Research trends in globalisation and historiography of national leaders: symbolic representations in school textbooks

History teaching is a multilayered and multifaceted process. Of course, as we noted earlier, the same observation has often been made of history textbook development. These related observations are of great significance to researchers and practitioners alike because both groups are aware of how a history textbook can so often become the default curriculum in the classroom – meaning the teacher patterns her course syllabus to mirror the scope and design of the textbook (Freebody 2007). With this understanding, the authors of our chapters undertook the task of investigating the nature and influence of heroification – particularly of national, political, and military figures – on history education (Zajda 2014, 2015; Lovorn and Tsyrlina-Spady 2015; Tsyrlina-Spady and Lovorn 2015)