The sidewalk is a history book: Reflections on linking historical consciousness to uses of history

Abstract

The ongoing discussion about what constitutes historical consciousness is intensifying within the growing international community of history-education researchers. What started as an exploration of how life outside schools affects our historical thinking has become a key concept for structuring formal education. This shift has largely been positive; however, there are reasons for caution. If practical adaption means outlining, classifying, and measuring levels of achieved awareness, it also presents a risk of losing the initial reason for considering the wider influence on our perceptions and orientations. My reflection in this article concerns this paradox and how it can affect a complementary concept, use of history. Using examples from everyday historical representations in public life, namely song lyrics, the BLM, and Sweden’s approach to Covid 19, I demonstrate why history education requires a broad understanding of historical consciousness and a readiness to work with public uses of history.

The banal significance of family history research: Experiences and narratives from participants of Swedish non-formal family history courses

“…Likewise, in Sweden, Börnfors (2001) noted that family historians often connected their motivations to tangible (e.g., photographs) and intangible (e.g., stories) inheritances that led to a sense of belonging and cultural embeddedness (identity). This reflects the portrayal of family history as a move of interest from the traditional disciplinary focus of notable events and famous individuals (e.g., wars and royalty) towards the banal, unremarkable or commonplace, embedded symbols and objects of historical narratives (Billig, 1995;Edquist, 2009;Karlsson, 2011;Nordgren, 2021;Shaw, 2021). Similarly, researchers found that motivation and reasoning can be related to one's lifespan and a desire to produce a legacy for future generations (Evans, 2023;Moore & Rosenthal, 2021).…”

Historical Consciousness in Executive Education Programs: Engaging with Transgenerational Collective Traumas

“…The participants were open to a newly constructed future or value-laden life orientation by "making use of history" (Nordgren, 2016(Nordgren, , 2021, the people in their history, and their identity. The participants seemed to have constructed their own stories as a way to critically orient their own lives and even use history to ask themselves existential questions equated with history.…”

The constantly changing discipline of history didactics – An introduction

“…They connect to society's politics of memory, to the transformation of historiography, to changes to the perception of knowledge and to the rapid rise of digitalization. In recent years, the view has become generally accepted in international circles of discourse that the conventional model of history teaching does not sufficiently equip students with the knowledge to face the diversity and complexity of today's democratic society or the great global challenges of our age (Haydn, 2019;Nordgren, 2021).…”