Defining the Discipline(s): How History Professors Make Sense of History as Teachers and Researchers

• In Event: Framing Instructional Design in Humanities and Social Science Classrooms

Abstract

The emphasis in history education research has been to teach historical practices that are based on the assumption that historians share a set of skills that define their expertise (i.e., Voss and WIley, 2006). Yet, we know relatively little about how practitioners and teachers of history view their work. How do historians think about history as a discipline and historical thinking as a skill? Through interviews with historians, I find that historians value coherent historical narratives while stressing the importance of multivoicedness in history. These historians also value historical interpretation at various levels of explicitness. These findings challenge the assumption in history education research that what “counts” as historical thinking is a static skillset universally shared among historians.

Author

• Allena G. Berry, Northwestern University