The “Home” and “Foreign”, Pole and Non-Pole in Selected Compulsory and Supplementary Texts in the Core Curriculum for Primary School (Grades 7–8)

Abstract

The current core curriculum for primary school classes was the subject of many critical statements by educators and teachers. Its incompatibility with the needs and expectations of contemporary socio-cultural reality is also connected with the Polonocentric vision of the world embedded in it, based on the exclusion of what is foreign, different, what goes beyond the traditionally understood identity discourse based on the uncritical affirmation of Polishness in opposition to what is Europeanness is becoming synonymous with the idea of being open to cultural diversity and axiological pluralism. The existence of this direction of thinking is revealed in the arbitrary selection of compulsory school reading in primary schools, especially in grades 7–8. Critical analysis of this list shows a picture that embodies the aforementioned cultural tendencies, which are implemented on the educational level in the core curriculum, which is crucial for the education system. This text exemplifies these educational trends based on the analysis of the reading material to be discussed in the highest grades of primary school.