This paper is an exploration of the debates surrounding the publication of a new National Curriculum for history in England. The draft curriculum was published in February 2013 and was withdrawn just 6 months later in the face of considerable opposition. This paper offers a tentative explanation for this example of a rare phenomenon: effective…

Verity Morgan took an unusual approach to the challenge of teaching the Holocaust, coming to it through the lens of environmental history. She shares here the practical means and resources she used to engage pupils with this current trend in historiography, and its associated concepts. Reflecting on her pupils' responses, Morgan makes a case for…

Jim Carroll relished the opportunity, in the new A-level specification he was teaching, to find an effective way of teaching his students to analyse interpretations in their coursework essays. Reflecting on the difficulties he had faced as a trainee teacher teaching younger pupils about interpretations, and dissatisfied with examination board…

Since the 1970s, many observation instruments have been constructed to map teachers' general pedagogic competencies. However, few of these instruments focus on teachers' subject-specific competencies. This study presents the development of the "Framework for Analyzing the Teaching of Historical Contextualization" (FAT-HC). This…

"Slavery is the ground zero of race relations," declared James and Lois Horton in their groundbreaking book, "Slavery and Public History." Engaging the history and legacy of slavery is a crucial step in understanding current U.S. society especially race relations. Historic sites that have connections to slavery have begun to…

In the current culture of regulation in higher education and, in turn, the history discipline, it is timely to problematize discipline standards in relation to student agency and creativity. This article argues that through the inclusion of a critical orientation and engaged pedagogy, historians have the opportunity to bring a more agentic…

This paper presents a game designed to support teaching and learning of Portuguese History to 6th grade students. Firstly, a state of the art of mobile game-based learning for History is presented. Then we describe shortly the research carried out which aimed at the analysis of the games most played by students, followed by the identification of…

Before the words are spoken, a bright light shines from the eyes of second grade teacher Mr. Aguilar. "I do not teach poetry," he says, "poetic language is everywhere. It is a kind of movement, a wind." While poetry is typically characterized by its flexible form and accessibility, for Mr. Aguilar, now in his tenth year of…

Calls for history teachers to adopt inquiry methods continue to go unabated in educational research and curricular initiatives. In recent years, there has been increased recognition of the important role teacher reflection plays in managing the uncertainty that accompanies such pedagogy in history classrooms. Accordingly, this dissertation was…

"Globalisation and National Identity in History Textbooks: The Russian Federation," the 16th book in the 24-volume book series "Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research," discusses trends in dominant discourses of identity politics, and nation-building in school history textbooks in the Russian Federation (RF).…

This study examines student perceptions about (i) whether writing in undergraduate disciplines contributes to the development of student pre-professional identity (PPI) and (ii) how writing in such disciplines affects PPI relative to other classroom activities. The study was conducted at St. John's University in New York, which has a very diverse…

This article argues that vital resources for teaching the relationship of German and the global to advanced undergraduate language students can be found in a critical approach to the rich tradition of cosmopolitanism in canonical German-language texts. One especially rich vein of this tradition is the historical depiction of relationships between…

Empirical Education Inc. is the independent evaluator of SRI International's 2014 Investing in Innovation (i3) Development grant called Redesigning Secondary Courses to Improve Academic Outcomes for Adolescents with Disabilities and Other Underperforming Adolescents. The goal of the grant is to develop "Enhanced Units" that combine…

The term 'upstanding' encompasses actions and behaviors grounded in one's defense of their own beliefs and others. While such broad application of the term has merit, from a critical education perspective it lacks direction. To efficaciously address injustice, upstanding action must go beyond one's beliefs. A directional application of upstanding…

The Data Beast, a manifestation of the expansion of assessment activity by the University of Tennessee (UTC) at Chattanooga and its accrediting body; with no meaningful quantitative information on student progress in its undergraduate program. Any formal assessment that took place was done because someone outside the department had demanded it,…