IJHLTR Is Now Entering Its Fifth Year
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International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research Volume 4 Number 2 July 2004 ISSN 1472 – 9466 Editorial Board 2 Editorial 4 Articles Jannet van Drie and Carla van Boxtel 6 Enhancing Collaborative Historical Reasoning by Providing Representational Guidance Nadine Fink 15 Pupils’ Conceptions of History and History Teaching Alan Hodkinson 23 Maturation and the Assimilation of the Concepts of Historical Time: a Symbiotic Relationship, or Uneasy Bedfellows? An Examination of the Birth-Date Effect on Educational Performance in Primary History Isabel Barca, Olga Magalhaes and Julia Castro 37 Ideas on History and Orientation in Time: a Study with Beginner Teachers Rosalyn Ashby 44 Developing a Concept of Historical Evidence: Students’ Ideas about Testing Singular Factual Claims Hilary Cooper and Dursun Dilek 56 Children’s Thinking in History: Analysis of a History Lesson Taught to 11 Year Olds at Ihsan Sungu School, Istanbul Pat Hoodless 66 Spotting the Adult Agendas: Investigating Primary Children’s Awareness of Changing Attitudes and Values through Stories Written for Children in the Past Doreen Tan 76 Singapore teachers’ Characterisation of Historical Interpretation and Enquiry: Enhancing Pedagogy and Pupils’ Historical Understanding Carla van Boxtel and Jannet Van Drie 89 Historical Reasoning: A Comparison of how Experts and Novices Contextualise Historical Sources Richard Harris and Lorraine Foreman-Peck 98 ‘Stepping into Other Peoples’ Shoes’: Teaching and Assessing Empathy in the Secondary History Curriculum Peter Vass 112 Thinking Skills and the Learning of Primary History: Thinking Historically through Stories Notes for 126 Contributors History Education Centre, School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, UK Editorial Board Editors Jon Nichol, University of Exeter, England Robert Guyver, College of St. Mark and St. John, Plymouth, England Kate Watson, University of Exeter, England Jacqui Dean, Leeds Metropolitan University, England ICT Consultant/Webmaster Kevin O'Connell, University of Exeter, England Assistant Editors Keith Barton, University of Cincinnati, USA Hilary Cooper, University of Lancaster, England Richard Dargie, University of Edinburgh, Scotland Ross Dunn, San Diego State University, USA Peter Fisher, University of Newcastle, England Stuart Foster, University of Georgia, USA Penelope Harnett, University of the West of England, Bristol, England Terry Hayden, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England Peter Lee, Institute of Education, University of London, England Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, Director, Euroclio, Brussels, Belgium Garry Mills, University of Nottingham, England Rob Sieborger, University of of Cape Town, South Africa Andrew Sokholov, Ushinskii Pedagogic University, Yaroslavl, Russia Yosanne Vella, University of Malta Sam Wineburg, Washington State University, USA Suzanne Wilson, Michigan State University, USA 2 Editorial IJHLTR is now entering its fifth year. The journal has kept its eyes firmly on the basic premise that led to its foundation: i.e. to serve as a forum for reporting research and scholarship in the field of History Education at the interface of theory, scholarship, research, policy and practice. As such, we have covered a wide and varied number of topics and issues, and presented findings in different ways. Since the journal’s inception it has reported on initiatives that prominent figures in the field of History Education have led. Each annual edition contains two volumes. The last two editions of IJHLTR for 2003 and 2004 indicate its scope and remit. In Volume 3/1, January 2003, we published papers delivered at a symposium that the late and much missed and lamented Robert Phillips had organised. The British government’s Economic and Social Sciences Research Council, the main funding body for educational research in the UK, funded the symposium held on the theme ‘British Island Stories: History, Schools and Nationhood’. This symposium was an important element in Robert’s related ESRC project. At the heart of Robert’s seminar was the key question: what is history for in schools? Instead of treating history narrowly within the context of the curriculum, the symposium took a much wider view: the part that history plays in the construction of our individual and collective identities in the modern world. Volume 3/1’s papers not only examined the role of history in the wider curriculum for life in the 21st century but also drew upon the testimony of Ralph Samuel whose contribution ‘A case for National History’ is as fresh as when it was written during the debate on the English National Curriculum for History in the late 1980s. The July 2003 edition, Volume 3/2, followed a similar pattern in taking the best papers from an international conference on a particular facet of History Education: the nature and role of textbooks in the teaching of history. Keith Crawford arranged and ran the conference and wrote the editorial. Volume 3/2 highlights the importance of the textbook as a vehicle for the transmission of cultural messages that reflect the values, beliefs and aspirations of particular groups and interests in society. Indeed, in totalitarian societies this has long been recognised as a normal and necessary element in the political education, or rather indoctrination, of their citizens. Jason Nicholls sets the scene for reviewing the importance of textbooks: the other contributions highlight the essentially political education and citizenship role that history has through reporting on research into textbooks in Serbia, Russia and the teaching of the holocaust in Britain and Germany. In January 2004 IJHLTR in Volume 4/1 branched out in a new direction with the reporting of two major pieces of research. Peter Lee had had a long lasting interest in the work of Jörn Rüsen – Peter’s paper on ‘Walking backwards into tomorrow’ Historical consciousness and understanding history’ relates the ideas of Jörn to fundamental assumptions about the nature of History Education. Peter examines some elements of Jörn’s theory of history and historical consciousness. His paper makes a preliminary and tentative attempt to tease out the ways in which Rüsen’s theory may be helpful or problematic for thinking about History Education’s role in orienting young people in time, and in particular the extent to which his typology of the ontogeny of historical consciousness may be useful for researchers. As such, Peter makes a major theoretical contribution to the debate on the nature and purpose of History Education. Robert Guyver and Jon Nichol’s paper on the professional development of trainees being educated to teach history as a subject in the primary school curriculum is of 3 considerable relevance to all those engaged in the professional development of entrants to the teaching profession who will teach history to 5-11 year olds. The paper is based upon Robert’s research from 1993-2002 for his doctorate. The paper takes Shulman’s knowledge bases for teaching paradigm and subsequent research into it. The findings illuminate both the nature of the knowledge bases that trainee teachers of history develop in order to become effective teachers and the unique role that HEIs play in this process. The two main conclusions from the research were the valuable, seminal role that HEIs have in developing the personal and professional persona of young teachers that affects their orientation towards teaching and the importance of grounding expert teaching in an academic discipline’s syntax. Teaching that reflects syntactic academic understanding in turn empowers pupils to assimilate the discipline’s meta-cognitive processes, skills, concepts and protocols that they need to ‘do history’, i.e. the first and second order conceptual understanding, the problem solving, creative thinking and active learning that enable pupils to ‘do history’ and thus construct their own historical understanding. In the July 2004 edition, Volume 4/2, we report the outcomes of a new venture, the work of the History Educators International Research Network [HEIRNET]. We had felt that there was an ecological niche for an organisation that would enable colleagues in the field of History Education to meet and share research ideas and findings. Nationally we had already taken steps to establish research networks: the History Education and Heritage Centre at St. Martin’s and the History Education Centre at Exeter. HEIRNET would mirror in a more tangible form the international aims and aspirations of IJHLTR. HEIRNET would complement the excellent work in the UK of bodies like the History Teacher Educators Network [HTEN] and the Primary Educators NAC. Indeed, we are pleased to report that HTEN has given and continues to give IJHLTR its full support and backing. The idea of HEIRNET was greeted positively, even enthusiastically, on all sides. Accordingly in July 2004 we held our first international conference at St. Martin’s College, Ambleside. The HEIRNET conference had two dimensions: a History Educators workshop on using the environment and the research seminar. The workshop was mainly aimed at colleagues from the new states of Eastern Europe – it was well attended and positively received. The research seminar covered many facets of History Education research that are currently of concern – details can be found at www.heirnet.org. There were over forty participants from ten countries and four continents: Africa, America, Europe and Asia. HEIRNET is continuing to be proactive. In July 2005 it is holding a seminar on Identity and Museum Education at the English government’s Qualifications and Communications Agency and in September 2005 a round table seminar at the European Conference on Educational Research in Dublin. Next year HEIRNET will be meeting in South Africa: we also hope that History Education will become one of the themes of the ECER from 2006, enabling us to de facto run a HEIRNET symposium within the carapace of the ECER. Apart from the HEIRNET conferences our aim was that HEIRNET would fill a more general gap in the area of History Education research and related support. In the United Kingdom the governments of all three mainland countries recognise the importance of networks of scholars and researchers.