Decolonizing History Education Critical Discourse Analysis of School History Textbooks in Kazakhstan

Abstract

Since independence, the Kazakhstani government has been actively rewriting and republishing history textbooks and redesigning history education programs to help revive the traditions, culture, and identity of the Kazakh population (Deyoung & Balzhan, 1997). However, history textbooks still face ongoing challenges in reassessing Kazakhstan’s historiography, as many historical interpretations remain influenced by soviet narratives (Burkhanov & Sharipova, 2024). The purpose of this study is to critically examine how Kazakhstan’s school history textbooks construct historical narratives with a particular focus on the transformation of colonial and decolonial discourses. Using Norman Fairclough's (2013) three dimensions of Critical Discourse Analysis, the study seeks to investigate how language framing and omissions shape the depiction of Kazakhstan’s past. Additionally, the study seeks to explore the implications of these representations for decolonizing historical knowledge and a more inclusive understanding of national identity in education. Data collected from the secondary school history textbook for Grade 7 (updated in 2025) in Kazakhstan. The findings section covered the analysis with four tables, such as lexical choice, nominalization, active, passive voice, and transitivity. These findings revealed four dominant representational patterns: the Russian Empire as a central imperial authority; the Cossacks as a military social group that served the Russian Empire and as part of a group in the Russian Army in the Kazakhstan region; the Kazakhs positioned as a collective social group; and Kazakh leaders as individualized political actors playing different roles in their opposition to tsarist administration. In addition, these present findings reveal that historical events are processes that seem inevitable and natural. This study will be beneficial for school history textbook studies, history teachers, and textbook writers. The research highlights how language shapes knowledge and identity, offering guidance for more balanced and decolonial revisions. Another one is that the study contributes to the literature on decolonization.