The Politics of History Teaching in England and France during the 1980s

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4494722
AutoresAmy Waldman (0000-0002-1054-0815, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen68
Número1
Páginas199-221
Fecha de publicación2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistory Workshop Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/hwj/dbp005
OpenAlexW1982256007
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas6

In the 1980s an unprecedented politicization of school history occurred in both England and France. For the two preceding decades ‘new’ history, which encouraged children’s active use of historical sources to study the past from a variety of perspectives, had gained popularity at the expense of more traditional methods which favoured pupils’ memorization of a national chronology heavily oriented towards key political and military events and personalities. The reaction against ‘new’ history in the 1980s was prompted by fears that its methods deprived children of the strong sense of national identity and pride which traditional school history had sought to instil. Both the Thatcherite ‘new right’ and Mitterrand’s Socialists therefore sought to restore traditional history in schools, but where the British ‘traditionalists’ were faced by opposition from teachers, the Department for Education and Science, the Inspectorate, numerous historians and the Labour Party, a political consensus on the need to restore chronological national history to its dominant place in the curriculum was quickly reached in France. This article proposes an explanation for this respective opposition and consensus, focusing in particular on traditions of governance in education and curriculum control, and on the impact of dominant British and French discourses on the relationship between schooling and citizenship, ethnic diversity and national identity.

Corporate governance · Management · National identity · Opposition (politics) · Political history · Political science · Politics · Popularity · Pride · Social science · Sociology · Thatcherism · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Gender Studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law