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History is often deemed essential to the construction of national identity. However, the issue of how refugee communities construct their national identity and the image of their historical legacy via the teaching of history is an understudied one. As such, this study examines the role of history teaching in the construction of national identity in the context of Tibetan refugee schools in India. By employing critical discourse analysis of the primary-level social studies textbooks with a focus on power and representation, this paper analyses the key features of nation-building project of the Tibetan exiles, and how nation-building project manifests itself in the curricular and pedagogical practices of social studies education. The findings show presence of an overriding political and cultural agenda in the social studies textbooks. The paper argues that refugees and other communities in diaspora live in an unstable socio-political climate where the use of history for the construction of collective national identity is even more pertinent and urgent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The curriculum is often the target of reform and governments use a range of accountability measures to ensure compliance. This paper examines the decisions schools in England make regarding history provision, in a period of curriculum change, and the potential consequences of these decisions. Drawing on a large, longitudinal data set, of primary and secondary material, the study examines the relationship between the number of students entered for public examination in history in England and a range of situated and material factors. The data suggest that particular measures of accountability are effective in shaping school decision-making, but the type of school, socio-economic nature of the school intake, and students' prior attainment are also important factors in understanding the decisions made. This does result in an inequitable access to history education; this inequity exists between different types of schools and socio-economic areas, and is also evident within schools where students with low prior attainment are less likely to be allowed to study history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the development of Western historiography as an academic field in China is important for advancing and deepening the development of this field. The historical development of the study of Western historiography in China can be roughly divided into three phases: (1) The emergent phase spanned from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its primary achievements were laying a foundation for the next stage of the academic field and establishing a historical precedent. (2) The establishment phase in the early 1960s consisted of innovative contributions to the establishment of the academic field of Western historiography by an older generation of scholars. (3) The development phase from the 1970s saw a new era of far-ranging growth for the study of Western historiography in China which left a deep impact. Looking to the future, the outlook for the study of Western historiography in China is bright, but still needs continuous expansion and innovation to achieve new progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History teaching and learning make intellectual demands on both teachers and students, requiring them to travel back in time and engage with complex issues and distant lifestyles. History education research advocates the use of approaches that portray History as an intellectually engaging subject but the application of cognitive research to History has not received much attention in recent times. This article focuses on the role of cognitive psychology in the teaching and learning of History and argues for a linkage between Piaget's concept of intellectual development and History pedagogy. The article suggests that even though the application of substantive and procedural concepts are necessary for attaining historical understanding, thoughtful consideration of the cognitive processes of knowledge construction is essential for progression in thinking and understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern historical research challenges religious education by undermining the arguments in favour of the existence of a supreme power who is responsible for patterns of reality. This article explores how the new generation of history textbooks of Religious Zionism, one of Israel's ideologically most influential populations, cope with this dilemma. Two international models of faith-based history teaching that we characterize the 'national-religious' and the 'divine', analyse the novelty and singularity of these textbooks. The analysis reveals that the new Religious-Zionist textbooks surmount the gap between faith in divine responsibility for human events and professional research and analysis of these events by creating a hybrid learning process that has two parallel interpretive dimensions. The first presents a historical process that remains formally true to the principles of reason and the discipline, although segueing to tendentious content at sensitive junctions. The second explores a metahistorical dimension in which these principles are bracketed with and subjugated to a theological, metaphysical, interpretation of history. The findings concerning both the two international models and the unique historiosophical stance of the Religious-Zionist textbooks provide fertile soil for future research on faith-based history teaching in a variety of theological, political, and social contexts and circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors discuss how to explore the agency of ordinary citizens using local institutions to combat Jim Crow segregation laws during Freedom Summer. Primary sources from Miami (OH) University website about Freedom Summer and Susan Goldman Rubin's trade book ground the inquiry. Through the series of activities discussed, middle school students utilize the steps of the Inquiry Arc in the C3 Framework to analyze primary and secondary sources about Freedom Summer to determine how ordinary citizens took civic action to address the economic, social, cultural, and political inequalities of Jim Crow segregation laws. These experiences equip students with the knowledge and skills to be change agents in their own communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study presents an example of how a historical contextualization framework can be used to develop and implement a lesson unit on Cold War events. The effects of the lesson unit on students' ability to perform historical contextualization are explored in a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test design with an experimental (n = 96) and a control (n = 73) condition. The students' answers on a historical contextualization test were analysed. The results indicate that students in the experimental condition increased their ability to perform historical contextualization and displayed less present-oriented perspectives in their answers compared to students in the control condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores an underlying tension between two understandings of historical consciousness. On one hand, the concept is often perceived as a specific ability to historicize the world and thus appears as a modern cultural achievement. On the other hand, it is also conceptualized as an anthropological universal as the ability to make sense out of time seems to be a basic feature in all human societies. The basic aim here is to analyse both positions as theoretical constructs with implications for educational research and curriculum making. In order to frame how these ontological positions on historical consciousness have consequences at an operational level, the Goertz framework for complex concepts is used. This framework is applied to two previous studies that explored students' historical consciousness. The methodical assumption is that both the studies serve as exemplary indicators for the two different positions. My analysis of the studies shows how their conceptualization of historical consciousness restricts how they define their research interests. In the concluding part of this article, the analysis is used as a stepping stone to a broad and normative discussion on how historical consciousness could influence history education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including cross-Atlantic debate on historical consciousness and its relevance to history education; and how historical consciousness is an important part of several ongoing conversations.

Histories have long been written on a variety of scales. Arguably, all historians shift scales within their works, and some historians have changed scales quite dramatically across their works too. There has been little reflection or discussion, however, on scale shifting in history making, including on why it is done and how it has been received. History theorist Marnie Hughes-Warrington explores the nature and purpose of scale shifting in this interview with two distinguished historians who have written on the biggest and the smallest scales, David Christian and Merry Weisner-Hanks. Christian, the founder of big history, and Wiesner-Hanks, a trailblazing gender world historian, reflect on the scale shifts across their careers. They explore whether little histories always turn into bigger ones, rather than the other way around, the ethics of scaling history up and down, and whether teaching is a key driver in establishing new approaches to scale in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed at exploring how teachers make curricular-instructional decisions regarding teaching contemporary controversial public issues in Taiwan (e.g., national identity, sovereignty, and ethnic issues). Using a case study design, this study documents how six social studies teachers make curricular decisions about whether to teach controversial public issues or not, and how teachers develop the curriculum and pedagogy for teaching controversial public issues. Findings illuminate that teachers' personal practical knowledge – i.e., their family background and teacher preparation – act as important factors that influence their curricular decision-making. In addition, teachers' curricular-instructional decisions on whether to teach controversial public issues or not reflects an increased autonomy and authority in Taiwan. In sum, this study, refracted through the national context of Taiwan, provides insights into the possibilities that exist within Taiwanese teachers' curricular-instructional decisions and increased autonomy and authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we analyse 126 secondary pupils' responses to national test questions designed to make them think and care about the history of national minorities in Sweden. Using a mixed method approach we find that historical thinking and empathy as caring are tightly interlinked in the responses. In particular, the cognitive act of corroborating historical sources about the treatment of minorities is linked to historical empathy as caring – while sourcing seems like a separate process. We also find that pupils struggle to link the past to the present and the future more than they do with sourcing and corroboration. Engaging with the past of discrimination of minorities makes pupils take critical positions beyond established dimensions of historical thinking. Our findings highlight how we need to better understand how to scaffold pupils' practical knowledge, skills and attitudes in ideologically and emotionally charged issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses history teaching in South Sudanese secondary schools and focuses on the interplay of local context, curricular intentions, and teachers' agency. Drawing on ethnographic data, the article focuses on how the main objectives of national unity and critical thinking are enacted by teachers in the classroom. Through theories of history teaching and learning in divided societies, I explore how teachers teach the recent violent past and how they navigate and mediate 'invisible' tensions among opposing truths in the classroom. Foregrounding the context of civil war, the article illustrates how narratives of current and previous civil wars in the country limit teachers' ability to fulfil the goals of the syllabus. Despite the role of teachers as key mediators for a peaceful classroom, the context of war limits the ideological space for them to promote a culture of peace among students in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The typical U.S. history curriculum does not ask students to think about justice. While ignoring injustice may reduce controversy in the classroom, critically thinking about justice engages students and prepares them to be citizens in an often contentious democracy. This article proposes five characteristics of history curricula that support critical thinking about justice. These characteristics center research on culturally responsive education and justice-oriented citizenship that is applicable to the discipline of history. Studies on justice-oriented classrooms and teaching about controversy are cited to show the irrelevance of curricula that ignore injustice, the benefits of engaging controversies in history, and the way in which studying injustice in history prepares students to actively oppose current injustices. The five characteristics that support critical thinking about justice and history (CTJH) are then implemented in a series of lessons and a culminating task that demonstrate how CTJH could be implemented in a U.S. history unit on western expansion. These lessons ask students to evaluate the ideals of "Manifest Destiny" from a justice-oriented perspective. Students are tasked with making connections between historic events and primary sources which demonstrate a belief in the supremacy of White American culture throughout U.S. history and current arguments that criminalize Latinx immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral history research projects are assignments that can foster student engagement and learning in undergraduate survey history courses. However, existing scholarship indicates that these assignments are seldom used in undergraduate survey courses. Since the aims of undergraduate survey history courses are to satisfy graduation requirements, foster critical thinking skills, and provide options for potential major areas of study, there is a need to examine whether engaged learning strategies, such as oral history projects, can serve as a high-impact practice (HIP) in undergraduate history courses. With these premises in mind, the purpose of this action research study is to evaluate whether my five-step oral history research project could serve as a HIP in the undergraduate history survey courses I taught at a two-year college located in metropolitan region of the Southeast. Major findings indicate that oral history research projects can be considered a HIP when grounded in pedagogies that emphasize community-based field work that encourage students to consider diverse perspectives on topics and make real-world connections to content and experiential knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do secondary school students in Ontario, Canada, need to know about the world in which they live in? How did a secondary school 'World Politics' course that emerged in Ontario in the 1960s address this question? The 'World Politics' course that emerged in the 1960s clearly came about as a result of societal and educational developments. Educators in nineteenth-century Ontario felt no need for such a course. In more recent times, post-Second World War, the discipline of history underwent dramatic upheavals. The opportunities for new courses meant possibilities to reach out to new groups of students. Simultaneously, with this change, the importance of international relations in the history curriculum was reduced but this also allowed for its re-emergence elsewhere. Finally, 'World Politics' emerged as one of the responses to the need for an understanding of a much more complex world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the case of Alfred Dove (1844–1916), this article contributes to an emerging line of research on scholarly personae in the history of historiography. It does so by addressing the important but so far neglected question: What exactly does the prism of scholarly personae add to existing historiographical perspectives? The German historian Alfred Dove is an appropriate case study for this exercise, because historical scholarship in Wilhelmine Germany has been relatively well studied, from various angles. Most notably, it has been studied (1) through biographical lenses, (2) from institutional points of view, (3) as the cradle of 'scientific history', with special attention to historical methods of the sort codified by Ernst Bernheim, and (4) in relation to religious and political fault lines that divided the German Empire shortly after the Franco-Prussian War and the Kulturkampf. The thesis advanced in this article is that scholarly personae are a missing link between these four dimensions and therefore a theme of key importance for anyone trying to understand German historical studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History education frequently aims at developing active citizenship by using the past to orientate to the present and the future. A pedagogy for pursuing this aim is making connections between the past and the present by means of comparing cases of an enduring human issue. To examine the feasibility and desirability of this case-comparison teaching approach, students (n = 444) and teachers (n = 15) who participated in an implementation study conducted in the Netherlands were questioned about their experiences and views. Results show that both students and teachers felt that case-comparison in the context of an enduring human issue is feasible and not more complex than the usual history teaching in which topics are studied separately without explicitly making comparisons between past and present, even if some students thought that taking account of episodes from different historical periods concurrently required an extra learning effort. Both students and teachers believed that connecting past and present in history teaching enhances engagement and meaning making. They suggested a curriculum combining the case-comparison approach with the type of history teaching they were accustomed to. Mixed methods were used for data collection. Implications for further research on case-comparison learning in history are being discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory case study examined how two teachers used a comparative approach to teach genocide histories in a Holocaust Literature elective course. Through interviews and observations, we studied how the teachers guided students in comparing genocides as well as how they used survivor testimonies in their instruction. We found that teachers engaged in three types of comparison throughout the unit under study: defining genocide as the basis of comparison, discussing similarities and differences, and expanding students' knowledge of genocide beyond the Holocaust. The teachers set up their classrooms as safe places for learning about genocide as difficult history, yet they did not shield their students from its horrors. Additionally, they encouraged their students to take action against genocide outside of the classroom. This study adds to the limited empirical research on teaching comparative genocide and has implications for curriculum design and teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examined how high school teachers talked about people in history lessons and how they engaged in or shunned multiperspectivity aspects as they talked about people who lived in the past. Based on an analysis of 40 hours of observations of 5 different classes in 3 Jewish high schools in Israel according to the constructive-interpretive method, we found that in most of the lessons observed, few references were made to specific individuals. At the same time, many teachers talked about people in history by referring to generic people, to general categories of people, or by using personification. Using examples, we discuss the educational significance of the different ways history teachers talk about people in history through the prism of multiperspectivity as an aim in history education. We conclude that discussing the connections between the practice of talking about people in history lessons and multiperspectivity may contribute to teachers' awareness of another way they can promote multiperspectivity in class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the potential of history as a subject to contribute to a "knowledge economy". Global trends in curricula reforms have often emphasised generic competences and development of students' critical thinking to benefit the future economic position of citizens and nations. However, viewing knowledge in these terms presents a reductive view, particularly given that there is no clear definition of the nature of the knowledge which could or should be universally deployed in the pursuit of a "knowledge economy". This paper presents an argument that a focus on "powerful" disciplinary knowledge and "valuable" frameworks of knowledge in areas such as history education, rather than generic competences and skills, would better serve a knowledge economy. Drawing on two empirical studies from England and New Zealand, which present different policy contexts, the paper explores the extent to which the potential of history education is being realised to develop such powerful and valuable knowledge. The data reveal similar patterns in both contexts; despite the history teachers in both countries sharing a disciplinary understanding of the subject this is not comprehensively reflected in the curricula they construct, and there are few attempts to create coherent frameworks of knowledge. This suggests that the opportunities for history education to support the development of a knowledge economy have not been fully realised and exploited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s historians, in general, have increasingly engaged in critical analyses of the emergence and development of what has come to be known as 'the HIV/AIDS pandemic'. Historians of education have also become interested in the role-played by education in the history of HIV/AIDS. Although the existing educational histories have successfully examined the multiple and far-reaching power structures that helped shape the educational responses to the disease, I will argue that their focus on ideological and geopolitical power structures runs the risk of losing sight of the crucial and often sensorial responses of individuals who have played a part in the educational history of HIV/AIDS. One such individual is the Flemish philosopher Pascal de Duve, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1989. De Duve's particular approach to the disease clearly illustrate the importance of the senses in how people attributed particular meanings to HIV/AIDS. Knowing that this approach would prove surprising to both his readership and to his wider television audience, de Duve employed sensory experiences and modes of communication (for instance, gesture) to educative ends. I conclude that an intersensorial approach to the past will render historians of education more sensitive to unexpected personal responses towards HIV/AIDS to unexpected personal responses towards HIV/AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses ethnographic action research to explore how the objectives of the Australian Curriculum Intercultural Understanding can be achieved in a culturally diverse Year 5/6 (ages 10–12) primary school class in Melbourne. It examines whether a history unit on migration, that uses a structured historical inquiry approach, encourages culturally diverse students to develop a more critical and reflexive understanding of multiculturalism. Using Banks' multicultural framework and Bath's approach to ethnographic action research, I argue that the oral history component of a Year 5/6 history unit supported students to develop their Intercultural Understanding. I suggest that ethnographic action research is an effective approach for investigating the implementation of new teaching initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a number of studies have explored the link between Zionism and the latent racism prevalent in Israeli society. As a result of these studies, it has become clear that successive generations of Israeli citizens (and non-citizens) are exposed to a single historical and cultural narrative. Such a narrative is intentionally designed to strengthen the emergent ethno-national character of Israeli democracy. This study examines a selection of Jewish–Israeli teachers' reflections on teaching in Israeli high school history and civics classrooms, and the institutionalized racism that they encounter both within the textbooks and from their students. I will demonstrate that these reflections are examples of negotiating dilemmatic spaces, resulting from the unique 'structural conditions and relations to everyday practices' that Israeli educators must face. Israeli teachers must mediate the curricular materials vis-à-vis the degrees of freedom they are provided to teach counter-historical narratives and their own emotional responses to both the content of the textbooks and their students' reactions to the dominant national narrative presented therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In collaboration with historic sites in Washington, DC, that have shared commitments to place-based and experiential learning, Ford's Theatre teaches K-12 educators about Civil War history through engagements with places, artifacts, stories, and enduring conflicts that can be made relevant to students' lives. In this article, we provide program descriptions and findings from a program evaluation to articulate how Ford's and its partners both model and teach historical empathy, community building, and reflective practice as they strengthen teachers' historical knowledge, pedagogical tool kits, and professional networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Department of History at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg wherein teaching of the arts, previously reserved by Jan Smuts, as Minister of Education in the Botha Government. It mentions School of Mines was itself a small-scale affair, and the teaching for the new arts and science departments took place mainly in a corrugated iron structure. it also mentions undergraduate syllabus with South African history.

The article offers information on a roundtable based on presentations of a plenary session at the 26th Biennial Conference of the Southern African Historical Society took place at Wits University in June 2017. Topics discussed include imbalanced rhetoric of nation-building and history teaching, current school history curriculum and limitations and constraints of making history compulsory subject. It also mentions issues of xenophobia and lack of nationhood and social cohesion in South Africa.

Russia's state and society are still coming to terms with the legacy of 1917. An underlying fear of revolutions exists due to their perceived chaos and instability. The centenary coincided with revisions of national history education under the presidencies of Vladimir Putin. These revisions are designed to project an image of a united country and strong sovereign state under the banner of patriotism. The 1917 revolutions represent a disruption in Russia's history and undermine the patriotic message in these new narratives. This article assesses the treatment of the 1917 revolutions in contemporary Russia via two media; school textbooks and public celebrations. Revisions of the national history must legitimize the state and its goals. Textbooks and commemorations are media that reflect the preferred images of the past to promote national unity, historical continuity and discourage domestic discords. Both media show the complexity in retelling the narrative of 1917. Whilst modern school history textbooks paint the revolutions somewhat negatively, few official commemorations took place in 2017. Those that did were kept at arm's length and lacked a narrative. With seemingly nothing to gain from this part of history, meaningful assessments of 1917 have been left to schoolteachers or postponed altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has documented a worldwide shift in the teaching of history that looks beyond nation-state based history instruction in favor of a post-national curriculum that imparts knowledge of diverse identities, cultures, and global issues. In South Korea, however, the construction of national identity in history education continues to be a key function of its civilizing mission because of the uncertainty over inclusion of North Korea within South Korea's calculus of who constitutes Koreans. This article analyzes the domestic politics of history education in South Korea, with particular attention paid to the controversies surrounding the nationalization of history textbooks. In 2015, the administration of President Park Geun-hye announced plans for its own history textbook to "correct" ideological bias in the private history textbook market. Questions of nationhood, ethnicity, and identity took bitter shape in history textbooks, where portrayals over historical events were revised to underscore competing visions of state legitimacy vis-à-vis the global political order. Hence, we highlight that the South Korean textbook controversy not only challenges transnational convergence in history education but questions a conventional understanding of history education as decisively national or global rendered visible by the complicated and fraught histories of East Asian societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching young people to understand and appreciate diversity is crucial in Hong Kong efforts for a just and inclusive multicultural society. History is the main place where the cultural identity and values of Hong Kong society have been reflected on, questioned, and problematized in the curriculum, as changes to this curriculum interface with larger social and political changes of the society. Although diversity is emphasized in Hong Kong history curricula, representations of ethnic minorities provided in education may not always be effective toward multicultural aims. This research explores how multicultural content is expressed in Hong Kong Chinese history textbooks. In particular, we focus on how relationships between Han and minority cultures are represented in the texts, using qualitative content analysis. Based on the analysis, we elaborate three main descriptive codes and themes: (1) only majority perspectives are provided, (2) cultural superiority of the dominant group (the Han), and (3) plural monoculturalism, where minority views are treated as threatened and/or as threatening in relation to the society as a whole. We argue that these codes are in contrast with a multicultural stance that aims to enhance social justice and equity in relation to diversity, through providing balanced perspectives, including positive ethnic minority recognition and support for just forms of pluralistic integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this qualitative, single case study is to investigate how teacher-created curricula addresses key Native American events in early U.S. history and to determine if such curricula provided students with accurate representations of Native American content. To do this, we used discourse analysis to consider the meanings of words and phrases, as well as the underlying assumptions and intentions of the teacher-created curricula and the experiences it claims to represent. Given the presence and use of dominant narratives to preserve power systems, curricula that deconstructs the colonizing narrative and historical representation of Native Americans can encourage the active destruction of such narratives. By analyzing four teacher-created narratives, we found is that even when a teacher creates content with the intent to be more historically accurate, the curricula still reflects a dominant narrative that privileges White settlers over Native Americans. We then provide suggestions for teachers who wish to design more culturally relevant and appropriate curricula on Native American content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how a standards-based form of assessment in operation in New Zealand has impacted upon the knowledge taught to secondary history students. The segmentation of history into assessable components along with assessment mechanisms which encourage the reduction in the number of standards being attempted has impacted upon both the breadth and range of historical content in history programmes. The reduction in knowledge is problematic as it diminishes learners' opportunities to draw connections between inter-related historical concepts from a wider knowledge base. Social realists have raised concerns about the reduced focus on knowledge in education and its effects in restricting students' development of conceptual knowledge which enables higher order, more abstract thinking. Experiences of standards-based assessment for history in New Zealand are indicative of this reductive phenomenon. In a culture of accountability, standards-based assessment, as enacted in New Zealand, may impede delivery of critical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers insight Whitechapel History Fest that was held on 27 October 2018, and organized by Organized by the Survey of London. It informs that the event identified and described historic buildings and monuments with a broader purpose, impact of technological developments, digitisation and the internet on society; and the importance of history education.

In spite of the importance of the topic, there are few comparative studies of the aims of history teaching, even in Europe. Domain-specific epistemic beliefs are relevant for understanding the teaching and learning of history and the development of deliberative thought. We studied epistemic beliefs in the context of the general aims of history teaching. The respondents were 633 history teachers from ten countries (Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands and Serbia) who rated the importance of 12 specified teaching aims and responded to four claims regarding epistemic beliefs. Three meaningful clusters of teaching aims were identified: critical thinking and development; moral virtues and patriotism; and historical consciousness. History teachers in ten countries were classified within these clusters. There were significant differences among the clusters in terms of the three epistemic beliefs. The results are discussed in the contexts of the countries studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the Second World War (WW2) and the Holocaust as genocide during WW2 as sensitive topics in history teaching as perceived by 719 teachers from Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Serbia and the Netherlands. Using the thematic content analysis of open answers to an online questionnaire we explore the reasons for the sensitivity of these topics. The reasons for sensitivity were found to lie in cognitive and emotional barriers to treating the atrocities, violence and discrepancies between different perspectives on WW2 of social memory groups. A relatively new dimension, confirmed by the research, is the problem of the aestheticisation of the violent past. This can lead to banalisation and even legitimisation of the violence and aspects of the violence that pupils perceive to be fascinating. The results are discussed in the framework of multi-layered collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analysed questionnaire responses from 309 history teachers who come from nine European countries and Israel. The open-ended questions explored their experiences of teaching Sensitive historical Issues (SI) from joint social psychological and history didactics perspectives. First data was analysed hermeneutically, it was then interpreted using a heuristic framework to analyse these teachers' beliefs about SI. Three themes of shared patterns were identified in teachers' answers: the choice of teaching SIs, pupils' emotional reactions, and teaching strategies. Focusing on the in-depth analyses of comments about teaching strategies, 29 representative quotes were identified illustrating the teachers' decisions to teach SIs, teachers' pupil orientation reflecting pupils' emotional reactions, and teachers' orientations towards pupils' learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the silencing and voicing of sensitive topics in history education from a cross-national and multilevel perspective. In this mixed-method study, we undertook a quantitative analysis of a 'teaching sensitive issues' questionnaire and qualitative analyses of history curricula and teachers' verbal responses. The findings show that most respondents were aware of societal and self-silencing but were also committed to voicing and giving a voice to pupils. Focusing on the issues found to be most sensitive - immigration and Islam - in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Israel, the analysis of national curricula indicates a climate of 'voicing' rather than silencing. Analysis of teachers' responses showed strong awareness of the relationship between the sensitivity of the history of immigration and that of Islam and the relationship between pupil diversity and self-silencing on these issues. It appears that, in some cases, apprehension of pupils' voices led teachers to self-silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers of history will sooner or later encounter issues that are met with disbelief, protest, or feelings of discomfort by the pupils. This special issue aims to contribute to the field of research into teaching sensitive and controversial issues in history by integrating historical, educational and socio-psychological perspectives and theories. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, an interdisciplinary group of scholars studied history teachers' perceptions regarding sensitive issues in their teaching in their respective countries: Austria, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands and Serbia. Through cross-country analysis and in depth study of specific cases, it provides insights into the particular issues that are considered sensitive and the many factors at play, such as the individual teacher (his/her skills, knowledge, beliefs and identity conception), the local classroom composition, the national curriculum and national policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical pageants were important sites of popular engagement with the past in twentieth-century Britain. They took place in many places and sometimes on a large scale, in settings ranging from small villages to industrial cities. They were staged by schools, churches, professional organisations, women's groups and political parties, among others. This article draws on contemporary studies of heritage and performance to explore the blend of history, myth and fiction that characterised pageants, and the ways in which they both shaped and reflected the self-image of local communities. Pageants were important channels of popular education as well as entertainment and, although they are sometimes seen as backward-looking and conservative spectacles, this article argues that pageants could be an effective means of enlisting the past in the service of the present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tremendous impact of comics to young people at the beginning and the middle of the twentieth century drew the attention of educators, thus the debate concerning the use of comics at school began very early. Some studies revealed that Greek pupils think of History as an extremely boring lesson, full of names and dates. Therefore, there is a need for an alternative approach that can render the lesson interesting and pleasant. This paper presents three didactic suggestions regarding the use of comics in teaching History. The first suggestion presents a single unit, the second is a two-hour revision of a textbook's entire unit and the last suggestion is a four-month project on what Asterix can teach us about History. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most teachers adapt curriculum, we know little about teachers' rationales for modifying materials, how these rationales align with actual modifications, nor whether any patterns exist in the modifications that teachers make. This is especially the case in history/social studies, where research on curriculum is scant and research on teacher adaptation of curriculum is virtually non-existent. This paper addresses that gap. We report the results of a large-scale survey on curriculum use with over 1900 history teachers. The online survey focused on how and why teachers use and adapt lesson materials from a free online history curriculum and prompted teachers to upload examples of curriculum materials they had modified. We found that individual differences among teachers correlated with particular types of modifications. Moreover, we found that teachers were motivated to modify materials to address their students' needs, and that their modifications rarely affected the core structure - or theory of content - of the lessons. We argue that such alignment between teachers and curricular materials represents an example of curricular fit. We discuss what curricular design features may have contributed to the high level of curricular fit among users as well as the implications of this construct for curriculum implementation efforts across subject areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research explored the extent to which secondary school history teachers in England willingly engaged with a series of concurrent curriculum reforms, and the factors that shaped their level of agency in the process. The curriculum has been the target of sustained reform by many governments, and accountability measures are frequently used to compel teachers to engage with the process of change, as teachers are often seen as resistant to change. Data were obtained through online surveys conducted annually from 2015 to 2017, providing a large, longitudinal data set of over 1100 individual responses. Responses to closed items were analysed using SPSS to generate descriptive and inferential statistics, and qualitative responses were coded to identify key themes. Generally the teachers were reluctant to engage in the process of reform. There was some statistically significant variation between teachers in different types of school. Teachers' willingness to engage with changes was also related to their sense of subject identity. However it is evident that accountability measures dominates teachers' thinking, and even impacts on what teachers choose to do in non-examined phases of the curriculum. This appears to diminish teachers' agency when creating a curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presented in this article examines the internal consistency of the formal Swedish history curriculum for the upper-secondary school. The research question addresses the extent to which disciplinary aspects—also referred to as vertical knowledge discourses—are transferred from fields of knowledge production to the Swedish formal history curriculum. A qualitative research design is adopted and document content analysis is used to examine the presence of vertical knowledge discourses in the aims, the core content and the level descriptors of the curriculum. The results show that a vertical knowledge discourse is present in two areas of the curriculum: the aims and the section that defines the content of history education. An exception is identified in the section of the curriculum that focuses on assessment, the knowledge requirements. Here, the presence of vertical knowledge is marginal. The conclusion is drawn that there is an inconsistency regarding the presence of vertical knowledge discourses in the Swedish history curriculum. This inconsistency can diminish the availability of vertical knowledge for the students and also lead to a situation where control over history education to some degree is transferred from curriculum designers and teachers to other agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study uses content and frequency analysis to investigate how the Big History Project (BHP) online curriculum represents different racial and cultural groups within its units fusing science and history. The prevalence of a Western Civilizations perspective in curricula offers a challenging irony: that world history could be culturally irrelevant, or inaccurate, for non-Europeans. Drawing on Indigenous, postcolonial and critical social studies scholarship, this study offers a new framework identifying five attributes of a Eurocentric World History curriculum and uses it to analyze BHP. Findings reveal that BHP materials promote Eurocentrism through its content and source selections, across all five attributes of the framework. Implications for curriculum and pedagogy in the social and natural sciences are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History curriculum and textbooks, as a key mechanism of constructing collective memory, play a critical role in shaping national, social, and cultural imaginations of the young. This paper analyses history textbooks in Taiwan during the martial law period (1950-1987) to explore narratives about Taiwan and examines the ways in which those narratives as collective memory created particular images of Taiwan. The analysis indicates that history textbooks delineated two threads of narrative, one is a Sinicisation narrative, namely Chinese colonisation, and the other is Chinese restoration narrative. The Sinicisation narrative constructed particular collective memory about Taiwan being of Chinese descent and an inheritor of Chinese culture, lost and restored by China after World War II. In the narrative of restoration, Taiwan was imagined as reborn to be the model child of Chinese descent that was obligated to emancipate all Chinese compatriots from Communism and to ultimately realise the goal of Chinese reunification. These narratives served for emancipating Taiwan from Japanese colonisation and constructed particular collective memory that Sinicised Taiwan for Chinese restoration. The image of Taiwan as Chinese descent, identified with Chinese culture, has endured to the present and continue to shape imaginations and discourses about Taiwan in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the potential of outdoor learning for supporting children's understanding of and attitude towards history. A class of primary school children participated in an intensive experiential, residential history programme. A range of data was collected before, during and after the residential programme, and the findings suggest that the experience had a positive impact on the children's attitude towards history and enabled many of the children to be able to easily recall highly specific factual knowledge. However, the children's understanding of history as a provisional construct was not developed, as it was not a strong feature of the programme. Nor was the experiential nature of the experience fully exploited. Overall the study suggests that such a programme has the potential to support children's learning of the past, but a deeper understanding of history, drawing on the benefits of outdoor learning pedagogy, needs to be planned for more explicitly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses his project on oral history and the interplay of memory and history. He describes his experience organizing a panel on oral history for the 1972 Organization of American Historians' meeting. He also discussed his joining the editorial board of the "International Journal of Oral History," his reason for his interest on oral history, issues that have been the focus of his interest in theory and responds on essays about his works.

This article reports a validity study of History Assessments of Thinking (HATs), which are short, constructed-response assessments of historical thinking. In particular, this study focuses on aspects of cognitive validity, which is an examination of whether assessments tap the intended constructs. Think-aloud interviews with 26 high school students were used to examine the thinking elicited by 8 HATs and multiple-choice versions of these tasks. Results showed that although both HATs and multiple-choice items tapped historical thinking processes, HATs better reflected student proficiency in historical thinking than their multiple-choice counterparts. Item format also influenced the thinking elicited, with multiple-choice items eliciting more instances of construct-irrelevant reasoning than the constructed-response versions. Implications for history assessment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History education has been continually challenged by political competition in Cyprus. The education systems on both sides of the divide reflect the ongoing ethnic conflict and suffer from ethnocentrism. In particular, the history textbooks are used to convey and legitimise official narratives and reinforce identities defined vis-à-vis the other. As a result of the political debates in the early-2000s, a challenging process of educational reform and revision of history textbooks started in North Cyprus. This paper provides a historical perspective on the changes in the Cypriot history textbooks, and undertakes an in-depth comparative analysis of the old, revised and re-revised Cyprus history textbooks that have been used in schools from 1971 until the present day. The data was collected from document analysis of the textbooks used in lower- and upper-secondary schools both before and after the education reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]