ABSTRACT In the context of legacies of mass violence and political oppression during the recent past in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia), history teaching is seen as an important factor in building sustainable peace and democracy. Caught between various national and international policy actors, history teaching has been subject to frequently overlapping and inconsistent reforms. Despite prolific research on history education in the Western Balkans teachers’ experiences of history education and its transformation have largely remained unexamined. This paper explores history teachers’ perceptions of and approaches to the topics they find difficult to teach. The paper draws on data gathered through an online survey that yielded 793 responses from history teachers and 14 regional history education expert interviews. The results show which topics teachers consider difficult to teach in six Western Balkan countries, and how certain individual characteristics (e.g. religiousness and level of education) and school characteristics (e.g. urban or rural and a monocultural or multicultural environment) link to the roles teachers assume when teaching controversial topics.

中文翻译：

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课堂上的争论：西巴尔干的历史教师如何处理棘手的话题？

摘要 在西巴尔干地区（阿尔巴尼亚、波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那、科索沃、北马其顿、黑山和塞尔维亚）近期遗留的大规模暴力和政治压迫的背景下，历史教学被视为建设可持续和平与和平的重要因素。民主。历史教学夹在各种国家和国际政策参与者之间，经常受到重叠和不一致的改革。尽管在西巴尔干地区对历史教育进行了大量研究，但教师的历史教育经验及其转型在很大程度上仍未得到检验。本文探讨了历史教师对他们认为难以教授的主题的看法和方法。该论文利用了通过在线调查收集的数据，该调查产生了历史教师的 793 份回复和 14 名地区历史教育专家访谈。结果显示了在六个西巴尔干国家，教师认为哪些主题难以教授，以及某些个人特征（例如宗教信仰和教育水平）和学校特征（例如城市或农村以及单一文化或多元文化环境）如何与教师所承担的角色相关联在教授有争议的话题时。