Special Issue "History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation"
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A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2012)
Special Issue Editors
Guest Editor
Dr. Robert J. Parkes
School of Education, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia
Website: http://www.newcastle.edu.au/staff/research-profile/Robert_Parkes/
E-Mail: Robert.Parkes@newcastle.edu.au
Phone: +61 02 498 54080
Fax: +61 02 492 17887
Interests: history education; philosophy of history; historical consciousness; curriculum theory; curriculum history and politics; disciplines, pedagogy and agency; pedagogy as social and political practice (bildung); poststructuralism; postcolonialism; postmodernism
Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Monika Vinterek
1 Academy of Education and Humanities, Dalarna University, 791 88 Falun, Sweden
2 Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå Univerity, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Website: http://www.edusci.umu.se/english/about-the-department/staff/view-person/?uid=movi0001&guise=employee160153
E-Mail: mvn@du.se
Phone: +46 0 23 77 8285
Interests: general pedagogy/didactics; history education; history textbooks/texts and other teaching resources; students reading habits and their formation; democracy education; individualization in an educational context; classroom management and instruction; commercial history (and its didactics); phenomenological perspectives
Special Issue Information
Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first couple of issues the Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts.
English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.
Published Papers (8 papers)
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Received: 16 March 2012 / Accepted: 20 March 2012 / Published: 23 March 2012
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Abstract: 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. [...]
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Received: 23 August 2012; in revised form: 8 October 2012 / Accepted: 15 October 2012 / Published: 22 October 2012
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Abstract: The article looks at the perspectives on history amongst adolescent children of different backgrounds living in inner-cities in England and builds on previous research in this area. The current article presents exploratory research which focuses on the views of particular groups of adolescents, namely those from long established settled immigrant communities; those from more recently arrived migrant and immigrant communities; and those from white indigenous communities. An inclusive, perspectival and dynamic approach towards history education is outlined and the underlying view of knowledge and implications for pedagogy of this approach discussed alongside comparisons with other approaches towards the subject. The exploratory work and analysis is used to generate a research agenda through which history for a super diverse society can be developed. Although the research was conducted in the English context, the issues it raises are pertinent elsewhere.
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Received: 9 August 2012; in revised form: 9 October 2012 / Accepted: 18 October 2012 / Published: 31 October 2012
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Abstract: The success of discipline-based teaching requires an interplay between substantive and procedural knowledge. In Finland, disciplinary thinking was included in the National Core Curriculum and in the final assessment criteria a decade ago, which meant a change in history teaching. The outcome of this change is examined in the article with the help of a national-level history test that was conducted in 2011 among 16-year-old Finns. In the test, the adolescents fared moderately well in tasks involving substantive knowledge but more poorly in tasks which measured the mastering of procedural knowledge. In particular, the interplay between these proved to be difficult for the students. The students’ knowledge was found to correspond with the earlier curriculum rather than the objectives of the present one, revealing that not all of the teachers were teaching in accordance with the present demands.
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Received: 8 November 2012 / Accepted: 21 November 2012 / Published: 23 November 2012
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Abstract: This article critiques popular assumptions that underlie the ongoing politicisation of school history curriculum as an agent of social identity and behaviour. It raises some key research questions which need further investigation and suggests a potential methodology for establishing evidence-based understanding of the relationship between history education, historical consciousness, identity politics and civil discord. The proposed methodology is based on comparative research of the lived experience of history education and social disposition in two generations in three modern democratic nations each of which represent in their recent histories different models of social integration. The article suggests that without such evidence-based theorisation of the relationship between historical consciousness and social identity, the evolution of history curricula will remain vulnerable to the ongoing incursions of hostile but poorly conceived political rhetoric.
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Received: 13 November 2012; in revised form: 23 November 2012 / Accepted: 30 November 2012 / Published: 4 December 2012
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Abstract: Based on a three year action research project, this study examines one strand of that research, namely the impact that ‘purpose’, i.e. exploring the range of rationales for studying a subject, has in helping white trainee teachers embrace cultural and ethnic diversity within their teaching. Through ‘purpose’ trainees explored different reasons why history should be taught (and by implication what content should be taught and how it should be taught) and the relationship of these reasons to diversity. Focusing on ‘purpose’ appears to have a positive impact on many trainees from white, mono-ethnic backgrounds, enabling them to bring diversity into the school curriculum, in this case history teaching. It offers one way to counter concerns about issues of ‘whiteness’ in the teaching profession and by teaching a more relevant curriculum has a potential positive impact on the achievement of students from minority ethnic backgrounds.
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Received: 29 September 2012; in revised form: 19 November 2012 / Accepted: 26 November 2012 / Published: 5 December 2012
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Abstract: A growing consensus in the history education community supports the idea that the discipline of history provides the best opportunity for moving beyond a “nation-building” or “skills-based” approach to teaching about the past. The social and temporal characteristics of the discipline of history mean such conclusions have important implications for teachers of history who must engage with that academic discipline when designing lessons for their pupils. In order to understand the process by which such a curriculum approach might be effected, it is necessary to posit a relationship between history teachers and the discipline of history that rests upon a theoretical model in which history teachers are understood both to represent and embody the discipline of history when teaching their pupils.
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Received: 24 September 2012; in revised form: 23 October 2012 / Accepted: 28 November 2012 / Published: 10 December 2012
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Abstract: This article presents the Quebec ministry of education’s (MELS) strategy for diversifying the national historical narrative that is transmitted in the province’s History and Citizenship Education program as well as the manner in which Francophone national history teachers put this strategy into practice. In bringing research on their social representations and historical consciousness together, this paper looks at some of the main challenges that these teachers face when specifically harmonizing two of history teaching’s central social functions for catering to narrative diversity. When seeking to adequately balance the transmission of a national identity reference framework with the development of autonomous critical thinking skills, it becomes clear that these teachers’ general quest for positivist-type, true and objective visions of the past as well as their overall attachment to the main markers of their group’s collective memory for knowing and acting Québécois impede them from fully embracing the diversification of the province’s historical narrative. The article ends by raising some important questions regarding the relevance of assisting teachers to authentically develop their own voice and vision for harmonizing the two aforementioned functions of history teaching and for being answerable to the decisions they make when articulating and acting upon such beliefs in class.
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Received: 8 October 2012; in revised form: 7 December 2012 / Accepted: 10 December 2012 / Published: 14 December 2012
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Abstract: The article examines the enduring popularity of a form of school history which is based predominantly on the idea that the transmission of a positive story about the national past will inculcate in young people a sense of loyalty to the state; a reassuring and positive sense of identity and belonging; and a sense of social solidarity with fellow citizens. England is one of the countries which has to at least some extent moved away from this model of school history; but the past few years have seen suggestions for a move back to a history curriculum which focuses predominantly on the transmission of ‘Our Island Story’; and which presents a positive rendering of that story. The history curriculum in England is currently under review; and public pronouncements by politicians; academic historians and newspaper editorials suggest strong pressures towards a restoration of what is often termed ‘traditional’ school history; which was prevalent in English schools before the advent of what has been termed ‘New history’ in the 1970s. The paper questions some of the arguments which have been put forward in order to justify a return to a history curriculum based on a positive and unproblematic narrative of the national story and suggests that such a course of action is based on some unexamined assumptions and a limited understanding of pedagogy and learning. The final section of the paper outlines several weaknesses and flaws in the arguments for reverting to a traditional (i.e. ‘nation-based’ and celebratory) form of school history; and some of the dangers inherent in such a project.
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Last update: 2 October 2012
