In this master’s thesis, we explore the topic of the »Erasure« (izbris) and its presence within the Slovenian educational system. The Erasure, which in 1992 affected 25,671 people, represents one of the most severe violations of human rights in the history of independent Slovenia. In the theoretical part, we examine the concepts of nationalism, citizenship, the creation of the “Other,” and the influence of national policies and ideas on the formation of belonging, exclusion, and collective memory. Furthermore, we present the historical context of the Erasure, its consequences for individuals and the community, and the mechanisms through which society legitimized silence and oblivion.
The empirical part is based on a mixed-methods approach, which included interviews with people who have direct experience of the Erasure as well as with advocates and individuals with indirect experience of it. Based on the conversations with advocates, we found that the inclusion of the Erasure in curricula and teaching materials remains a current and unresolved issue. Therefore, we decided to explore this area in more depth in the second part of the research. Additionally, the thesis includes a survey conducted among teachers, professors, and students, as well as an analysis of curricula, textbooks, and other educational materials.
The findings show that the topic of the Erasure is almost entirely absent from the educational sphere — it is mentioned only marginally, without context, without personal stories, and without critical reflection. Teachers and professors do include the topic in their teaching, but it is often merely mentioned and not addressed in depth. Students in selected social science fields are mostly familiar with the topic, but they assess their knowledge as basic. Nevertheless, the research highlights positive examples of teachers and professors who consciously incorporate the topic, often in collaboration with NGOs and people with experience of the Erasure, demonstrating that change can begin within a single classroom.
Conversations with those who were erased reveal feelings of humiliation and loss, but above all, a struggle for recognition, perseverance, and solidarity. The silence of the educational sphere mirrors a broader social pattern: the Erasure was first administrative, then mediated through the media, and today it has become pedagogical. The thesis warns that without the systematic inclusion of such experiences, schools cannot truly become spaces of understanding — they remain mechanisms of exclusion, silence, and forgetting.
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