Contesting the Past, Constructing the Future: History, Identity and Politics in Schools

Background: In England, the promotion of 'national values' within the history curriculum has become an increasingly topical issue in the wake of recent debates about 'Britishness' and community cohesion. However, despite the swathe of policy statements and pronouncements, there is little empirical evidence linking young people's identities and their attitudes towards history. Purpose: Drawing on a survey of undergraduates, we explore young people's attitudes towards the history curriculum and how these relate to their ethnic, national and political identity. We anticipated that students ascribing to a strong sense of national identity may be particularly receptive to a traditional approach to teaching national values within history classes, while those with a strong sense of political identity would be receptive to a multicultural approach; and vice versa. Sample: The sample consisted of 353 undergraduates attending five universities in the North of England. The sample was composed of British citizens, the majority of whom would have recently experienced secondary education including discrete or cross-curricular teaching designed to promote 'British' national values. Design and methods: Students' attitudes towards history and their self-identity were estimated using a questionnaire survey asking respondents a series of questions about history teaching and identity. Exploratory factor analysis was used to reveal underlying patterns in students' responses to items assessing their attitudes towards history. Items gauging relevant dimensions of self-identification, such as the relative importance of their national identity, along with other individual background characteristics, were then regressed on to attitudes towards history. Results: We found that students' attitudes towards history were connected with two distinct factors: traditional/conservative and multicultural/liberal. The regression results revealed a positive relationship between a strong sense of national identity and a traditional attitude towards history, and, a negative relationship between a strong sense of national identity and a multicultural attitude towards history, even when controlling for students' background characteristics. Conclusions: Our exploratory research suggests that students' self-identity is likely to influence their attitudes towards approaches to history teaching. Educational policy-makers and practitioners must therefore pay careful attention to students' self-identity and the context in which this is formed when seeking to inculcate an inclusive national identity in history classes.

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“…students (Phillips 1998) or surveys of documentary evidence (e.g. Phillips et al 1999;Crawford and Foster 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students' attitudes towards history: does self-identity matter?

Andrews¹,

McGlynn

Mycock

2009

Educational Research

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“…Perpetrator-victim narratives in nation-states become 'official' history that serves to perpetuate the dominant's group hegemony (Crawford 1995, Phillips 1998. Official history leaves little space for alternative narratives; it is recognized as a major part of a group's rights.…”

Section: The Educational Implications Of Perpetrator-victim Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitated dialogues with teachers in conflict‐ridden areas: in search of pedagogical openings that move beyond the paralysing effects of perpetrator–victim narratives

Bekerman

Zembylas

2010

Journal of Curriculum Studies

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“…The unofficial SS embraces the "ideal type" curriculum envisaged in this article that must be drawn from the unofficial to the official teaching and learning of SS. Hence, R Phillips maintains that: 83 The dimensions and boundaries of the 'unofficial' need to be explored in greater detail. By considering the symbols, images, versions, texts, institutions and media which bombard children daily with images of the past.…”

Section: Integration Of Ss: Border Crossing Curriculummentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking the reflective praxis of the name Social Science: pedagogical 'mischief' in the Grade 4 to 9 Social Science curriculum

Kgari-Masondo¹

2017

Y&T

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The article depicts the global history of the Social Science (SS) curriculum to illustrate that already by the 19 th century Geography and History had been divided. The influence of non-integration of the SS was mainly by Geographical determinism which promulgated that the natural environment prescribes how people live, suggesting that all people living in a specific natural environment would respond in the same way when engaging with their environment. Such thinking inferred that human agency and culture had no role in such interaction. As a result some historians have neglected the environment in the study of History, which in turn served to further set boundaries for integration in SS. South Africa also subscribed to such a division as policy makers stipulated categorically in the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) of Grade 4 to 9 that, SS is integrative in nature but has to be taught and administered as distinct Geography and History components. Integration occurs administratively when exam marks have to be combined as one to comprise SS-which is mischievous as it does not depict the reflective praxis of the subject pedagogically. The teaching and learning in terms of the content is divided into Geography and History but the summative is the only indicator of an integrated subject. From literature surveyed no investigation on the set topic has been undertaken in SA. The article thus proposes that non-integration of SS pedagogically speaking is 'mischievous' in the teaching and learning of SS in schools because the name negates what occurs practically in the teaching of the subject. The article through qualitative research drawing from interviews of trainee teachers enrolled in the Post Graduate Certificate Education doing SS at the University of KwaZulu-Natal enlightens the 'mischiefs' embedded in the SS curriculum. Drawing from some of the trainee teachers' views the conclusions and recommendations of the article are that, SS has to be integrated because as is it is pedagogically misleading and compromises the quality of teaching in the learning area. This implies that, SS is an integrated subject and has to be taught as such because Geography cannot be taught without History or vice versa, because the one without the other equates with an incomplete learning area.

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Contesting the Past, Constructing the Future: History, Identity and Politics in Schools

Cited by 25 publications

References 11 publications

Students' attitudes towards history: does self-identity matter?

Students' attitudes towards history: does self-identity matter?

Facilitated dialogues with teachers in conflict‐ridden areas: in search of pedagogical openings that move beyond the paralysing effects of perpetrator–victim narratives

Rethinking the reflective praxis of the name Social Science: pedagogical 'mischief' in the Grade 4 to 9 Social Science curriculum

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