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Abstract

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Historical Encounters: A journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures, and history education, or just 'Historical Encounters' or HEJ (Historical Encounters Journal) for short. The title of the journal intends to suggest Gadamer's (1992) notion of 'the fusion of horizons', as we explore the ways in which members of our communities experience, interpret, learn, study, and respond to the historical worlds they encounter. The journal aims to publish research and scholarship -both empirical and theoretical -from within and across the fields of history curriculum, pedagogy, and didactics, historical culture, historical consciousness, history teacher education, curriculum history, history of education, history of ideas (in education), collective memory, history textbook and media studies, historical theory, narrative theory, public history, and any of the other areas where history education and the broader field of historical studies intersect, or the core themes are debated.As a history educator and curriculum historian myself, I hope you will permit in this introduction a little bit of history about how the journal came about. I had become interested in open access journals ever since a colleague from the United States first introduced me to Open Journal Systems (developed at the University of British Columbia). I liked the ethics behind that journal system, and while on sabbatical (late 2012 and early 2013), became increasingly concerned at the way academic authors often signed away the copyright to their work once it went into publication; subsequently received little or no remuneration for their writing (unless one counts its use in job and promotion applications, resumes, and the like); and worked in universities that were then charged for access to that same work. It was thus a considered decision to adopt Open Journal Systems to manage the journal, and a philosophy that leaves copyright in the hands of the author, allowing them to republish their work, so long as a notice remains on the work that it was first published in Historical Encounters.Just before the start of my sabbatical, I was invited by Professor James Albright, Chair of the Education Research Institute Newcastle (ERIN), to be a guest editor of a special issue of Education Sciences, a new journal (published by MDPI) with a broad scope and mission. The special issue was titled 'History curriculum, geschichtsdidaktik, and the problem of the nation' (Parkes & Vinterek, 2012), and invited colleagues from around the world to engage in a dialogue between various regional and national traditions of history education. The goal was to provide a collection of articles that explored history education within and beyond national borders. I completed that assignment with Professor Monika Vinterek (Dalarna University, Sweden), and we published 8 papers (including our editorial) in that special issue, including

Gauging reflexive historical thinking: An exploratory study of Columbian undergraduates

“…In this regard, the course generates similar challenges to those observed by scholars studying history education in other conflict and post-conflict societies (McCully, 2012;Ahonen, 2014). While observing the benefits of "multi-perspectival" approaches and "de-mythicalization" of history curricula, scholars also note that the extreme sensitivity surrounding local histories in conflict and post-conflict areas can generate serious push-back from students and administrators (Ahonen, 2014). In the experience of this course professor, students only occasionally react with open hostility toward narratives that cut against the grain of their received cultural wisdom (we speculate that the professor, as a foreigner, is granted a certain amount of leeway in this regard).…”

“…As such, ideological battle lines here are especially entrenched. In this regard, the course generates similar challenges to those observed by scholars studying history education in other conflict and post-conflict societies (McCully, 2012;Ahonen, 2014). While observing the benefits of "multi-perspectival" approaches and "de-mythicalization" of history curricula, scholars also note that the extreme sensitivity surrounding local histories in conflict and post-conflict areas can generate serious push-back from students and administrators (Ahonen, 2014).…”

“…Increasingly, however, history professors assert the vitality of their discipline not by ascribing transcendent importance to the past per se (and certainly not by laying claim to its objective analysis) but by arguing for the importance of the cognitive process required for its coherent interpretation (Ercikan & Seixas, 2015;Levisohn, 2015;Stoel, van Drie, & van Boxtel, 2017;Yogev, 2013). Various names have been given to this cognitive process within the burgeoning literature that would seek to describe and measure it: "historical logic" or "logics of history" (Thompson, 1978;Sewell, 1988), "historical consciousness" (Friedrich, 2010;Nordgren, 2016;Rüsen, 2004;Seixas, 2004;Thorp, 2014), "effective historical consciousness" (Gadamer, 2004;Yogev, 2013), "historical thinking" (Ercikan & Seixas, 2015;Levinson, 2017;Seixas, 2017;Seixas & Peck, 2004;Wineburg, 2001), "historical reasoning" (Freedman, 2015;van Boxtel & van Drie, 2013;van Drie & van Boxtel 2008), "historical sense generation" (Rüsen, 2012), "historical perspective taking" (Hartmann & Hasselhorn, 2008;Huijgen, van Boxtel, van de Grift, & Holthuis, 2017;Nilsen, 2016), "historical problem solving" (Wineburg, 1991), "historical thinking and reasoning" (Gestsdottir, van Boxtel, & van Drie, 2017), "historical understanding" (Seixas, 1993).…”

The conceptions of Spanish and Colombian students regarding processes of historical reconciliation

“…Therefore, although analyzing these controversial histories is essential to understanding the fact that the present is marked by different kinds of violence, it is not unusual to find official and unofficial discourses in different areas of society. These discourses directly or indirectly encourage the neglect, distortion or denial of controversial issues, considering them unworthy of public discussion (Ahonen, 2014;De Baets, 2015;Gellman, 2015).…”

“…Along these lines, it has been established that history learning in education systems, rather than developing a univocal and one-sided identity grounded in a historical narrative defined exclusively by notions of triumph and grandeur, should prepare children and young people to make a critical reading of the past, the present and the future. According to different authors, to achieve this educational objective in schools would imply: (1) Questioning discourse and teaching and learning practices which directly or indirectly promote the exclusion, denial, segregation, annihilation and devaluation of others and their historical narratives (Han et al, 2012;Pudar et al, 2020;Miralles and Ibagón, 2022); (2) Rethinking the elements which give shape to the notion of an us (particularly in national terms) (Kokkinos, 2011;Bentrovato et al, 2016;Miles, 2018;Wallace-Casey, 2022); (3) Promoting the identification and analysis of multiple perspectives around historical experiences of a controversial and difficult nature (Ahonen, 2014;Maric, 2016;Goldberg, 2017;López-García, 2022); (4) Recognizing the influence that different spheres of socialization outside of schools have on students' ideas of history (McCully, 2012;Najbert, 2020).…”