The aim of this article is to problematise the use of visits to heritage sites in history education in primary school. The empirical basis is a questionnaire and interviews with teachers in Sweden. Theoretically, the perspective is linked to the discussion of affective practices. The results show the connection that some, but not all, teachers recognise between different forms of historical knowledge. According to these teachers, visits to heritage sites activate the sensory experiences of the pupils, which has a positive impact on the pupils’ learning. Two ideal approaches can be discerned when it comes to the use of visits to heritage sites in history education. Such visits form either a teacher-driven, integral part of the education, or the teacher assigns the display of the site to local guides. The two approaches can be related to the history subject that appears in education, although this is ultimately determined by the educational setting.
Haptics in the sense of active touch, as well as internally felt bodily sensations, add an important dimension to learning sessions at historical sites. Drawing on observations of primary school pupils visiting historical sites in Sweden, and interviews with pupils, teachers, and site educators following the visits, this study investigates in which ways haptics affect how young pupils learn history. Three aspects of haptics are identified as important to learning in history education: touch, internally felt bodily sensations, and visual and auditory senses, the latter interacting with haptics. The study argues that visits to historical sites help pupils develop their historical understanding through knowledge by acquaintance. It also emphasises that for historical learning to take place, the experience must be put in relation to a historical frame of reference.
This article explores, through group-interviews and in terms of peer-culture, the ways in which pupils negotiate experiences from school-excursions to three heritage sites, Vadstena Castle, a former Royal Castle connected to the royal dynasty of Vasa; Witches’ forest, the place for interrogation by torture and executions of nine women, accused of witchcraft in 1617, and Linköping Cathedral Ages at the visitor programs “Middle Ages in the Cathedral”. The article, which is part of a larger project on learning processes and historical sites, investigates how pupils collectively load the heritage site with values reflected in immersion by affections, and what significance immersion of affections can have on the pupils’ process of stock of knowledge. The following research questions are asked: What kind of affections are evoked? Which situations and circumstances during the visit at the heritage site, mould impressions and immersion in the collective recalling? By drawing on affection, peer culture and critical heritage studies’ verb “heritaging”, we have studied how the pupils collectively load the heritage sites with values reflected in immersion by affections, and what significance immersion of affections have on the pupils’ process of historical understanding. To understand how the heritage site in terms of a material and physical place loaded with narratives of the past affects the children, the analysis aimed to explore under what circumstances the immersion took place. The article localize three situations that led to surprise and thereby friction between the expected (the stock of knowledge) and what was experienced at the site (the immediate experience), namely conflicts caused by expectations and experiences at the site, conflict caused by replicas in relation to originals, and finally conflict between lived experiences and insights at the site.
The Tuning educational project for history has its supporters and its detractors. This overview of the articles contained in this special issue of the journal reflects on some of the complexities of implementing such an ambitious global project and the local and national priorities that have made the process both stimulating and challenging for those involved. And it argues that while lists of competences constitute valuable reference points for discussion of the arts and humanities curriculum in an international context, they should be seen as the starting point for a more detailed and broad-ranging set of global conversations about how we (should) teach our subjects and why this matters for students in today's world.
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