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Bridging the Gap. Comparing History Curricula in History Teacher Education in Western Countries

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Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education

Abstract

Brauch discusses the genre of history curricula as a specific narrative developed under the influence of societal, pedagogical, political and academic changes. The chapter takes a look at curriculum research in Western countries dealing with conflicting interests as to the question whose stories should be learned in school and how. She argues that history education, in democratic societies aiming at fostering reflective historical consciousness, naturally deals with ‘contested history’, being aware of the multiperspectivity of historical narratives. She proposes to use history curricula in history teacher education to give future teachers insight into the specific epistemology of the genre in order to foster their skills at reflective history teaching competencies, and, ultimately, to help them foster historical consciousness in their students.

I owe this metaphor to the symposium organized by Karel Van Nieuwenhuyse (Belgium) and Gerhard Stoel (The Netherlands) on the biennial conference of the European Association of Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) in Cyprus, August 2015 Mind the gap! Defining effective pedagogy for fostering domain-specific reasoning in history. I thank Arthur Chapman for providing his presentation as a discussant at the symposium, which was of great help for the incorporation of the results in this chapter (Chapman, 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaft, Rhur University-Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Nicola Brauch

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  1. Nicola Brauch
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Campus de Cantoblanco, Autónoma University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Mario Carretero

  2. Ruhr Universitat Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Stefan Berger

  3. Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Maria Grever

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Brauch, N. (2017). Bridging the Gap. Comparing History Curricula in History Teacher Education in Western Countries. In: Carretero, M., Berger, S., Grever, M. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52908-4_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52908-4_31

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