Narratives of Nation-State, Historical Knowledge, and School History Education

Abstract

I n spring of 2006, the Florida state legislature, in a virtually unprecedented step, chose to make how U.S. history is taught a matter of public policy. The Florida omnibus bill contained the sentence, American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence. (Florida House of Representatives, 2006, p. 44.) Apparently, protecting the hallowed ground of the nation-building story of American history from threatening forces prompted state policymakers to legislate its protection. Such a move provoked yet another in a decades-old raft of reactions, accusations, and criticisms from across the political spectrum. 1 Why all the fuss, a reasonable observer might ask, and to what end? This, of course, is itself a historical question. And of course, an answer would beg a response that includes a multitude of causes. In this review, I attempt to address the question in a series of broad but also specific strokes. I begin by suggesting that in the United States, for example, late 20th century immigration patterns have been perceived by some who consider themselves American natives because they were born in the country (even though their ancestors are of European stock) as threatening to soften the glue that preserves their vision of the right and true American culture. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that there were approximately 34.3 million foreign-born persons (largely from Mexico) living in a country of 300 million people, or about 11.4% of the U.S. population. Contrast that with 1967, when there were 200 million people in the United States, of whom only 4.8% (9.7 million) were foreign born (largely from Italy). Recently, the idea about erecting a giant wall along the U.S.-Mexico border-ostensibly

How do Catalan Students Narrate the History of Catalonia When They Finish Primary Education?

“…In the Catalan case, but also elsewhere, we propose national history be contextualized in a world history with humanistic and civic purposes (Levstik, 2014;VanSledright, 2008). The humanistic narrative could also have characters, scenes, a plot, etc.…”

“…Like any other narrative, official narratives are composed of a set of elements (Elliott, 2005) in which settings, characters, scenes, and plots can be found (Létourneau & Caritey, 2008;McAdams, 2011). In official nation-state narratives, the plot unfolds in the "nation" (VanSledright, 2008), the characters are divided in a binary opposition in which the "we" (represented by the "national heroes") is opposed to the "others" (represented by the "enemies") and the main scenes represent the "traumatic events" of this "official national past" (Kaplowitz, 1990). As described by Finn (2006) in his defence of patriotic history in the USA, this official nation-state narrative is "about heroes and villains, freedom and repression, hatred and compassion, democracy and theocracy, civic virtue and vice" (p. 580).…”

“…First, the substitution of the official national narrative with other narratives has been proposed. Rather than narrating the official nation-state narrative, an alternative inclusive national narrative that does not generate a clear "we" and "others" has been proposed (Létourneau, 2006), as well as a local, thematic (VanSledright, 2008), or world-humanistic narrative (Levstik, 2014;VanSledright, 2008). The second alternative is a disciplinebased history education that would avoid narratives by providing learners with evidence-based learning (direct access to historical sources, evidence from different approaches, etc.…”

“…The use of historical narratives in history education has usually been associated with romantic-patriotic history education (Carretero, 2007;Rüsen, 2004;VanSledright, 2008). Understood as the sort of history education that aims to build the nation-state (Citron, 1987;Osborne, 2006;Seixas, 2009), to contribute to a sense of togetherness (Rüsen, 2004), to enhance the love and loyalty to the nation (Carretero, 2007;Falaize, Heimberg, & Loubes, 2013;Loubes, 2010), and to transmit certain cultural-national values (Falaize, 2011;Ross, Mathison, & Vinson, 2014), romantic-patriotic history education uses particular teaching strategies such as the commemoration of public speeches, monuments, and days (Rüsen, 2004), and the memorization of certain facts (Funes, 2010).…”

Do Master Narratives Change Among High School Students? A Characterization of How National History Is Represented

“…Analyses of school history contents, either from a disciplinary historical perspective (Berger, 2012) or from the history education point of view (Foster, 2012), reveal their close resemblance to "official narratives" aiming at historically legitimizing the present and 60 future political agenda. How students understand and analyze the past is greatly influenced by these kinds of pervading narratives (VanSledright, 2008). As Alridge (2006) indicated:…”