Recontextualising history in primary school: discourses in the classroom

Employing Bernstein’s (1990, 2000) concepts of recontextualisation and pedagogic discourse, this case study aims to identify types of discourse and forms of knowledge in primary history lessons, and to explain the observations through teachers’ thinking. Two Finnish primary teachers were observed for nine or ten consecutive history lessons and interviewed twice following the observation period. The analysis is based on field notes, classroom materials and interview data. The discourses in the classrooms are discussed through the instructional aim of historical literacy. The results show that although the two teachers had different discursive profiles, substantive knowledge took precedence over procedural knowledge and second-order concepts. Students’ experiences and historical culture, when present, were not deconstructed through concepts and strategies specific to history. Thus, the discursive space in both classrooms was incompatible with that required for promoting historical literacy. In the interviews, both teachers expressed their unwillingness to skip topics in the textbook, which may have contributed to the predominant role of substantive knowledge. One teacher’s planning and implementation process indicated that active and intentional recontextualisation had taken place. These results suggest that teacher education should equip primary teachers with more procedural knowledge and the means to deconstruct historical culture and students’ everyday experiences.