"Making History compulsory": Politically inspired or pedagogically justifiable?

Davids, M. Noor

doi:10.17159/2223-0386/2016/n15a5

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Notwithstanding any limitations of the programme, the importance of History to identity, nation-building, and critical citizenship, among other considerations, is not in doubt. 48 To this extent, at least -and there are other important contexts worth exploring -History will always count. I suppose the question at this stage is why economists feel that History does not count and is in danger of being annexed.…”

Section: Conclusion: Is the Crisis In History/economic History Or Economics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives: Introduction

Fourie¹,

Ballim²,

Groenewald³

et al. 2021

Historia

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In August 2019, economist Johan Fourie of Stellenbosch University invited Historia to publish a "reflection piece" he had written and presented in March that year at the University of the Free State. In it, he puts forward his views of what History does, what it ought to do, and how it can perhaps be done better here in (South) Africa. His central concern is with big data and digitising records. He issues a number of seemingly bold challenges and provocations to historians. A slightly edited version of that piece is reproduced below. Rather than publish it as a stand-alone piece, however, and in the spirit of respectful exchange, we are publishing four substantial engagements with several of the arguments made by Fourie. These responses are by Faeeza Ballim, Gerald Groenewald, Jennifer Upton and Tinashe Nyamunda, all of whom are experts in their respective fields and experienced in their craft. Each takes the substantive points made by Fourie seriously, and responds to them in different ways. Best read as perspectives on a complex and enduring debate amongst people who are mindful of the politics of the past as well as being critically engaged with what historians "do" in the present, they recognise the technological and methodological promises of digital histories and big data, but eloquently remind us too of their limitations and indeed their potential pitfalls. There is much more to discuss, not the least of which is the responsibility for the ownership of and access to such records in a democratic and socially just world. The authors' information is included at the close, after a brief "Response" by Fourie.

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Section: Conclusion: Is the Crisis In History/economic History Or Economics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives: Introduction

Fourie¹,

Ballim²,

Groenewald³

et al. 2021

Historia

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show abstract

“…The xenophobic attacks on African migrants in 2008 and 2013 and growing social conflict and division seemed to indicate a fading 'rainbow nation'. These were partly explained by asserting that young South Africans did not know their history (Bambo et al 2017;Davids 2016). There was also a growing discourse calling for the decolonisation of the curriculum with the #Rhodesmustfall and #Feesmustfall protests on university campuses which started in 2015.…”

Section: Snapshot 5: 2014-2019 (History Ministerial Task Team)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus there is a tension between academics and teachers in the PRF who argue cogently why history should not be made compulsory (Ndlovu, Malinga, Bailey, 2019) and academic historians on the MTT who represent the ORF. This tension has been explained by the notion that the proposal is a political rather than a pedagogic one (Davids, 2016). The regulative discourse of the MTT report reflects the prevailing decolonising discourses in South African education (Le Grange, 2016).…”

Section: Snapshot 5: 2014-2019 (History Ministerial Task Team)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Remaking history: The pedagogic device and shifting discourses in the South African school history curriculum

Bertram

2020

Y&T

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This article uses Bernstein's pedagogic device as a framing heuristic to trace the shifts in the South African school history curriculum from 1995-2019. The article focuses on how the instructional and regulative discourses have changed over the past 25 years. The instructional discourse refers to the selection, sequencing, pacing and assessment of knowledge, while the regulative discourse refers to the rules that create social order. I map the curriculum shifts onto the broader policy discourses, such as the competence framework of outcomes-based education (which informed the South African curriculum from 1997 to 2011), the performativity and accountability discourse which emerged after 2012 and the discourses of decolonisation that strengthened after 2015. This article aims to tell the story of how the history curriculum reforms reflect the broader regulative discourses and to show the relationships between the official and pedagogical recontextualising fields. The story is a detailed case study of how curriculum design is influenced by selection logics that are both internal and external to the discipline of history, which reflects curriculummaking as a process fraught with tensions and fractures.

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History Education Research in Africa: A Systematic Scoping Review (2013–2023)

Boadu,

Bonsu

2024

History Education in Africa

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"Making History compulsory": Politically inspired or pedagogically justifiable?

Cited by 3 publications

References 6 publications

Perspectives: Introduction

Perspectives: Introduction

Remaking history: The pedagogic device and shifting discourses in the South African school history curriculum

History Education Research in Africa: A Systematic Scoping Review (2013–2023)

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