This article studies processes, policies and practices for geography and
history education in Estonia. The analysis covers the societal
transformation period in an ethnically divided society from the 1980s to
the early 2000s characterized by Estonia’s disintegration from the
Soviet Union towards the integration to the European Union and NATO.
Geography and history education curricula, textbooks and related
policies and practices promoted a particular national time-space by
supporting the belongingness of Estonia into Europe, rejecting
connections towards Russia and suggesting a division between ethnic
Estonians and ethnically non-Estonian residents of Estonia. In geography
and history textbooks, the Russian-speaking population, comprising then
almost a third of the entire population of Estonia, was divided into
non-loyal, semi-loyal and loyal groups of whom only the latter could be
integrated in the Estonian time-space. The formal education policies for
geography and history supported Estonia’s disintegration from the
Soviet past and pawed way to integration to the western political and
economic structures. However, challenging market and sensitive cultural
contexts created peculiar, alternative and sometimes opposing local
practices in geography and history education.