Historical significance is a historical thinking concept. Being able to identify historical significance is viewed as important for understanding change and continuity in the past, and for understanding the way 'history' is constructed by present society. This article discusses how Swedish students in Grade 5 (age 11 years) perceive and understand…

The topic of this article is how primary school students express ideas about the "origins of the nation." The study is based on texts written by Swedish students aged 12-13 about a historical event well embedded in Swedish national mythology, the rise to power of Swedish "founding father" Gustav Vasa. The analysis is inspired…

In this study the authors investigate whether a whole-class educational blog could facilitate culturally relevant instruction and authentic intellectual work in U.S. history. Qualitative data were collected and analyzed that included student comments posted to an educational blog, classroom observations, and follow-up interviews. Based on the…

Investigated middle graders' understanding of the significance of distinct U.S. history events using interviews with fifth to eighth graders. Students noted steadily expanding rights and opportunities as a central theme in history but had difficulty incorporating some historical patterns and events into their image of progress. Most described…

Explores letters written by free children of color during the nineteenth century in Louisiana (United States) as a means to understand their political education, the reasons and motivations behind their use of their imaginations to envision the Atlantic world, and how they developed an understanding of race, nation, and citizenship. (CMK)

The "ISSS Annual Conference Proceedings" is a peer-reviewed professional publication published once a year following the annual conference. (Individual papers contain references.) [For the 2009 proceedings, see ED504973.]