The path of history: narrative analysis of history textbooks – a case study of Belgian history textbooks (1945–2004)

The philosophical background of the subject history in secondary education has been mainly addressed through research based on ‘obvious’ source types (curricula, discussions in committees or journals, …). This article proposes a narrative method of analysing history textbooks in order to study the underlining historical philosophy of history education.     

Towards a history of e-ducation? Exploring the possibilities of digital humanities for the history of education

In the past few years, worries about decreasing jobs or even the possible disappearance of the history of education as a field of study have frequently surfaced. Hence, the question arises as to whether the history of education, as a field of study, has a future – or is it, as many authors have remarked, in danger? This article starts from the idea that our field of study is definitely not alone in its struggle: many branches of the humanities have fallen victim to similar appeals of economic efficiency and relevance. In response to these developments, digital humanities in particular have been identified as a way out of the impasse. Therefore, this article explores the ways in which digital humanities or digital history can offer valuable contributions to the future of the history of education. This paper advocates that, although digital humanities or digital history cannot magically make our problems disappear, historians of education should further embrace the possibilities digital technology has to offer for the investigation of our educational past. I argue that digital technology not only has the potential to make our lives considerably easier; it can also help in addressing new research questions, give new meaning to existing concepts within the history of education and further enhance the interdisciplinary character of our discipline.     

The history of Cat and Mouse

Long long ago,a cat and a mouse were good friends. They ate together, played and slept together. They were the best friends in the woods. 　But one day, they weren't friends forever. Fairies wanted to campaign for the 12 symbolic animals associated with a 12-year cycle. The cat and the mouse both went to campaign at the appointed time. The morning in the second day the mouse was boring: Should I go to the campaign with the cat?And should I go to call him?The cat was a lazy animal: He was still sleeping now. And the mouse didn't want to call him up. Finally the mouse was the first animal in the 12 symbolic animals associated with a 12-year cycle. But the cat was not. So today cats always want to catch mice and eat them. Because they remember this history: Mouse forsook cat!     

The history of Cat and Mouse

Long long ago, a cat and a mouse were good friends. They ate together, played and slept together. They were the best friends in the woods.[第一段]     

A brief history of Weblogs(博客)

The growing power of Weblogs, or "blogs", has hardly gone unnoticed. But blogs aren't as new as you may think. They have actually been around since the early days of the Internet. In the strictest sense, a blog is someone's online record of the Websites he or she visits.     

The history of attention‐ deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Abstract

As the number of children diagnosed with, and medicated for, Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) increases at an alarming rate there have been questions raised as to whether ADHD is really a disorder or merely a fabricated and socially constructed problems However, there is much evidence which shows that ADHD related difficulties have been observed in children for at least the past century. This paper will provide a detailed account of this evidence and will show that ADHD is a disorder which has affected our children form at least the past 100 years     

Perkin’s mauve: The history of the chemistry

Those of us who owe our living in part to the global dyestuff and chemical industry should pause today and remember the beginnings of this giant industry which started 150 years ago today with William Perkins’ discovery of mauveine whilst working in his home laboratory during the Easter holiday on April 28, 1856. Prior to this discovery, all textiles were dyed with natural dyestuffs and pigments.     

Mozart: an anomaly in the history of music?

Mozart's work is quite unique on account of its quantitative and qualitative fullness within a short life. The explanatory patterns offered for this phenomenon range from a concentrated process of musical socialization, which comprised an exclusive preoccupation with music, to the specific fact of his travelling activity at that time (approx. 10 years of Mozart's life); to his good fortune in receiving, as a natural accompaniment in life, a musical education which was focused exclusively on high standards and enabled Mozart to become acquainted with almost the whole of the central European intelligentsia; to a consciously economic way of working which helped him to translate his experience of life into a work of art. These circumstances, which are ideal from the point of view of production, determined as they were by exceptional talent and by the environment, seemed to be so improbable to succeeding generations that the history of the reception of Mozart displays not only a reaction from a non‐academic perspective, but also designed a variety of diverging explanations for the (literally) unbelievable circumstances. This is probably why, ever since the start the nineteenth century, writings about Mozart have been not only contradictory, but have in part also provided no answers whatsoever to those questions which played such a major role in the biography. Consequently, the anomaly is valid not only for the process of production but also for that of reception.     

An overview of web-based school collaboration: a history of success or failure?

The notion of school collaboration has become widely recognised as an effective means of fostering cultural links and supporting communication between geographically separated schools. As shall be acknowledged in this paper, school collaboration follows on from a long history of collaborative initiatives across the past 50 years. However, the introduction of digital technologies and the internet in the 1990s has raised new challenges and created new opportunities for ‘telecollaboration’ whilst the growth of social media over the past five years is seen to have transformed the ways in which online collaboration is experienced by most end users. Based on a review of the existing body of literature, this paper offers a critical overview of current models of web-based collaborative programmes – attempting to map out the complex nature of school collaboration and consider the actors and factors that can shape successful implementation into educational practices.     

Teaching the history of colonization and decolonization in France: A shared history or to each their own?

Strongly influenced by the paradigm of republican universalism, education policy in France favours an approach that largely relativizes, or even denies, the dimension of cultural diversity. The content of the secondary school history curriculum reveals this phenomenon. In the 2007?C2008 school year, 185 students in the final 2?years of secondary school in Amiens completed questionnaires about the importance their schools place on the history of colonization and decolonization. The analysis showed how the respondents?? relationship to this historical topic was linked to the degree of their own experience of migration. Although today??s classes are pluralistic, schools?? failure to take into account the diversity of the population??a legacy of history??diminishes students?? ability to think in terms of ??otherness?? and, as a result, to imagine a common history shared by the various populations living in France.     

The role of history in teaching science — A case study

One of the most interesting aspects of late-nineteenth-century France was the extraordinary interest the public expressed in science. Its adulation of Pasteur was only one of the many manifestations of this interest. It was also expressed in the widespread popularity of scientists as public figures and in the increasing public and private financial support of science. While popularity of science was created in the general public by fiction and by the various international world fairs held in Paris, it was strongest and most important in the middle classes.This paper examines one of the key methods used to stimulate bourgeois interest in science in France during the Second Empire and early Third Republic (1852–1895): the campaign to create ascience vulgarisée, a popularized science. While a number of different approaches used by these popularizers are examined, the article concentrates on the science writings of Jules Michelet and Jules Verne, both of whom were immensely successful in creating a favorable climate of opinion for French science. The article concludes by suggesting how such an approach could be modernized and utilized in order to create greater scientific literacy and a similar acceptance by the public today.     

Hands-on history: towards a critique of the ‘everyday’

The modern Turkish state and society have been greatly influenced by reforms of the education system. Second Constitutional Period reforms can be viewed as the preparatory stage of Republican reforms and a time when many of the later reforms were planned and given limited application. In this way both periods contributed to the foundation of modern Turkey. The innovations pioneered by Late Ottoman intellectuals stemmed from various origins, mostly European positivists and materialist philosophers. American pragmatism was added as an ideological source during the foundation of the Republic. It can be observed that ideological trends took root from Ottoman times according to the degree that intellectuals were affected by them. In this paper, the ideological origins of educational reforms during the Second Constitution Period have been studied in relation to the influence of European philosophers on Ottoman intellectuals of the time and their ideological environments. Late Ottoman intellectuals were found to have been largely affected by France’s positivism, German’s materialism and Comte, Durkheim, Büchner and Spencer. The paper reveals how modern Turkey’s educational philosophy parameters have been shaped by these intellectuals’ ideas.     

An empirical study of using history as a ‘goal’

This article discusses an empirical study on the use of history as a goal. A historical module is designed and implemented in a Danish upper secondary class in order to study the students’ capabilities at engaging in meta-issue discussions and reflections on mathematics and its history. Based on videos of the implementation, students’ hand-in essay assignments, questionnaires, and follow-up interviews, the conditions, sense, and extent to which the students are able to perform such discussions and reflections are analyzed using a described theoretical framework.     

Different battlegrounds,similar concerns? The ‘history wars’ and the teaching of history in Australia and England

Debates about the purpose and content of history education in schools have been prevalent in most Westernised democratic nations over the last 30 years. Under discussion are essential questions concerning national identity/ies, competing narratives and the aims of history education. The impact of ‘history wars’ has been felt within both Australia and England, as conservative commentators – including politicians and historians – have raised concerns about the depth and effectiveness of history education and have sought to make significant changes to the history curriculum for schools. This analysis examines the history wars in Australia and England, exploring the view that history education has been in danger and/or crisis and examining the curricular implications of a move toward greater recognition of national narratives. It raises some essential tensions that remain regarding two aspects of history teaching in both nations: (1) historiography and (2) chronological understanding.     

The influence of multiperspectivity in history texts on students’ representations of a historical event

School history textbook narratives of a nation’s past often present limited perspectives, which may impede the aim of teaching history from multiple perspectives. Less is known about the influence of including multiple perspectives on students’ representations of the past. This study examines the extent to which students include multiple perspectives when processing a schoolbook text that includes multiple perspectives compared to a schoolbook history text containing fewer perspectives. Tenth grade students (N = 104) in four schools were randomly assigned to read one of two texts on the Dutch Revolt and asked to make a summary. Multiperspectivity was analysed through the representation of actors, aspects of scale, dimensions and historiography. The students working with the text having high multiperspectivity showed more perspectives in their representations. In the summaries, these students included significantly more perspectives than did the students using the text with fewer perspectives. Moreover, these students’ representations of the main actors were more nuanced. The students using the text with high multiperspectivity situated the conflict in a broader international context and integrated more historiographical dimensions. The insights generated by these outcomes emphasize the important role of textbooks when aiming to teach history from multiple perspectives.

     

The impact of secondary history teachers’ teaching conceptions on the classroom use of computers

During the past 15 years, various studies have described factors affecting the use of computers in the classroom. In analysing factors of influence, many studies have focused on technology-related variables such as computer experience or attitudes toward computers, and others have considered teachers’ beliefs as well; most of them have studied undefined categories of teachers and focused on explaining the frequency of technology in classrooms. The present study centres on secondary history teachers’ teaching conceptions as a precursor to the ways in which they use computing technology in the classroom. The research is a qualitative study examining the theoretical assumption that teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning guide their pedagogical action. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Chilean history teachers, and their didactic sequences were filmed extensively. The research found patterns among educational uses of technology in relation to teaching conceptions (defining the latter based on three conceptual groups: direct instruction or individual or social construction of knowledge) in terms of the allotment of time and the manner of teacher technology use, and less sharply defined patterns were also noted in student technology use and teacher–student–technology interactions.     

Liu Xiang makes history

正因为有了刘翔,中国的男子汉才自豪地站在了雅典奥运会的领奖台上;正因为有了刘翔,咱们《中学生英语》才第一次刊登咱们中国人运动员的英雄事迹!正因为有了翔,民族的创造激情才被重新激活;正因为有了刘翔,热血沸腾的中学生以更高的热情发誓学好功课、为民族更加美好的未来更拼搏!     

The logic of history in ‘gap’ discourse and related research

The Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage policy emerged in 2008 following the National Apology to the Stolen Generations. The policy articulates one of its purposes as being to address historical injustices. On the other hand, policy reform is naturally oriented to the future in its aims to improve and develop. These temporal tensions are the analytical focus of this article. Through examining the way in which the logic of ‘history’ is engaged in Australian Indigenous policy and related ‘gap’-oriented research, a range of political effects are illuminated. It is argued that the logic of history is deployed in three key ways: (1) history as over; (2) history as a single presence; and (3) history as context. In mapping these different orientations to history in the policy and literature, the following questions are asked: how might history be better understood as operating in the present and what sort of transformational possibilities might this afford?     

A history of learning difficulties Australia: Part one ‐ the beginning

Abstract

This article is the first in a series tracing the history of Learning Difficulties Australia, an association of educators and other professionals dedicated to the support of people with learning difficulties, especially difficulties in literacy and numeracy. Part one describes the growth of the association from a small group of remedial teachers in Victoria struggling for an identity, to the beginnings of a recognised national body. During this time the association set up a referral service for remedial consultants with strict membership criteria, initiated publication of a successful journal, made submissions to government, conducted workshops and seminars for teachers, and established relationships with other professional bodies concerned with learning difficulties.