History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation
1
Guest Editor of Education (Basel), School of Education, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia
2
Guest Editor of Education (Basel), Academy of Education and Humanities, Dalarna University, 791 88 Falun, Sweden
3
Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå Univerity, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Educ. Sci. 2012, 2(2), 54-55; https://doi.org/10.3390/educ2020054
Submission received: 16 March 2012
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Accepted: 20 March 2012
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Published: 23 March 2012
(This article belongs to the Special Issue History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation)
The field of curriculum studies has become increasingly sensitive to the “effects of global flows, transnational connections, and transcultural interactions” ([1], p. 43), and an international dialogue has begun to take shape between the European bildung-influenced tradition of Didaktiks and the Anglo-American psychologised Curriculum Studies tradition. As it stands, the dialogue has concentrated on a comparative analysis of the traditions at the level of general curriculum theory or Allgemeine Didaktik (see for example, [2]), and has rarely, if ever, drilled down into an area of subject-specific pedagogy or fachdidaktiks. This special issue seeks to address this directly, by encouraging a dialogue between various regional and national traditions of history education or Geschichtsdidaktik.
History education, tethered to its national milieu, but increasingly confronted by cultural diversity, presents an interesting challenge for the furthering of a dialogue between different curricular and pedagogic traditions. Educators have long been aware of the role that schools, and specific school subjects, play in nation-building, including the ways in which national consciousness is shaped within the classroom [3]. Inherently political, histories are frequently studied and taught in national categories [4]; and history as a school subject is regularly an area of public debate, government disquiet, and a site of struggle over collective memory and cultural literacy. The emergence and recognition of counter-memories from indigenous, ethnic and national minorities, and sometimes regional neighbours, have interrupted the incontestability of the nation-building project, and prompted re-evaluations of the purpose and practice of History education.
Contributors are invited to submit papers that explore how history education or Geschichtsdidaktik should respond, is responding, or has responded, to the problem of narrative diversity and the nation-building project. Studies that explore insights from a specific tradition of history education, and those that engage in comparative work across traditions are both welcome. While dialogue between historically and culturally distinctive traditions may be difficult, we believe it holds promise for the possibility of new insights, and presents opportunities for exciting transformations.
Please see website for submission details: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/education/sections/.
References
- Miller, J. Curriculum studies and transnational flows and mobilities: Feminist autobiographical perspectives. In International Conversations on Curriculum Studies: Subject, Society and Curriculum; Ropo, E., Autio, T., Eds.; Sense Publishers: Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2009; pp. 43–70. [Google Scholar]
- Didaktik and/or Curriculum: An International Dialogue; Gundem, B.B.; Hopmann, S. (Eds.) Peter Lang: New York, NY, USA, 2002.
- Green, B.; Reid, J.-A. Constructing the teacher and schooling the nation. Hist. Educ. Rev. 2002, 31(2), 32–40. [Google Scholar]
- Curthoys, A. Cultural history and the nation. In Cultural History in Australia; Tiq, H.-M., White, R., Eds.; UNSW Press: Sydney, Australia, 2003; pp. 22–37. [Google Scholar]
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
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MDPI and ACS Style
Parkes, R.J.; Vinterek, M. History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation. Educ. Sci. 2012, 2, 54-55. https://doi.org/10.3390/educ2020054
AMA Style
Parkes RJ, Vinterek M. History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation. Education Sciences. 2012; 2(2):54-55. https://doi.org/10.3390/educ2020054
Chicago/Turabian StyleParkes, Robert J., and Monika Vinterek. 2012. "History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation" Education Sciences 2, no. 2: 54-55. https://doi.org/10.3390/educ2020054
