The relationship between narrative construction and identity in History Education: implications for teaching and learning

Abstract

The purpose of the research is less about producing little historians and more about taking into account students' cultures or identities in the teaching and learning of historical narratives. In my work, I have examined the national historical narratives that children and adolescents in the United States have constructed in order to assess the effects of young people's racial/ethnic identities on their understandings of the past. I have found that young people's racial identities had a significant impact on their interpretations of the U. S. history and that their teachers' instruction had some but not much impact on their views. Researchers within and beyond the U. S. have found similar results, attesting to the significance of "identity" (a person's sense of self and the communities s/he affiliates with, including nationality, gender, ethnicity, religious orientation, etc.) in the construction and/or critique of historical narratives. In the following pages, I review and synthesize the studies that I and others have conducted on the effects of identity on history teaching and learning, and conclude with a discussion of the implications for teaching and learning history in diverse democratic societies.

Student questioning: What does questioning reveal about prior knowledge, historical reasoning and affect?

“…Furthermore, while making sense of historical substantive student's questions may be influenced by their socio-cultural backgrounds, communities and identities (Epstein, 2016). For example, students may ask questions when they feel that the narrative they are reading differs from the narrative they are being told at home or in the community to which they belong.…”

Narrativas históricas de jóvenes e historia reciente en Chile: aproximaciones deshistorizadas, fragmentadas y polarizadas en la escuela pública

“…Estas investigaciones han relevado la elaboración del recuerdo como un proceso altamente disputado y negociado en la esfera pública impulsado por la necesidad -especialmente en las generaciones más jóvenes-de crear un pasado utilizable (WERTSCH, 2002) destacando la organización de la memoria a través de recursos textuales como narraciones que dan forma al pasado (WERTSCH, 2008), y el rol mediador de sentido que éste ejerce en el presente, como parte de la orientación cultural de la vida actual (RÜSEN, 2007). Estas categorías se han vuelto también, referencias relevantes para el campo de la investigación y enseñanza de la historia, al vincular en sus distintas modalidades, la identidad y la construcción de subjetividades sociales y políticas (EPSTEIN, 2016;EPSTEIN;PECK, 2017;HERRERA;PERTUZ BEDOYA, 2016).…”