The authors present a case study of a world history teacher's mediation of her students' world historical thinking and writing through unit-level cognitive tools. They analyze both scaffolding and disciplinary tools that the teacher constructed for her students in order to improve their world historical thinking, and the degree to which the…

Recent education research strongly endorses the notion that knowledge is discipline-based, dependent upon the ground rules and procedures of a particular field of study. Since reading primary sources is central to the discipline of history, many teacher preparation programs in history-social science devote substantial instructional time to…

This essay constructs a comprehensive view of Dewey's approach to history, the historical method, and history education. Drawing on Dewey's approach to the subject at the University of Chicago Laboratory School (1896-1904), Dewey's chapter on the historical method in "Logic: A Theory of Inquiry" (1938), and a critique of Dewey's…

Critical thinking is defined more by what it is not than what it is. It is not rote memorization of dates, facts, and events. Instead, it involves delving into the meaning of historical developments--interpreting, comparing, theorizing, and evaluating--often with the aid of primary sources and multiple secondary sources. Students learn to ask…

The author is always looking for material to use in her campaign to end the educational "back-atcha" cycle. It is a multi-generational process, wherein unsophisticated fact-centered high school instruction turns out students resilient against understanding historical discipline despite their college courses; these students then go on to…

This paper presents the results of an investigation which was part of a project called "Recreating Histories". It is concerned with the analysis of historical narratives created by the children who participated in the project and an analysis of historical sources kept by families who live in Campina Grande do Sul (Brazil). It draws on…

The article provides a historical perspective on the debate over a New Zealand senior history curriculum that emerged in the 1980s and has remained largely intact over the subsequent 20 years. While the contested nature of history education is an international phenomenon, New Zealand stands apart: there school history is largely Eurocentric in…

Can Holocaust education be considered a tool for human rights education? If so, to what extent? These questions elicit discussions among a wide range of educators, and interest among politicians, educational planners, and ministries in charge of memorials. At first glance the obvious answer seems to be yes; both educators and students have strong…

Holocaust education can play a role in countering the ongoing problem of prejudice and incitement to hate that can lead to racial tension and violence. This article examines the beliefs of Muslim school children towards Jews in Sydney, Australia. It then discusses efforts to use Holocaust education to combat racist beliefs and hate language, and…

This article explores how teaching about identity in Australia has been framed by the recent historical and political context. It analyses the influential characterisation of Australian identity during John Howard's period in office between 1996 and 2007. The findings of Australian education researchers relating to young people's sense of what it…

More and more Americans are recognizing just how inadequate their system of higher education is, in large part because the ever-increasing costs of attending a college or university are accompanied by an ever-decreasing value in the education they purport to give the student. At the venture capital firm, PEI, founded by Chuck Stetson, the author…

Using a mixed methodologies research method involving a survey and qualitative analysis, the article analyses a survey of Russian history secondary teachers on their perceptions of historical narratives in prescribed history textbooks. This recent survey of secondary history teachers represents one of the first international surveys of history…

The School of Education and the Department of Physics at Boston University offer a sequence of 10 two-credit professional development courses through the Improving the Teaching of Physics (ITOP) project. The ITOP courses combine physics content, readings from the physics education research (PER) literature, and the conceptual history of physics…

At a time when the power of schools and both state and federal education authorities to guide young people's sense of belonging is being challenged by multilingualism, by the claims of supra- and subnational regions and minorities, by memories of national catastrophes and crimes, and by out-of-school educational media, this collection of essays…

Synchronous technologies, particularly interactive video conferencing (IVC), are becoming common modes of teaching and delivering college courses. The increasing popularity of IVC in the U.S. and abroad calls for more pedagogically effective practices for instructors using this technology. This volume focuses on innovative and proven approaches to…