In the 21st century, the idea that students should have opportunities to develop powerful knowledge has been influential in educational research. Social realism as an educational philosophy, and a focus on knowledge derived from academic disciplines, have been advanced as an alternative to social constructivism and traditionalism as a basis for…

The increased interest in basing teaching on disciplinary thinking has had a profound impact on the syllabus for history in Sweden. Within this context, we examine how students demonstrate one aspect of disciplinary thinking in history, namely reasoning about historical sources. The material used is written answers to an assignment about…

This article analyses the relationships between the perspectives of stakeholders involved in the development of the 1998 New South Wales Stages 4-5 history syllabus. It examined four key issues that emerged in the debates about history education during the review and found that stakeholders' views diverged significantly on three of these issues.…