The Levels of Historical Awareness and Treatment of Controversial Issues in Digital Environments: A Case Study of Future Spanish Secondary School Teachers

Abstract

The aim of this research is to determine, on the one hand, the levels of historical awareness of future Spanish secondary school teachers (n = 61) in social networks and/or virtual environments. On the other hand, it aims to approach the representations of the past-present-future constructed by future teachers in these spaces, and to interpret the relationships between their levels of historical awareness and their interaction with controversial issues based on their own social narratives (n = 169). This study follows a qualitative-deductive approach to test the theoretical transferability of Rüsen's levels of historical consciousness to the specific context of a Spanish university. The results obtained show mostly exemplary and critical levels of historical awareness, with little variation between the dimensions analysed (global pandemic by COVID-19 and public health; historical memory, national identities, migratory crises, and exclusionary identities; sex-gender identities and exclusionary identities). Consequently, it can be concluded that working on controversial issues generated in virtual environments in teacher training could mean a potential improvement in the acquisition of third-order concepts, such as historical awareness, allowing future teachers to successfully address issues and situations of social life in the classroom in a transversal and transversal way. interdisciplinary way.

Effects of a teacher training programme on historical awareness skills, controversial issues and gender in secondary education

“…In line with the findings of the studies by Balbé, et al [35] , Ortuño-Molina and Alvén [49] and Ortega-Sánchez et al [19] , the results obtained provide relevant information on the viability and suitability of the teaching intervention implemented to work on social problems and controversial issues, and to make people and identities visible in teacher training. The impact of the programme informs the development of historical awareness skills, through the didactic treatment of inclusive, plural, problematic and controversial narratives, and the trainee teachers' ability to interpret and relate controversial issues.…”

“…These reasons were related to the concept of historical consciousness and linked to historical thinking, third order concepts for thinking and teaching history, and the importance of social-historical narratives as shapers and reproducers of the way of understanding and constructing the world. The controversial issues addressed in the theoretical pills correspond to those included in the dimensions defined by Ortega-Sánchez et al [19] Narrative constructions on public health and social responsibility. Pandemics, historical public health problems (20th century) such as AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and other diseases that have marginalized and discriminated against different social groups; the Spanish black legend; the great pandemics of the 20th century; COVID-19; possible global pandemics in the future; social responsibility as an individual and social ethical commitment to transform the world; ecologism, human rights, invisibility of groups throughout history and in history.…”