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Rethinking Multiperspectivity as a Logic of Perspective Selection in History Education
Abstract
ABSTRACT: Debates on multiperspectivity in history education are commonly framed as an addition of perspectives intended to counter the dominance of a single narrative. This framing rests on a quantitative epistemology that treats perspectives as discrete, countable, and additive units. This article advances an epistemological critique of that quantitative reading and argues that it reproduces the very hegemony it seeks to counter, because it conceals the selection apparatus that determines which perspectives are counted. Using a critical review of the history education literature, collective memory studies, and historiography, the study shifts the object of analysis from the number of perspectives to the logic governing their selection. Two logics are distinguished conceptually. A pluralist-additive logic adds voices for the sake of representational completeness. A critical-power logic makes the selection apparatus and archival asymmetry an object of historical reasoning. The central claim is that a pluralist logic indifferent to power produces false balance, that is, a formal equation of victims and perpetrators that obscures the asymmetry of evidence and power between them. A finding on one 2013 Curriculum eleventh-grade history textbook, which records approximately 10% multiperspective content, is reread as a symptom of a decorative pluralist logic rather than a mere shortage of quantity. Reforming history education, therefore, needs to target the logic of perspective selection and the literacy of power rather than the addition of a diversity quota.
KEY WORDS: Multiperspectivity; Perspective Selection; Power Asymmetry; Collective Memory; History Education.
About the Authors: Andromeda Aderoben, M.Pd. is a Student of Doctoral Program in History Education FPIPS UPI (Faculty of Social Studies Education, Indonesia University of Education) in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia; Dr. Andi Suwirta, M.Hum. is a Senior Lecturer at the Study Program of History Education FPIPS UPI in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. Authors e-mail address: @andromedaaderben@upi.edu and suciandi@upi.edu
Suggested Citation: Aderoben, Andromeda & Andi Suwirta. (2026). “Rethinking Multiperspectivity as a Logic of Perspective Selection in History Education” in EDUCARE: International Journal for Educational Studies, Volume 19(1), August, pp.27-36. Bandung, Indonesia: Minda Masagi Suci Foundation and ASPENSI with ISSN 1979-7877 (print) and ISSN 2621-587X (online).
Article Timeline: Accepted (June 15, 2026); Revised (July 27, 2026); and Published (August 31, 2026).
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2121/edu-ijes.v19i1.1569
DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.2121/edu-ijes.v19i1.1569.g1278
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