This article frames history education as a social construction designed to create a national identity through the inclusion, exclusion, and treatment of various societal groups. Using this lens, the author analyzes curriculum standards from nine states that annually assess student knowledge of American history to better understand the depiction of…

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the integration of Norfolk Public Schools. On February 2, 1959, the "Norfolk 17" integrated the formerly all-white public middle and high schools in Norfolk, Virginia. Less known than their counterparts in Little Rock, Arkansas, the stories of the Norfolk 17 underscore the struggle schools…

A fundamental problem faced by anyone who wishes to teach the Holocaust, or any other mass slaughter, is the tension between the desire " to allow the dead their voices to make the silence heard," and a historical narrative that often deals almost exclusively on perpetrator actions. This bias in the narrative derives from the tendency in history,…

In the field of history education, researchers and practitioners frequently demonstrate a keen interest in historical empathy. However, very little consensus exists concerning the meaning of the term. In an effort to make sense of the continuing debate, this article explores the competing conceptualizations of historical empathy found in the…

In 2001, the author wrote legislation that required all public schools in Maine to teach Maine Indian history. On June 14 of that year, Gov. Angus King signed "An Act to Require Maine Native American History and Culture in Maine's Schools" into law--the first of its kind in the U.S. What makes the law unique is its requirement that…

Discussions on history teaching in Turkey indicate that the previous versions of the history curriculum and the pedagogy of history in the country bear many problems and deficiencies. The problems of Turkish history curriculum mainly arise from the perspectives it takes and the selection of its content. Since 2003, there have been extensive…

This qualitative case study examined the place that historical empathy, as both a subjective and an objective endeavor, occupied in one teacher's instruction and her students' response. Data--collected over five months--include 29 hours of classroom observations in an Advanced Placement European History course, instructional artifacts, and…

Many educational researchers across the United States have found that inquiry-based learning (IBL) supports the development of deep, meaningful content knowledge. However, integrating IBL into classroom practice has been challenging, in part because of contrasting conceptualizations and practices across educational fields. In this article, we (a)…

A feminist post-structuralist perspective offers an alternative paradigm for the study of gender bias in History texts. It focuses on multiple perspectives and open interpretation, opens up space for female voices of the past and present, and deconstructs realist historical narrative. Our aim in this article is to discuss feminist…

The purpose of this action research project was to study the relationship between Historical Analysis and student performance on the California Standards Test (CSTs), both English Language Arts and History, as well as to study the relationship between Historical Analysis and Reading Comprehension. It was believed that Historical Analysis required…

Diaries can serve as meaningful entry points for advancing historical consciousness and develop historical thinking (Seixas, 2002) because they can connect readers/learners with the diverse emotions, thoughts and motivations of the people who wrote them in particular times and particular places. According to philosopher and historian, R.G.…

This article discusses a relatively new trend in assessment in American history education which offers interesting opportunities to inject the arts into mainstream education in ways that could provide a catalyst for engagement with social justice issues. Document-based questions (DBQs) on statewide social studies assessments afford art and social…

The new history in Britain and the new social studies in the United States each grew out of a desire in the 1960s to reform education and to create an inquiry-based mode of instruction. Although the two movements shared many similarities, the British movement succeeded whereas the American movement largely failed. The failure of the new social…

This essay uses primary source publications from Nazi Germany to explore how anti-Semitism developed and intensified into a genocidal logic. Understanding how this intensification could occur long before the networks of concentration camps or World War II arose could reveal how language paves a path to genocide. Using the concepts of telos and…

This study reports the results of a case study of four teachers' beliefs about the nature of historical empathy and their means of cultivating such empathy in secondary school classrooms. The results of multiple interviews and lesson observations of history teachers in England suggest that teachers conceptualize empathy in bounded but not…