This article addresses the collective memory of the Holocaust in Denmark. It suggests that narratives about Denmark as a particularly democratic nation generate a national bias, which may impede the understanding of the Holocaust as a transnational event and the development of an intercultural and analytical approach to Holocaust education. Through the lenses of Jan Assmann’s theory of communicative and cultural memory and based on interviews with 25 informants, the article explores how the didactic practices of Danish history teachers intermingle with the communicative memory of the students’ families and social networks to stabilize the canonized narrative of the Denmark as a democratic nation, but also how this narrative might be challenged by drawing on alternative archives.
{"title":"Democracy is opposed to dictatorship: Danish Holocaust memory and the didactic practices of Danish history teachers","authors":"M. Lytje","doi":"10.52289/hej10.109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.109","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the collective memory of the Holocaust in Denmark. It suggests that narratives about Denmark as a particularly democratic nation generate a national bias, which may impede the understanding of the Holocaust as a transnational event and the development of an intercultural and analytical approach to Holocaust education. Through the lenses of Jan Assmann’s theory of communicative and cultural memory and based on interviews with 25 informants, the article explores how the didactic practices of Danish history teachers intermingle with the communicative memory of the students’ families and social networks to stabilize the canonized narrative of the Denmark as a democratic nation, but also how this narrative might be challenged by drawing on alternative archives.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46222774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The objective of this article is to identify and compare some features of intertextuality in texts written by secondary school and university students in Chile. Employing the perspective afforded by historical literacy, academic discourse analysis, and expert-novice studies, we analyzed 17 written texts based on questions and historical evidence. The two groups were found to differ in terms of evidence usage and writing quality. Intertextual resources are much more commonly used in university-level expert writing than in secondary education. However, surprisingly, they also appeared in a significant part of the texts produced by secondary school students through elements such as paraphrasis, direct and indirect discourse, and integral and non-integral citations. These findings provide a comparative and situated perspective of historical writing across two educational levels, posing some challenges to literate practices in Historical Education and their modeling for learning.
{"title":"Writing to learn history: intertextuality in secondary school and university students in Chile","authors":"R. Henríquez, Daniela Luque, Mabelin Garrido","doi":"10.52289/hej10.110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.110","url":null,"abstract":"The objective of this article is to identify and compare some features of intertextuality in texts written by secondary school and university students in Chile. Employing the perspective afforded by historical literacy, academic discourse analysis, and expert-novice studies, we analyzed 17 written texts based on questions and historical evidence. The two groups were found to differ in terms of evidence usage and writing quality. Intertextual resources are much more commonly used in university-level expert writing than in secondary education. However, surprisingly, they also appeared in a significant part of the texts produced by secondary school students through elements such as paraphrasis, direct and indirect discourse, and integral and non-integral citations. These findings provide a comparative and situated perspective of historical writing across two educational levels, posing some challenges to literate practices in Historical Education and their modeling for learning.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90872780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the past few years, cultural institutions in the Arab world have increased their interest in introducing history for children through different media channels, including printed magazines. One of these recent publications is Noor Magazine. One feature of Noor Magazine is its focus on the dissemination of Egyptian and Arabic and Islamic history along with its aim to protect children from extremist ideology. The present study aims to analyze the history presented in Noor Magazine in relation to how it may promote social welfare. The results of the present study show a rather great diversity among the included historical topics, which range from ancient Egyptian history to modern history, Arabic and Islamic history, and also world history. In regards to how this history is presented, there is a strong focus on politico-pedagogical, ideological, and moral uses of history, where children are presented with positive and character-building examples from the historical past to serve contemporary interests. A final prominent result is a focus on a traditional grand-narrative approach to the historical past where children are invited to learn about historical facts, rather than critically assess or engage with the historical narratives they are presented with and thus foster inclusive historical culture.
{"title":"Using history to protect children from extremist ideologies: The example of Noor Magazine in Egypt","authors":"Nafesa Elsaied, R. Thorp","doi":"10.52289/hej10.108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.108","url":null,"abstract":"In the past few years, cultural institutions in the Arab world have increased their interest in introducing history for children through different media channels, including printed magazines. One of these recent publications is Noor Magazine. One feature of Noor Magazine is its focus on the dissemination of Egyptian and Arabic and Islamic history along with its aim to protect children from extremist ideology. The present study aims to analyze the history presented in Noor Magazine in relation to how it may promote social welfare. The results of the present study show a rather great diversity among the included historical topics, which range from ancient Egyptian history to modern history, Arabic and Islamic history, and also world history. In regards to how this history is presented, there is a strong focus on politico-pedagogical, ideological, and moral uses of history, where children are presented with positive and character-building examples from the historical past to serve contemporary interests. A final prominent result is a focus on a traditional grand-narrative approach to the historical past where children are invited to learn about historical facts, rather than critically assess or engage with the historical narratives they are presented with and thus foster inclusive historical culture.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49037102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This research scrutinizes the representation of political conflict within contemporary Indonesian history textbooks. The research question is about how the contemporary history textbooks present political conflicts in Indonesian historiography for the younger generation within the frame of political interests, nation-building, and the demand of conflict reconciliation and transformation. Discourse Historical Analysis was used as the research method, particularly in investigating conflict representation from the analysis of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivation, and intensification. The object is Indonesian History textbook used in schools. Data analysis techniques are carried out with discourse historical analysis techniques through analysis of nominations, predicates, arguments, and perspectives. The findings show that historical conflicts in the textbooks are represented in two forms of historical narrative logic. The first is a simple plot and heroism narrative logic to present the conflicts in Indonesia from 1945 to 1965. The second is a cooperative-constructive narrative logic that emphasizes the conflict reconciliation rather than the conflictual process in presenting the conflicts in Indonesia from 1965 to 1998. Those logics consist of the binary system and schizophrenic feeling that shows the confusion of the historians in narrating conflict within the history textbook. Therefore, the chance to take advantage of the textbook in supporting conflict transformation in Indonesia can be hard to achieve. The historian has to find an alternative approach to solve the problem of conflict representation within the Indonesian history textbook. This alternative approach is carried out as an effort to support the transformation of conflict in Indonesian society.
{"title":"Representation of political conflicts in history textbooks","authors":"Djono Djono, Hermanu Joebagio, Nur Fatah Abidin","doi":"10.52289/hej10.107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.107","url":null,"abstract":"This research scrutinizes the representation of political conflict within contemporary Indonesian history textbooks. The research question is about how the contemporary history textbooks present political conflicts in Indonesian historiography for the younger generation within the frame of political interests, nation-building, and the demand of conflict reconciliation and transformation. Discourse Historical Analysis was used as the research method, particularly in investigating conflict representation from the analysis of nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivation, and intensification. The object is Indonesian History textbook used in schools. Data analysis techniques are carried out with discourse historical analysis techniques through analysis of nominations, predicates, arguments, and perspectives. The findings show that historical conflicts in the textbooks are represented in two forms of historical narrative logic. The first is a simple plot and heroism narrative logic to present the conflicts in Indonesia from 1945 to 1965. The second is a cooperative-constructive narrative logic that emphasizes the conflict reconciliation rather than the conflictual process in presenting the conflicts in Indonesia from 1965 to 1998. Those logics consist of the binary system and schizophrenic feeling that shows the confusion of the historians in narrating conflict within the history textbook. Therefore, the chance to take advantage of the textbook in supporting conflict transformation in Indonesia can be hard to achieve. The historian has to find an alternative approach to solve the problem of conflict representation within the Indonesian history textbook. This alternative approach is carried out as an effort to support the transformation of conflict in Indonesian society.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48127928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents findings from the Australian Research Council funded ‘Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling’ project (DISKS) which investigates knowledge-building practices in Australian secondary schools and gave rise to the ground-breaking notions of ‘semantic waves’ (Maton, 2013) and ‘power pedagogy’ (Martin, 2013). In this paper, we investigate student writing in senior secondary school Ancient History. We focus on how students use evidence in their responses to different types of exam questions. Our research question focuses on the extent to which key features of responses to short answer questions appear in extended responses and vice versa. This focus arose through findings that teachers in our study tended to view short answer questions as a ‘mini’ version of extended responses and prepared students accordingly. The similarities and differences are important to identify as extended responses make a significant contribution to the overall exam grade. To better understand the use of evidence in responses to different types of exam questions, the study draws on the dimension of Semantics in Legitimation Code Theory (Maton, 2013). We use the newly developed wording and clausing tools (Doran & Maton, 2018, forthcoming) to analyse the relative strength of context dependence in responses to Year 12 exam questions. Context dependence is particularly relevant to how students use evidence, as it involves relating the concrete particulars of specific historical artefacts, events, and the behaviours of historical figures to more abstract concepts in the discipline of history that are not bound to one historical setting. Our analysis tracks relative shifts in context dependence in student texts to generate semantic profiles of their exam responses. Findings show that although teachers may use the writing of short answer questions as preparation towards the high-stakes extended writing tasks, short answer responses are not ‘minature’ versions of extended responses. We argue that the differences are teachable and propose the use of model texts to make these features visible to students. Beyond the timeframe of secondary school education, learning to use evidence, particularly for the development of arguments, may provide a robust foundation for tertiary level writing tasks where students need to control degrees of context dependence.
{"title":"Using historical evidence: The semantic profiles of Ancient History in senior secondary school","authors":"Lucy Macnaught, Erika Matruglio, Y. Doran","doi":"10.52289/hej10.106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.106","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents findings from the Australian Research Council funded ‘Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling’ project (DISKS) which investigates knowledge-building practices in Australian secondary schools and gave rise to the ground-breaking notions of ‘semantic waves’ (Maton, 2013) and ‘power pedagogy’ (Martin, 2013). In this paper, we investigate student writing in senior secondary school Ancient History. We focus on how students use evidence in their responses to different types of exam questions. Our research question focuses on the extent to which key features of responses to short answer questions appear in extended responses and vice versa. This focus arose through findings that teachers in our study tended to view short answer questions as a ‘mini’ version of extended responses and prepared students accordingly. The similarities and differences are important to identify as extended responses make a significant contribution to the overall exam grade. To better understand the use of evidence in responses to different types of exam questions, the study draws on the dimension of Semantics in Legitimation Code Theory (Maton, 2013). We use the newly developed wording and clausing tools (Doran & Maton, 2018, forthcoming) to analyse the relative strength of context dependence in responses to Year 12 exam questions. Context dependence is particularly relevant to how students use evidence, as it involves relating the concrete particulars of specific historical artefacts, events, and the behaviours of historical figures to more abstract concepts in the discipline of history that are not bound to one historical setting. Our analysis tracks relative shifts in context dependence in student texts to generate semantic profiles of their exam responses. Findings show that although teachers may use the writing of short answer questions as preparation towards the high-stakes extended writing tasks, short answer responses are not ‘minature’ versions of extended responses. We argue that the differences are teachable and propose the use of model texts to make these features visible to students. Beyond the timeframe of secondary school education, learning to use evidence, particularly for the development of arguments, may provide a robust foundation for tertiary level writing tasks where students need to control degrees of context dependence.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42644055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study presents a theory-informed cognition model of causal reasoning in history as a foundation for assessment tasks. This model details the levels of achievement of individuals’ causal reasoning in history and the underlying beliefs and knowledge types that should be mastered to become proficient in this form of reasoning. The model was developed following a design approach. First, a literature study was conducted on the nature of causation in history. This study led to the creation of an initial model that was submitted to two mixed expert panels comprising experts from various backgrounds who critiqued the model. Based on their feedback, the model was further refined. This process resulted in a description of levels of achievement for three dimensions: an epistemic dimension, a second-order knowledge dimension and a first-order knowledge dimension. For each dimension, we identified concrete behaviour and underlying knowledge and beliefs. This cognition model can form the foundation for developing assessment tasks that can help improve students’ causal reasoning in history.
{"title":"Illuminating historical causal reasoning: Designing a theory-informed cognition model for assessment purposes","authors":"Uddhava Das Rozendal, Carla A. M. van Boxtel","doi":"10.52289/hej10.105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.105","url":null,"abstract":"This study presents a theory-informed cognition model of causal reasoning in history as a foundation for assessment tasks. This model details the levels of achievement of individuals’ causal reasoning in history and the underlying beliefs and knowledge types that should be mastered to become proficient in this form of reasoning. The model was developed following a design approach. First, a literature study was conducted on the nature of causation in history. This study led to the creation of an initial model that was submitted to two mixed expert panels comprising experts from various backgrounds who critiqued the model. Based on their feedback, the model was further refined. This process resulted in a description of levels of achievement for three dimensions: an epistemic dimension, a second-order knowledge dimension and a first-order knowledge dimension. For each dimension, we identified concrete behaviour and underlying knowledge and beliefs. This cognition model can form the foundation for developing assessment tasks that can help improve students’ causal reasoning in history.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"101 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76218551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper draws on theories of history and interculturality to explore how a ‘timeline’ and its visual language as a ‘crystallised text’ constructs the linear transmission of ‘whiteness’. When the concept of interculturality or associated term of Intercultural Understanding (ICU) is related to history education, it carries connotations of disruption to dominant narratives. The absence of difference, diversity, and the stories of ‘other’, are explicated in critical inclusions and exclusions of historical content knowledge and the way it is organised within key pedagogies such as ‘chronology’. In addition to focus group interviews with history teachers, the study conducted a textual analysis of a ‘timeline’ used at Year 9 (students aged 13-15) defined here as a ‘Western Drama’, underpinned by linear progress as a basic theme. It was analysed through the lens of a ‘crystal prism’ which conceptually draws on the foundational work of educationalist Jörn Rüsen to explore intersections between history, interculturality and discourse.
{"title":"Linear transmission of “whiteness”: A textual analysis of a year 9 “timeline”","authors":"K. Garrard","doi":"10.52289/hej10.102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.102","url":null,"abstract":"This paper draws on theories of history and interculturality to explore how a ‘timeline’ and its visual language as a ‘crystallised text’ constructs the linear transmission of ‘whiteness’. When the concept of interculturality or associated term of Intercultural Understanding (ICU) is related to history education, it carries connotations of disruption to dominant narratives. The absence of difference, diversity, and the stories of ‘other’, are explicated in critical inclusions and exclusions of historical content knowledge and the way it is organised within key pedagogies such as ‘chronology’. In addition to focus group interviews with history teachers, the study conducted a textual analysis of a ‘timeline’ used at Year 9 (students aged 13-15) defined here as a ‘Western Drama’, underpinned by linear progress as a basic theme. It was analysed through the lens of a ‘crystal prism’ which conceptually draws on the foundational work of educationalist Jörn Rüsen to explore intersections between history, interculturality and discourse.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75666709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article reveals fresh insights into the central, largely unexplored role of journalists as agents of memory for shaping a sense of historical consciousness among public audiences. Journalism has been anchored in the retelling of dramatic stories about heroic characters representing national values. Rüsen (2004) refers to this technique as exemplary narration, which he defines as a type of historical consciousness. This article draws on Rüsen’s theory to provide new views of journalists’ ongoing work in developing the story of an exemplary national hero. Many studies have focused on a single message dominating collective memories. This study shows how journalists helped to create, then disrupt and later reconstruct memories of Australian World War II Prime Minister John Curtin as an example of hope during a major crisis. They developed diverse narratives that portrayed a heroic leader representing national values within the theme of nation building. Recognising exemplary narratives as an ongoing, changing work helps to illuminate journalists’ efforts to orient public views of history that suggest future possibilities.
{"title":"“Here comes John Curtin”: The historical consciousness of a journalists’ hero","authors":"Caryn Coatney","doi":"10.52289/hej10.101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.101","url":null,"abstract":"This article reveals fresh insights into the central, largely unexplored role of journalists as agents of memory for shaping a sense of historical consciousness among public audiences. Journalism has been anchored in the retelling of dramatic stories about heroic characters representing national values. Rüsen (2004) refers to this technique as exemplary narration, which he defines as a type of historical consciousness. This article draws on Rüsen’s theory to provide new views of journalists’ ongoing work in developing the story of an exemplary national hero. Many studies have focused on a single message dominating collective memories. This study shows how journalists helped to create, then disrupt and later reconstruct memories of Australian World War II Prime Minister John Curtin as an example of hope during a major crisis. They developed diverse narratives that portrayed a heroic leader representing national values within the theme of nation building. Recognising exemplary narratives as an ongoing, changing work helps to illuminate journalists’ efforts to orient public views of history that suggest future possibilities.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87367650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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 perceived to be shaped within the classroom. This makes the historical narratives that future history teachers mobilise of particular interest to researchers. This paper draws on research from the Remembering Australia’s Past (RAP) project conducted with pre-service History teachers from the University of Newcastle, who studied history at school during the period of the ‘history wars’ (Clark, 2008). Drawing on a methodology developed by Létourneau (2006), 97 pre-service History teachers (consisting of 27 males and 70 females, the overwhelming majority of whom identified as either or both European and Anglo-Celtic) were asked to “Tell us the history of Australia in your own words.” The participants were given 45 minutes to write their personal account of the nation’s past. The analysis of the stories of the nation collected from the pre-service teachers, reveal that they have largely adopted popular discourses circulating in contemporary Australian society, demonstrating that our pre-service History teachers are successful consumers of public history in general, and the dominant discourses of Australia’s past in particular; and that given the opportunity, it is these dominant discourses that they readily mobilise. This underscores the importance of engaging public history directly in the classroom, in order to assist pre-service history teachers to deconstruct the narratives ‘truths’ they have inherited and taken for granted.
{"title":"The History teacher as public historian","authors":"R. Parkes, D. Donnelly, Heather Sharp","doi":"10.52289/hej10.103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.103","url":null,"abstract":"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 perceived to be shaped within the classroom. This makes the historical narratives that future history teachers mobilise of particular interest to researchers. This paper draws on research from the Remembering Australia’s Past (RAP) project conducted with pre-service History teachers from the University of Newcastle, who studied history at school during the period of the ‘history wars’ (Clark, 2008). Drawing on a methodology developed by Létourneau (2006), 97 pre-service History teachers (consisting of 27 males and 70 females, the overwhelming majority of whom identified as either or both European and Anglo-Celtic) were asked to “Tell us the history of Australia in your own words.” The participants were given 45 minutes to write their personal account of the nation’s past. The analysis of the stories of the nation collected from the pre-service teachers, reveal that they have largely adopted popular discourses circulating in contemporary Australian society, demonstrating that our pre-service History teachers are successful consumers of public history in general, and the dominant discourses of Australia’s past in particular; and that given the opportunity, it is these dominant discourses that they readily mobilise. This underscores the importance of engaging public history directly in the classroom, in order to assist pre-service history teachers to deconstruct the narratives ‘truths’ they have inherited and taken for granted.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90689565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
At a time when society is characterised by a polarised social climate, it is teachers who need to contribute to a nuanced orientation of the world. This article looks at the ways historical narratives can be used as a collective didactic resource in the historical-cultural context of contemporary society. Its purpose is to analyse the didactic function that underlies historical narratives in relation to students’ understanding of society. Our study builds on three focus group interviews with five upper-secondary-school teachers of history and social studies. The method used is the stimulated-recall interview whereby teachers talk about various teaching situations. Four uses of historical narratives were identified, each with its own didactic function. The first is the use of the “challenging” narrative, the function of which is to disrupt and realign students’ understanding of society. The second is the use of the “engaging” narrative: its function is to involve and activate students in their present understanding of society. The third is the use of the “unifying” narrative, the function of which is to bridge contradictions within society. The fourth and final narrative is the “complementing” narrative, whose function it is to broaden and open students’ understanding of society. To address students in terms of their present understanding of society, teachers employ these four narratives as didactic resources. In such a way, these uses of historical narratives tie in with the teachers’ overall aim to contribute an alternative perspective to students’ current understanding of society. As such, the results reveal the general theoretical knowledge teachers have relating to their profession.
{"title":"The didactic function of narratives: Teacher discussions on the use of challenging, engaging, unifying, and complementing narratives in the history classroom","authors":"Mikaela Berg, A. Persson","doi":"10.52289/hej10.104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.52289/hej10.104","url":null,"abstract":"At a time when society is characterised by a polarised social climate, it is teachers who need to contribute to a nuanced orientation of the world. This article looks at the ways historical narratives can be used as a collective didactic resource in the historical-cultural context of contemporary society. Its purpose is to analyse the didactic function that underlies historical narratives in relation to students’ understanding of society. Our study builds on three focus group interviews with five upper-secondary-school teachers of history and social studies. The method used is the stimulated-recall interview whereby teachers talk about various teaching situations. Four uses of historical narratives were identified, each with its own didactic function. The first is the use of the “challenging” narrative, the function of which is to disrupt and realign students’ understanding of society. The second is the use of the “engaging” narrative: its function is to involve and activate students in their present understanding of society. The third is the use of the “unifying” narrative, the function of which is to bridge contradictions within society. The fourth and final narrative is the “complementing” narrative, whose function it is to broaden and open students’ understanding of society. To address students in terms of their present understanding of society, teachers employ these four narratives as didactic resources. In such a way, these uses of historical narratives tie in with the teachers’ overall aim to contribute an alternative perspective to students’ current understanding of society. As such, the results reveal the general theoretical knowledge teachers have relating to their profession.","PeriodicalId":53851,"journal":{"name":"Historical Encounters-A Journal of Historical Consciousness Historical Cultures and History Education","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78125619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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