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Historical thinking: Definitions and educational applications

Authors: S. Lévesque, & P. Clark

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• Notes on Contributors ix
• Foreword xiii Peter Seixas
• Acknowledgments xix
• Introduction: History Education in (and for) a Changing World 1 Scott Alan Metzger and Lauren McArthur Harris
• Section I Policy, Research, and Societal Contexts of History Education 11
• 1 History Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment Policies and Politics: U.S. Experiences 13 Tim Keirn
• 2 History Education Research and Practice: An International Perspective 37 Mark Baildon and Suhaimi Afandi
• 3 Research Methodologies in History Education 61 Terrie Epstein and Cinthia S. Salinas
• 4 Narratives of Black History in Textbooks: Canada and the United States 93 LaGarrett J. King and Crystal Simmons
• Section II Conceptual Constructs of History Education 117
• 5 Historical Thinking: Definitions and Educational Applications 119 Stephane Levesque and Penney Clark
• 6 Historical Reasoning: Conceptualizations and Educational Applications 149 Carla van Boxtel and Jannet van Drie
• 7 Historical Consciousness: Conceptualizations and Educational Applications 177 Anna Clark and Maria Grever
• 8 Historical Empathy: Perspectives and Responding to the Past 203 Jason L. Endacott and Sarah Brooks
• 9 Historical Agency: Stories of Choice, Action, and Social Change 227 Kent den Heyer
• 10 Global and World History Education 253 Brian Girard and Lauren McArthur Harris
• Section III Ideologies, Identities, and Group Experiences in History Education 281
• 11 Critical Theory and History Education 283 Avner Segall, Brenda M. Trofanenko and Adam J. Schmitt
• 12 National, Ethnic, and Indigenous Identities and Perspectives in History Education 311 Carla L. Peck
• 13 Gender and Sexuality in History Education 335 Margaret Smith Crocco
• 14 Difficult Knowledge and the Holocaust in History Education 365 Sara A. Levy and Maia Sheppard
• Section IV History Education: Practices and Learning 389
• 15 History Teacher Preparation and Professional Development 391 Stephanie van Hover and David Hicks
• 16 Teaching Practices in History Education 419 S. G. Grant
• 17 Assessment of Learning in History Education: Past, Present, and Possible Futures 449 Denis Shemilt
• 18 Reconceptualizing History for Early Childhood Through Early Adolescence 473 Linda S. Levstik and Stephen J. Thornton
• 19 Teaching Controversial Historical Issues 503 Tsafrir Goldberg and Geerte M. Savenije
• Section V Historical Literacies: Texts, Media, and Social Spaces 527
• 20 Reading in History Education: Text, Sources, and Evidence 529 Abby Reisman and Sarah McGrew
• 21 Writing and Argumentation in History Education 551 Jeffery D. Nokes and Susan De La Paz
• 22 Film Media in History Teaching and Learning 579 Richard J. Paxton and Alan S. Marcus
• 23 Digital Simulations and Games in History Education 603 Cory Wright ]Maley, John K. Lee and Adam Friedman
• 24 Learning History Beyond School: Museums, Public Sites, and Informal Education 631 Jeremy D. Stoddard
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

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Historical Consciousness and Historical Thinking

• First Online: 10 March 2017

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• Peter Seixas 4  

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In the field of history education, the terms “historical thinking” and “historical consciousness” draw from two different pedagogical traditions, Anglo-American and German, respectively. In this chapter, Seixas compares the two, asks where they overlap and explores the theoretical and practical benefits attained by clarifying their differences at a moment when history educators are increasingly involved in international dialogue and exchange. Examples are drawn from Quebecois research, the Swedish national curriculum, the German “FUER” model, Dutch heritage education and the Canadian Historical Thinking Project. The chapter concludes with questions and challenges currently facing both traditions.

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Seixas, P. (2017). Historical Consciousness and Historical Thinking. In: Carretero, M., Berger, S., Grever, M. (eds) Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52908-4_3

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Historical reasoning: conceptualizations and educational applications

Reasoning about processes of change, causes, consequences, similarities, and differences in historical phenomena and periods helps students to give meaning to the past. This chapter defines types and components of historical reasoning and the factors that shape the quality of this reasoning. Historical reasoning is conceptualized as an integrative and socially situated activity. We discuss empirical studies that shed light on how historical reasoning is shaped by students’ understanding of historical metaconcepts, substantive knowledge, epistemological beliefs, reading and writing abilities, and interest in history but also by the broader historical culture in which history education is embedded. Using insights from empirical studies, we discuss promising pedagogies to enhance students’ historical reasoning in the classroom.

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Historical reasoning, as a disciplinary literacy, aims to develop higher-order thinking in addition to depth of historical knowledge beyond the textbook and memorization of facts. It teaches students to use information across multiple sources to contextualize and corroborate historical accounts, constructing an informed yet critical interpretation of events. Studies on the use of multiple sources to develop historical reasoning among students with learning differences (ld) are scarce. This qualitative study seeks to explore and describe how twelve 7th grade students in a special education classroom used multiple historical sources when writing argumentative/expository essays. The 96 total essays that students wrote throughout the academic year are the primary data source for this paper. Data memos, lesson plans, and interview transcripts were used to triangulate the findings found in the essays. Based on a thematic analysis, three major themes emerged: (1) students with ld demonstrated discipline-specific cognitive processes (e.g., sourcing, corroboration, contextualization) when using multiple historical sources in their essays; (2) students with ld leveraged the use of multiple historical sources in writing essays, mediated by a range of interests toward multiple source use; and (3) high-quality instruction characterized by scaffolding (i.e., gradual release of responsibility) for reading and writing fostered students with ld’s understanding of historical events and historical reasoning using multiple sources. This paper offers implications or policy, research, and practice related to multiple source use among students with ld.

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The concept of historical significance is seen as a key concept of historical reasoning. Assigning significance is based on criteria and related to the identity of who assigns significance. However, little is known about reasoning-, reading-, and writing processes when students attribute significance. The aim of this study is to investigate how students and experienced history teachers with a master’s degree reason, read, and write about historical significance while thinking aloud. We analyzed the think-aloud protocols of twelve 10th-grade students and four history teachers on reasoning, reading, and writing processes. While thinking aloud, participants read two contrasting accounts after which they wrote an argumentative text about the historical significance of Christopher Columbus. Analysis of participants’ think-aloud protocols and their written texts showed that students did not recognize historical accounts as perspectives—influenced by the historical context. In contrast, te...

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• DOI: 10.1002/9781119100812.CH6
• Corpus ID: 266014324

Historical reasoning: conceptualizations and educational applications

• Carla A. M. van Boxtel , J. van Drie
• Published 2018
• History, Education

21 Citations

Teaching historical thinking and reasoning: teacher beliefs, uva-dare (digital academic repository) historical contextualization in students’ writing, teaching historical thinking and reasoning in upper secondary schools in iceland: results of an observation study, four design principles for student learning of substantive historical concepts – a realistic review study, students' historicisation of the environmental crisis: a narrative of industrialisation, ignorance and greed, history education and changing epistemic beliefs about history: an intervention in initial teacher training, social realism and school history: the role of the historical discipline in substantive knowledge selection, relationships between adolescent students’ reading skills, historical content knowledge and historical reasoning ability.

• Highly Influenced
• 11 Excerpts

Rubrics for Examining Historical Thinking Skills in High School World History Activities and Student Work

Historical maps as a neglected issue in history education. students and textbooks representations of territorial changes of spain and argentina, 72 references, historical reasoning: towards a framework for analyzing students’ reasoning about the past, writing to engage students in historical reasoning, teaching historical thinking and reasoning: construction of an observation instrument, “what happened needs to be told”: fostering critical historical reasoning in the classroom, conceptual change and the learning of history, conceptual change in history, effects of historical reasoning instruction and writing strategy mastery in culturally and academically diverse middle school classrooms., uva-dare (digital academic repository) teaching towards historical expertise: developing a pedagogy for fostering causal reasoning in history, historical problem solving: a study of the cognitive processes used in the evaluation of documentary and pictorial evidence, using writing tasks to elicit adolescents’ historical reasoning, related papers.

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HISTORICAL THINKING CONCEPTS

• Establish Historical Significance
• Use Primary Source Evidence
• Identify Continuity and Change
• Analyze Cause and Consequence
• Take Historical Perspectives
• Understand Ethical Dimensions of History

• Establish  historical significance
• Use  primary source evidence
• Identify  continuity and change
• Analyze  cause and consequence
• Take  historical perspectives , and
• Understand the  ethical dimension  of historical interpretations.

Taken together, these concepts tie “historical thinking” to competencies in “historical literacy.” In this case, “historical literacy” means gaining a deep understanding of historical events and processes through active engagement with historical texts.

Historically literate citizens can assess the legitimacy of claims that there was no Holocaust, that slavery wasn't so bad for African-Americans, that aboriginal rights have a historical basis, and that the Russian experience in Afghanistan serves as a warning to the Canadian mission there. They have thoughtful ways to tackle these debates. They can interrogate historical sources. They know that a historical film can look "realistic" without being accurate. They understand the value of a footnote.

In short, they can detect the differences, as Margaret MacMillan's book title reads, between the uses and abuses of history. “Historical thinking” only becomes possible in relation to substantive content. These concepts are not abstract “skills.” Rather, they provide the structure that shapes the practice of history.

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Historical Consciousness: Conceptualizations and Educational Applications

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• Historical Consciousness Social Sciences 100%
• Contemporary Society Social Sciences 16%
• Contemporary Culture Social Sciences 16%
• History Education Social Sciences 16%

T1 - Historical Consciousness: Conceptualizations and Educational Applications

AU - Clark, A

AU - Grever, Maria

N2 - Western historians and philosophers of history have increasingly noted the changing relationship of people to the past and the emergence of a different historical consciousness. Studies of historical consciousness reveal the ubiquity of the past in contemporary culture and society. More than simply helping us to understand how people connect to history or how well they know it, such research also reveals history as fundamental to the way people perceive themselves. Historical consciousness is both intuitive and learned. The nexus between the past and the discipline of history raises several critical educational questions, such as: How can we operationalize historical consciousness? Can it be taught and in what ways? How does it function alongside historical thinking and reasoning in classroom engagement? This chapter canvasses and historicizes multiple definitions of historical consciousness as it relates to history education and explores some classroom applications.

AB - Western historians and philosophers of history have increasingly noted the changing relationship of people to the past and the emergence of a different historical consciousness. Studies of historical consciousness reveal the ubiquity of the past in contemporary culture and society. More than simply helping us to understand how people connect to history or how well they know it, such research also reveals history as fundamental to the way people perceive themselves. Historical consciousness is both intuitive and learned. The nexus between the past and the discipline of history raises several critical educational questions, such as: How can we operationalize historical consciousness? Can it be taught and in what ways? How does it function alongside historical thinking and reasoning in classroom engagement? This chapter canvasses and historicizes multiple definitions of historical consciousness as it relates to history education and explores some classroom applications.

UR - https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Wiley+International+Handbook+of+History+Teaching+and+Learning-p-9781119100737

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781119100737

T3 - The Wiley Handbooks in Education

BT - International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning

A2 - McArthur Harris, L.

A2 - Metzger, S.A.

PB - Wiley-Blackwell

CY - New York

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Historical Consciousness: Conceptualizations and Educational Applications

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Western historians and philosophers of history have increasingly noted the changing relationship of people to the past and the emergence of a different historical consciousness. Studies of historical consciousness reveal the ubiquity of the past in contemporary culture and society. More than simply helping us to understand how people connect to history or how well they know it, such research also reveals history as fundamental to the way people perceive themselves. Historical consciousness is both intuitive and learned. The nexus between the past and the discipline of history raises several critical educational questions, such as: How can we operationalize historical consciousness? Can it be taught and in what ways? How does it function alongside historical thinking and reasoning in classroom engagement? This chapter canvasses and historicizes multiple definitions of historical consciousness as it relates to history education and explores some classroom applications.

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