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

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4494722
AutoresAmy Waldman (0000-0002-1054-0815, autor correspondente)
Ano2009
Volume68
Fascículo1
Páginas199-221
Data de publicação2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHistory Workshop Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1363-3554 • E-ISSN: 1477-4569
EditoraOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/hwj/dbp005
OpenAlexW1982256007
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências 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