comprehending the relationship that existed (and still exists) between individuals, ideology and historical change". Seen from this perspective, history politics as a content-something to be studied and understood-is a vehicle for empowerment, whereas as a method applied to the narratives to be studied, it becomes a mere means to suppression.

However, relatively little is known how these new ideas have affected schooling. Most importantly, it is unclear on whose terms changes have taken place. Globalization has questioned the view that compiling curricula is the sole privilege of states (and powerful stakeholders within them). The proponents of the so-called World Culture theories assert that it is increasingly global trends which set the agenda guiding educational policies and practices (Carney et al., 2012). Critics of these ideas claim, however that the increased similarity between policies is largely a facade; in methodological terms, claims of convergence are largely based on analysis of high-level official documents in different contexts (Steiner-Khamsi, 2014; Steiner-Khamsi & Stolpe, 2006). Building on these ideas, the central research problematique I'm seeking to answer is whether the concept of history politics is studied and whether some sort of global convergence in the curricula contents can be detected. 

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