Volume 10 Number 1 IJHLTR International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research August 2011 Volume 9, Number 2 - Autumn/Winter 2010 www.history.org.uk ISSN 1472-9466 In association with 1 2 International Journal of Historic Learning, Teaching and Research 1. Editorial 4 2. Articles Jean Pierre Charland, Marc-Andre Ethier,Jean Francois Cardin 5 History Written on Walls: a study of Quebec High School Students’ historical consciousness Michelle J. Bellino and Robert L. Selman 29 High School Students’ Understanding of Personal Betrayal in a Socio-historical Context of Ethnic Conflict: implications for teaching history Sean Lennon and Jeffrey M. Byford 44 The Wounded Terrorist: a Survey of History Students’ Perceptions of Moral Dilemmas Jannet Van Drie and Carla van Boxtel 55 In Essence I’m Only Reflecting: teaching strategies for fostering historical reasoning through whole-class discussion Bulent Tarman and Cemalletin Ayas 67 Comparing Issues Surrounding Turkish and Japanese History Books Sunjoo Kang 77 A Report from Korea: what elementary school teachers want to teach and what they teach in history: a report from Korea Anthony Blake and Karl Cain 88 History at Risk: a survey into the use of mainstream popular film in the British Secondary School History Classroom Andy Mansfield 100 The Utilisation of Gobbets for Student-Centred Learning for the Teaching of History at University: a report Jon Nichol and Penelope Harnett 106 History Teaching in England and the English National History Curriculum 3-11: past, present, into the future 3 Editorial Hilary Cooper and Jon Nichol This issue contains The International Journal of History Teaching Learning and Research papers from the United kingdom, United States, Canada, Korea, Turkey and the Netherlands. In spite of their different histories and present concerns, these countries are grappling with similar issues about how and why history should be taught in schools. Is it possible to integrate school history and students’ personal ideas about the past, learned from family and other out of school sources? Should we teach students the discipline of historical enquiry for its own sake? How can we teach adolescents to think critically about controversial issues? Is it the role of history education to develop shared values and a sense of identity or a common culture or to promote civic values? If so are these values particular to a society? Do we teach enough global history? Is there a moral dimension to history education and if so what do we mean by this? Can learning history promote social justice? Who decides what history should be taught in a democratic, pluralist society, and do teachers mediate this, based on their own beliefs, biographies and level of knowledge? What is the role of textbooks? This issue will cause readers to ponder all of these questions and offer some insights too. The first four papers describe research which is rooted in the experiences of teachers and pupils, in stimulating contexts both in and beyond classrooms. They use stimulating resources and teaching strategies to demonstrate impressive levels of student thinking. They research and challenge aspects of students’ historical thinking. In History Written on Walls: a Study of Quebec High School Students’ Historical Consciousness students’ discuss whether a mural properly reflects the history of Quebec. In The Wounded Tourist: a survey of history students Moral Dilemmas Lennon and Byford explore the ways in which students react to moral dilemmas associated with war and terrorism. Bellino and Selman, in High School Students Understanding of Personal Betrayal, help students to investigate their responses to a school girl’s betrayal of her friend, in the context of ethnic conflict between Serbs and Muslims. Van Drie and Van Boxtel analyse in detail the ways in which teachers can develop whole class discussion in their paper, ‘In essence I’m only reflecting’. The following papers are concerned with research into aspects of history curricula. Tarman and Ayas consider the positive and negative in the use of prescribed text books and discover similarities but also differences between Turkey and Japan, in this respect. A report from Kang describes elementary school teachers’ views about why they teach history, in the Republic of Korea, compares these with their reliance on text books in practice and considers the reasons for this. Blake and Cain explore and evaluate the extent to which and ways in which teachers use different types of film in history lessons and Mansfield describes his approach to teaching history at university. The issue concludes with Nichol’s and Harnett’s survey of teaching and learning history in English primary schools. 4 History Written on Walls: A Study of Quebec High School Students’ Historical Consciousness1 Jean- Pierre Charland and Marc-Andre Ethier, University of Montreal Jean-Francois Cardin, Universite Laval Abstract Can memorial landmarks be used to reveal historical consciousness? The historical mural in Québec City is a landmark that might allow such a thing. This article provides a synthesis of two parallel studies having as forefront this mural. They were conducted with the participation of high school students coming from five different regions of Quebec. The sample for the first study was made up of French Canadians (n=34) and the second of First Nation’s people (n=6). They consisted of interviews with individuals lasting 20 to 40 minutes. During the interviews, students were invited to talk about whether the mural’s content properly depicted Québec society or not, and therefore give reasons why. The students were then asked about how they would represent Québec society if they had the chance to create a similar work of art. The results revealed three categories of answers, namely those who: 1) thought that a mural should refer to the past and, as such, try to complement it; 2) accepted the past, but would want to add the present; or 3) would eliminate the past and simply show an illustration of the present. The answers from the two sub-samples differed significantly. Keywords: history education, Québec, Canada , Memory, Nation, Consciousness Introduction History is replete with controversial questions and politically sensitive interpretive debates. Historical narratives often extol the emotions of numerous people regarding important issues and complex topics, upon which it is impossible to rule based only on an examination of facts or experience (Berg, Graeffe & Holden, 2003; Éthier, Lantheaume & Lefrançois, 2008; Evans & Saxony, 2007; Wellington, 1986). In Québec as elsewhere, these controversies are echoed in the history classroom (Bouvier, 2008; Cardin, 2007; Éthier, 2007) which provides to the researcher a vast field of investigation. in fact, efforts made by various groups to contribute their respective versions of the past in official narratives and various historical memorials—whether those variations were induced by differences in school systems, location, period or even era, social class, ethnicity or student gender—have all been well documented (Audet, 2006; Barton, 2001ab, 2005; Barton & Levstik, 1998, 2004; Dalongeville, 2001; Epstein, 1997, 2000; Éthier, 2006; Ferro, 2004; Julien, 2005; Laville, 2000, 2002; Lee, Ashby & Dickinson, 2001; Levstik, 2000, 2001; McCully & Barton, 2003; Osborne, 2003; Sandwell, 2006; Seixas, 1994, 1997; Rozenzweig & Thelen, 1998; Tutiaux-Guillon & Infant, 2003; Tutiaux-Guillon & Mousseau, 1998; V. Wertsch, 1999, 2002; Wineburg, 2001; Zimmerman, 2002). Fewer studies have been done on the links between these debates and historical thinking or students’ historical consciousness. Generally, however, social sciences programs, and history programs in particular, often claim legitimacy by applying intellectual tools that could possibly be used to produce or evaluate historical interpretations (Barton, 2005; Chilcoat & Ligon, 2004; Coron, 1997; Seixas, 1993ab, 2000). Some of the existing studies on historical consciousness undertaken in Québec (Caouette, 2000; Charland, 2003; Déry, 2007; Létourneau, 2006; Moisan, 2002), were carried out on small groups or took on a survey format. As such, they exposed themselves in part to criticism similar to that of Kansteiner (2002, p. 185-190) or Wineburg, Mosborg, Porat & Duncan (2007). To dig into these issues in qualitative and quantitative terms, we conducted in-depth interviews of a sample of a more significant size and with a more diverse geographical and ethnic composition. The first part of this article describes the context that inspired this research and the method selected, highlighting a description of the procedure and the data collection instruments. The second and third parts summarize the results of two descriptive studies conducted on two sub-samples, using the same methods. The discussion in the fourth part covers the results of the two studies. 3 This article is part of a research program funded by the Council of Social Sciences and Humanities Research (SSHRC), from 2005 to 2008. It is interested in both the historical thought and the historical consciousness of young Canadians, especially the links between social representations that Francophone Quebec students from Grade 10 (Secondary IV) put forward with respect to political issues, and also the learning they acquired in their history courses. 5 Context This first part is divided into two sections. First we shall present an outline of the theoretical background behind the question of historical thinking and historical