Exploring historical ‘frameworks’ as a curriculum goal: a case study examining students’ notions of historical significance when using millennia‐wide time scales

Abstract

History teachers, teacher-researchers, government agencies and history education academics in England often report that students are frequently incapable of producing complex, polythetic or developmental narratives over long time scales. This lack of an overview tends to result in deficiencies in their application of the key concepts of the discipline. Consequently Shemilt has recommended the use of synoptic, millennia-wide 'frameworks' of knowledge in order to counteract these issues. With some notable exceptions, however, practising history teachers have appeared sceptical of the benefits of such an approach. I conducted an exploratory case study investigating in what ways a pre-taught framework, in which I had responded to some practitioners' criticisms, appeared to be manifested in my students' subsequent thinking regarding historical significance. My goal was to contribute to professional curricular theorising about what constitutes a framework and how it might be expressed as a curricular goal. Themes were derived from pupils' writing, lesson evaluations, group interviews and observations. Possible curricular goals that were characterised in the students' work included the pupils producing millennia-wide narratives based on colligatory generalisations and assessments of historical significance incorporating scale-shifting over long time scales.

Curriculum coherence and teachers’ decision-making in Scottish high school history syllabi

“…The practical difficulties associated with developing these frameworks mean that little empirical research has taken place in this field. Action research projects in this area are intriguing, but frequently too small scale to be compelling (Carroll, 2016;Nuttall, 2013;Rogers, 2016). In the Netherlands, children are assessed on their 'chronological reference knowledge' and the curriculum is built around a loose framework of periodisation which children are expected to learn (Wilschut, 2009;.…”

Re-positioning historical thinking: a framework for classroom practice

“…Historical significance does not only apply to the past but also relates to contemporary developments (Van Straaten et al ., 2016, 2019). While it is necessary for students to be guided to understand the significance of events and the criteria historians employ to determine historical significance, attention needs to be focused also on those events which students identify as important to their lives or community as this enhances their sense of agency within those events (Barton and Mccully, 2012; Carroll, 2016). The premise is that the symbolic meanings that students derive from events and the applicability of such meanings to their present circumstances inform their conception of significance.…”

Fostering Students’ Appraisals of the Relevance of History by Comparing Analogous Cases of an Enduring Human Issue: A Quasi-Experimental Study

“…There have been a number of proposals for designing history curricula organized around enduring human issues exemplified by analogous cases from different periods (e.g., Barton & Levstik, 2011;Brush & Saye, 2014;Carroll, 2016;Grant & Gradwell, 2010;Hunt, 2000;McTighe & Wiggins, 2013). In many designs, enduring issues are embedded in existing curricula by means of selecting topics that, incidentally, seem suitable to move beyond factual historical content.…”

“…Students tend to see the past as fixed, as a closed entity of given dates and facts about a world out there that bears little relation with the real world; they have difficulty understanding that history is about constructing narratives about the past that serve contemporary needs and interests (e.g., Barton, 2008;Lee, 2005;Maggioni, Alexander, & VanSledright, 2004;Shemilt, 2009;Stoel, Logtenberg, Wansink, Huijgen, Van Boxtel, & Van Drie 2017). History curricula usually focus on historical topics as aims in themselves, without drawing analogies with the present or referring to big pictures, thus possibly thwarting students' ability to discern patterns of change and continuity between past and present times (Blow, 2009;Carroll, 2016;Foster, Ashby, & Lee, 2008).…”