History Teachers' Considerations Concerning the Applicability of a Historical Topic for Teaching History as an Interpretation

• In Event: Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: In Search of the Philosophers' Stone: Modeling and Assessing Epistemological Beliefs in History Education

Abstract

Many researchers in history education have advocated a shift from a focus on historical content to a focus on developing students' historical reasoning ability with a strong emphasis on epistemological understanding. Previous research has shown that teachers struggle with teaching that interpretation in history is important (Barton & Levstik, 2004). Although the body of research identifying factors that can stimulate or constrain teaching history as interpretation is growing, these studies underestimate the impact of subject matter. Knowledge concerning teachers’ considerations when selecting topics that might be suited to present history as interpretation is lacking. Therefore, this paper focuses on the question, what historical topics do experienced history teachers report as suitable to teach pupils that history is interpretative, and what are their underlying considerations?

Method
For this study 15 expert Dutch history teachers were purposefully selected. The teachers were interviewed using a semi-structured interview and a card-ranking task. During this task, the teachers had to classify seven different topics (thinking aloud) on a continuum, according to their applicability for teaching that history is interpretative. The following topics were ranked: The Cold War, the Holocaust, Slavery, the Reformation, the Dutch Revolt, Early Middle Ages and the Roman Empire. For analyzing the interviews we used a inductive-deductive method, which means that the first coder started as open as possible with coding the different underlying considerations. We used previous research for creating “theoretical sensitivity”. After a process of axial coding, nine considerations were distinguished. An independent researcher conducted a inter rater reliability for all 15 interviews which resulted in a 0.88 unweighted Kappa.

Results
Teachers point out that a historical topic is suitable when one or more of the following considerations are applicable: (1) he/she has knowledge on the topic; (2) he/she has affinity with the topic; (3) he/she thinks that the topic is a construction; (4) he/she is able to teach the topic from multiple perspectives; (5) there are sources or other pedagogical material on the topic available; (6) the topic is part of the curriculum; (7) the topic is morally sensitive; (8) the topic is not too morally sensitive; (9) the topic is comprehensible for pupils. Results from the ranking task showed that teachers find the Dutch Revolt to be the most suitable topic, because it is relatively easy to teach it from multiple perspectives. The Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages were seen as least suitable, because these topics form a relative small part of the curriculum; moreover the teachers pointed out that these topics are very abstract for pupils. Finally, teachers’ opinions strongly differ on the suitability of the Holocaust. Most teachers find the Holocaust very suitable because it is morally sensitive. However, five teachers think that the Holocaust is too sensitive for teaching history as an interpretation; these teachers would not focus not on interpretation as they are afraid to relativize the Holocaust.

References
Barton, K. C., & Levstik, L. S. (2004). Teaching history for the common good. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

Authors

• Björn Wansink, Utrecht University

• Sanne Akkerman, Utrecht University

• Theo Wubbels, Utrecht University