Today history teaching in democratic nations is often expected to develop students’ critical and multilayered thinking and commitment to democratic values and human rights; yet History teaching has also served as an instrument for undemocratic and nationalist ideas (Rüsen, 2004; Karlsson, 2017). While notions of democratic citizenship and associated values can be an aim of history teaching, the subject does not in and of itself guarantee that democracy will be taught—or learnt. There is a need to scientifically explore the interlink between historical consciousness and democratic consciousness from an international perspective in more depth. Democratic consciousness is here understood as ideas about democracy expressed through a complex set of historically loaded values, ideas, and practices expressed through language (Edling et. al. 2022), and analysed through a discourse-historical approach (Wodak, 2015).

The aim of the panel presentation with accompanying discussion is to provide an overview as well as a deeper understanding of intersections of historical and democratic consciousness expressed in school curriculums (especially through official knowledge documents such as syllabuses) focusing on the subject History in a number of countries on four continents—selected for their diverse trajectories of democratic developments and political cultures.

Drawing on comparative education (Kazamias 2009; Kallo 2012; Jokilaetal 2015), curriculum theory (Englund, 1989), and critical discourse analysis (Wodak, 2011) the content in the curriculum documents is approached as texts that are infused with historically tinted ideas that influence present and future orientations and actions. The mode of relating to temporality (that is, historical consciousness), and commitment to democracy as a complex set of historically loaded values, ideas, and practices (democratic consciousness) is explored in-depth, thus providing with a nuanced road-map of democratic ideas in history education as well as their directions for educational practice in a variety of countries.