History's role in the school curriculum

Bibliographic Data

ID11487963
AuthorsTom Arkell, T R Arkell (University of Warwick, corresponding author)
Year1988
Volume3
Issue1
Pages23-38
Publication date1988-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Education Policy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0268-0939 • E-ISSN: 1464-5106
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0268093880030103
OpenAlexW2120512457
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited7

By taking history as an example, this article argues the need for a flexible implementation of the impending national curriculum. History teaching in schools should help children understand the process of change in time in relation to themselves, but too often it fails. The reasons why no satisfactory alternatives to the traditional overloaded outline chronological national history syllabus have yet been devised are explored as well as the historical context of history as a method of enquiry which has flourished recently in secondary schools. So far attempts to reform school history teaching have been too narrowly academic or pedagogic and have taken insufficient account of popular perceptions of the past and of the fundamental nature of history. History is much more than an academic discipline and should embrace all attempts to describe the past and illuminate the present. The article perceives the past as being either living or foreign. The former has been experienced by some who are still alive and the latter is apprehended best through cultural relics. Futher much‐needed developments in the school history curriculum should be influenced by this approach, but they could be arrested by the imposition of a rigidly myopic national curriculum

Context (archaeology · Curriculum · Curriculum development · National curriculum · National history · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · Sociology · Syllabus · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · History · Law

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