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In the context of legacies of mass violence and political oppression during the recent past in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia), history teaching is seen as an important factor in building sustainable peace and democracy. Caught between various national and international policy actors, history teaching has been subject to frequently overlapping and inconsistent reforms. Despite prolific research on history education in the Western Balkans teachers' experiences of history education and its transformation have largely remained unexamined. This paper explores history teachers' perceptions of and approaches to the topics they find difficult to teach. The paper draws on data gathered through an online survey that yielded 793 responses from history teachers and 14 regional history education expert interviews. The results show which topics teachers consider difficult to teach in six Western Balkan countries, and how certain individual characteristics (e.g. religiousness and level of education) and school characteristics (e.g. urban or rural and a monocultural or multicultural environment) link to the roles teachers assume when teaching controversial topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses historical competence as reading and understanding use-of-history as it is expressed in different texts. Students need to develop competence in the use-of-history in order to approach the diversity and complexity of uses of history in our time. The use-of-history is also an aim in the curricula of Nordic countries. This capacity is, however, rarely operationalized in current research on historical competence. This article coins the concept of 'performative historical competence', meaning use-of-history as symbolic action. We argue that Kenneth Burke's dramatist theory allows students to examine how history is used in different ways for different purposes in different content and contexts, thus allowing a more conscious, critical and creative approach to the use-of-history as symbolic action. This by emphasizing history based contradictions, competition and conflict as constructs rather than given by nature. In turn, they can be redefined. This can be an empowering process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effect of YouTube audio-visual documentaries (YAVDs) on students' achievement and interest in History in Enugu state, Nigeria. Six hypotheses guided the study using a quasi-experimental research design. Multi-stage sampling techniques were used to sample 70 Senior Secondary two students (SS2) in four intact classes. Data were collected using History Achievement Test (HAT), which yielded 0.65 reliability index using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR20), and History Interest Inventory Scale (HIIS), which yielded 0.78 reliability index using Cronbach Alpha. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at.05 significant level. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the achievement and interest of students taught History using YouTube Audio-visual documentaries (YAVDs) and those taught without. Recommendations focused on teachers' empowerment by the governments on how the use of YAVDs in teaching History. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the teaching of disability history, specifically concerning the historical figure of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Drawing upon literature from multicultural education, disability history and disability studies in education (DSE), the authors discuss historical content and teaching ideas for instruction about FDR. The authors present findings from a content analysis of six middle level and secondary United States history textbooks, noting unanimous coverage of FDR's disability resulting from polio. These textbooks noted how he overcame his disability and strengthened his character, referenced his decision to conceal his disability, and quoted FDR directly regarding his disability. The authors follow this analysis with discussion of several middle and high school teaching ideas that might augment textbook coverage and representation about FDR. This article explores how teachers of United States history might further develop their teaching of history through the inclusion of disability history within the context of a famous historical figure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to offer both an overview of the key issues and controversial policy decisions that defined history education in Korea for the past 10 years and a critical analysis of the actions taken by, and claims exchanged between, the advocates of New Right thinking and their opponents during this period. In doing so, it will point out the following three things. First, there has been a great deal of partisan political interference, more on the part of the right than of the left. Second, there was a strong presence of a nationalist element in the collective efforts made by the left to counter the conservative government's attempts to take firm control of what and how history is taught in schools. Third, both the right and the left played fast and loose with the idea of diversity in order to consolidate their academic and political positions. This was, it will be argued, as much a manifestation of fragmented reflections on relevant epistemological issues as the result of political expediency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of historical thinking has in recent years become popular in research on history education, particularly so in North America, the UK and Australia. The aim of this paper is to discuss the cognitive competencies related to historical thinking, as expressed by some influential Canadian researchers, as an history educational notion from two aspects: what is historical thinking and what does it mean in an educational context, and what are the consequences of historical thinking for history education? Our discussion will focus on possible implications of this approach to history education regarding what should be taught in history classrooms and why. By focusing on the notion of historicity, we want to argue that while a focus on a more disciplinary approach to history education is welcome, we think that more attention should be given to what could qualify as a disciplinary approach. We further argue historical thinking and the history educational challenge should be understood as wider and more complex than what history education informed by historical thinking entails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over half a century since the last wave of political decolonisation, the handling of "dark" colonial histories remains topical. Influenced by the postcolonial turn, this study aims to examine, from a novel historical and comparative perspective, evolving textbook representations of Belgian colonialism and its legacy in Belgian and Congolese school history education since 1945. Its diachronic and synchronic narrative analysis identifies continuity and change, and convergences and divergences, in perspectives, emphases, and silences in textbook narratives. Pinpointing the influence of colonialism and postcolonial discourse on educational practices of representation, the study explores the sometimes contradictory influences on these practices of politics, academic historiography, popular historical culture, and processes of educationalisation. The analysis illuminates parallel shifts in the two countries from triumphalist colonialist ideologies towards more critical postcolonial perspectives. In relation to educational practices of representation, often aimed at socialising citizens into worldviews sanctioned by the political dispensation of the time, the traces of these shifts have reflected dominant societal discourses while being largely at odds with historiographical advances. These dynamics are evidence of a slow process of decolonisation of existing power structures and knowledge systems which only gradually gave way to a postcolonial world still in the making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical myths were essential tools of nation-building in nineteenth century Europe, including Finland. 'Myths' are vernacularly and trans-generationally fostered narratives of the past. A myth is born, when a community embraces a narrative as an integral element of its collective memory. In the Finnish case of nation-building, the core of collective memory consisted of the myths of a primordial ethnic home, the destiny of a nation-state, resilient people, a free peasantry and military valour. The longevity of myths is challenged by changes in politics and historiography. In Europe, the deconstruction of national myths took place after the Second World War, when nationalism lost its relevance to the communities and historians urged an objective and multiperspective approach to the past. De-ideologization and multiperspectivity were equally expected from school textbooks. The article ends up questioning the feasibility of the nation-state as the framework of presenting history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Australia, Asia-related history has been part of secondary school history curriculum since the 1960s and Asia engagement has been an education policy imperative for decades. At the national level, different governments have attached competing rationales to the study of Asian histories and cultures. However, little is known about the extent to which these policy discourses influence state-based history curriculum. This article examines the Asia education policy/history curriculum nexus by analysing the relationship between the broader socio-historical policy contexts in which senior secondary curricula were created and the ways Asia-related histories are positioned within the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE). Framed as a history of the present it considers how these contexts constitute the discursive conditions of possibility for the representation of Asia. It argues that although VCE History was influenced by national Asia education policy discourses in the mid-1990s in particular, more recently Asia-related history has not expanded or diversified, even though Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia has been prioritised in the Australian Curriculum. It is important to investigate these inconsistencies to better understand the complexities that shape curriculum and the study of Asia-related history, and to trace the historical development of Australia–Asia relations through education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers detailed reflections of two lecturers on the teaching of Social Sciences Education Honours modules in a multidisciplinary context at one university in South Africa. The reflections portray that, while in Social Sciences Education students from diverse specialisations are enrolled in courses that are multidisciplinary in nature, the teaching pedagogy used continues to be disciplinary-based. Through the qualitative self-reflective narrative study of two lecturers teaching Commerce Education and History Education in the Honours programme in this university, the paper explores how these lecturers teach these Honours modules in a multidisciplinary context. Drawing on the reflections of the two lecturers, the conclusions of the study were that, the Honours programme in Social Sciences Education needs to be an integrated and multidisciplinary study, given the pedagogical weaknesses, and the resultant compromising of the quality of the teaching of the disciplines within this programme. The paper proposes 'border crossing pedagogy' as a solution that can be used in a multidisciplinary classroom because it allows for integration of disciplines in terms of content and teaching approach. This calls for revisiting how the modules within Social Sciences Honours programme are taught in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key studies in history education (from France and the USA) are discussed and compared in order to explore their methodological issues in terms of the types of knowledge they can generate about teaching and learning. An epistemological framework that relates the history of historians as an inquiry to that of the classroom provides the criteria for this comparative analysis, which is inscribed in Abbott's epistemologico-institutional social sciences analysis through the identification of two basic debates that structure history education research, namely subject-matter knowledge vs pedagogical practices, and teaching and learning rules of methods vs habits of thinking. This analysis points out the conditions for the development of a formative school history inquiry (to have students work on their own explanations, to put into play their set of beliefs about history), which determine the modalities of a specific action research. These modalities are detailed by the example of an action research on the case of the teaching of the French Revolution in the last grade of primary school: the sharing of pedagogical (by the professor) and academic (by the researchers) decisions, the collective production of data throughout the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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]

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]

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 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]

This paper investigates the expression of historical thinking by students in the school and museum environment, based on the study of the past through archaeological remains. The empirical investigation was carried out in five schools in Athens, four state and one private, and included a total sample of 189 middle and high school students (12–13 and 15–16-year-olds). The students were exposed to archaeological remains in three different forms, actual physical objects, printed images of the objects, and digital representations thereof. Data was collected from written responses to a questionnaire and from their responses during a semi-structured interview, as well as from observations by the researcher during the whole process. Based on an analysis of their responses, it was clear that most of the students had grasped the historical significance of the archaeological remains they had studied. They referred to them in relation to their historical context, based on their recollection of pre-existing historical knowledge or the use of relevant information given to them. However, the expression of interpretative historical thinking in several responses appears to be influenced by the historical or non-historical character of each question or task, as well as the type of archaeological remains they had studied. Parameters such as age, gender, and socio-cultural background also appear to have influenced their expression of historical thinking. [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 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]