Historical Consciousness, Historical Media, and History Education

This thesis by publication contains an introductory summary chapter and three papers. The first paper presents a study of how the concept of historical consciousness has been defined, applied, and justified in Swedish history didactical research. It finds that there is consensus regarding the definition of what a historical consciousness is, but that there is variation in how the concept is applied. It is suggested that this variation makes historical con­sciousness a complex and vague concept.      The second paper uses the results presented in the first paper as a point of departure and from thence argues for a broadened understanding of the concept of historical consciousness that incorporates its definition, applica­tion, development, and significance. The study includes research about his­torical consciousness primarily from Sweden, the UK, the USA and Canada. The paper presents a typology of historical consciousness and argues that level of contextualisation is what distinguishes different types of historical consciousnesses and that an ability to contextualise is also what makes his­torical consciousness an important concept for identity constitution and morality.      The third paper proposes a methodological framework of historical con­sciousness based on the theory of historical consciosusness presented in the second paper. It presents arguments for why the framework of historical consciousness proposed can be useful for the analysis of historical media and it discusses how aspects of the framework can be applied in analysis. It then presents a textbook analysis that has been performed according to the stipulated framework and discusses its results regarding how textbooks can be used to analyse historical consciousness and its development.

Popular history magazines and history education

This paper argues that popular history magazines may be a welcome complement toother forms of historical media in history teaching. By outlining a theoretical framework thatcaptures uses of history, the paper analyses popular history magazine articles from five Europeancountries all dealing with the outbreak of World War I. The study finds that while the studiedarticles provide a rather heterogeneous view of the causes of the Great War, they can be used todiscuss and analyse the importance of perspective in history, thus offering an opportunity tofurther a more disciplinary historical understanding.

Uses of history in history education

This compilation thesis contains an introductory chapter and four original articles. The studies comprising this thesis all concern aspects of how historical culture is constituted in historical media and history teachers’ narratives and teaching. It is argued that the teaching of history is a complex matter due to an internal tension resulting from the fact that history is both a product and a process at the same time. While historical facts, and knowledge thereof, are an important aspect of history, history is also a product of careful interpretation and reconstruction. This study analyses and discusses how history is constituted in history textbooks and popular history magazines, i.e. two common historical media, and in teachers’ narratives and teaching of history. The study finds that the historical media studied generally tend to present history as void of perspective, interpretation and representation, suggesting this to be the culturally warranted form of historical exposition. Moreover, the teachers studied also tend to approach history as if it were not contingent on interpretation and reconstruction. These results indicate that the history disseminated in historical media and history classrooms presents history in a factual way and disregards the procedural aspects of history. Applying the history didactical concepts of historical consciousness, historical culture and uses of history, this thesis argues that an essential aspect of historical understanding is an appreciation of the contextual contingency that characterises history. All history is conceived within a particular context that is pertinent to why and how a certain version of history is constructed. Furthermore, all history is also received within a particular context by people with particular preconceptions of history that are contextually contingent, in the sense that they are situated in a certain historical culture. Readers of historical media are members of societies and are thus affected by how history is perceived and discussed in these contexts. This thesis argues that an awareness of these aspects of history is an important factor for furthering a complex understanding of history that encompasses the tension highlighted above.

Towards an epistemological theory of historical consciousness

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the concept of historical consciousness. It argues that a focus on the epistemological problems of the concept can be a way of constructing a theory of the concept that both incorporates the diverse perspectives that exist in research about the concept and specifies how a historical consciousness can be developed in an individual.

”När man kollar på bilden tänker man så här” : en receptionsstudie av gymnasieelevers uppfattning om bilder som kunskapskällor i historieundervisningen

Images are used in history education for a variety of reasons, not least to generate interest through a better understanding of historical events and people. The aim of this study was to investigate how historical pictures, either illustrated or documentary/photographic, can be used as a resource for activating and improving pupils' historical empathy, in the way described by Stéphane Lévasque. I conducted a reception study on five different focus groups consisting of pupils from different upper secondary schools in Sweden. The pupils varied with regard to number of credits for admission to upper secondary school. A sixth group of pupils was interviewed as a contrasting control group in order to add perspective to the results. The discussions were based on the pupils' interpretations of 34 selected pictures, all of which were taken from the most common history textbooks. Each pupil was asked to choose the picture he/she felt was the most representative historical image. On the basis of the strategies used by the pupils when interpreting the pictures and discussing them, the material was analysed in accordance with Lévesque's categories: imagination, historical contextualisation and morals. The last category, morals, was further divided into three sub-categories: sense of justice, sympathy and progression. The reflections of the pupils and the degree of contextualisation varied. It appeared that the pupils were less inclined to discuss assumptions about the persons in the pictures; instead they chose to discuss the historical context in question. The pictures in this study did not seem to trigger the pupils to fabricate anachronistic reasoning about history; when they did produce lengthy reasoning, it was contextual, structural and metahistorical. In this context, the pupils who belonged to the group with the highest average of credits showed some signs of reflection on the basis of historical context and some criticism about the historical sources. On no occasion did any of the pupils choose a picture as a concrete expression of injustice. One of the questions this study aimed to explore was whether a lack of historical context affects how pictures trigger emotions and reasoning on the basis of moral aspects. Some of the pupils displayed moral standpoints, primarily the degree of morals concerning injustice. One possible interpretation could be that the feeling of being unfairly treated and subjected to insulting behaviour and social injustice was something the pupils could relate to. The group of pupils who had not yet studied history at upper secondary school, the control group, generally made reflections using this sort of reasoning when they discussed the historical aspects of the pictures.

Högstadieungdomar skriver historia på bloggen : undervisning, literacy och historiemedvetande i ett nytt medielandskap

The purpose of this thesis is to study the literacy formed when a class blog is used as a tool for students studying history and explore how this particular literacy is used to generate historical knowledge. The study was conducted during the course of a project in which ninth-grade students contributed entries to a common blog in the form of a diary written by individuals who experienced the Second World War. Its three major objectives were to study the students' perception of the blog in relation to their gender and level of historical knowledge; how they and their teacher esta-blished and used the formed literacy; and how the students related to this in the production of historical knowledge. In analyzing the results, a concept of literacy was used based on seven writing practices all linked to the new medium and history education. The study was based on a questionnaire, interviews and various student texts. In order to perform a content analysis on the study results a theoretical frame­work for historical conscious-ness was included. The results show that in using the writing practices a literacy character­ized by colla-borative authorship was formed. The study concludes that this affects both what and how the students learn. Together they show each other that history is comprised of many small stories, not necessarily strictly co­herent with the general history as told by their textbooks. Examining the students’ blog entries made a new learning process visible that enabled the enhancement of their historical consciousness.  

Den Munktellska salongen i Falun : En studie i salongens pedagogik under 1800-talet

Projektet syftar till att belysa den Munktellska salongen i Falun som en landsortsvariant av det tidiga 1800-talets svenska salongskultur i relation till internationella, främst tyska förebilder. Det mer specifika syftet är att fördjupa förståelsen av salongskulturens pedagogiska arv och dess förankring i tidens bildningsdiskussion och hur det i sin tur har påverkat senare utbildningssträvanden och skoluppbyggnad (Wilhelmy1989). Kan salongen ses som en möjlig utgångspunkt för att utforska pedagogiken under tidigare historiska epoker? Kan man tala om salongens pedagogik? och ägde salongskulturen pedagogiska kvaliteter som gick förlorade under det formella utbildningssystemets uppbyggnad? Det är frågor jag ställer mig inom ramen för detta forskningsprojekt. Ett centralt begrepp är immanent pedagogik, dvs. individens inneboende möjligheter till självförverkligande i en given social kontext (Ödman 1995). Projektet utgår tysk bildningsteori med relevans för det romantiska nyhumanistiska bildningsidealet. I förhållande till det tyska bildningsarvet uppmärksammas även den svenska bildningstraditionen från 1800-talets början (Burman & Sundgren 2010). Särskilt intresse riktas mot Uppsala universitet där spänningen mellan klassiskt arv och bildningsnytta ställs på sin spets under samma tidsperiod som salongerna blomstrar (Gustavsson 1996; Lindqvist 1976). Tidigare forskning vilar främst på internationell och Nordisk forskning där Petra Wilhelmy och Anne Scott Sørensen har en central position. Genom Eva Öhrström skapas också ett viktigt vetenskapligt underlag för den specifikt musikaliska salongen och dess betingelser. Den Munktellska salongen är placerad i en historiskt intressant miljö. Falun rankades under stormaktstiden som rikets andra stad och bidrog till uppbyggnaden av Sveriges statskick (Hildebrand 1946). Väsentligt för studien är att Stora Kopparberget utgör ett paradigm i Svensk industrihistoria vars mentalitet anses ha haft betydelse för pedagogikens inriktning i Sverige (Ödman 1995:485). Den pedagogiska debatten under 1800-talets första decennier får stora konsekvenser för utbildningsreformationen i Sverige och placerar Falusalongen i en intressant position för epokens pedagogiska förändringsarbete. Brukspatronen Johan Henrik Munktell (1804-1861) visar sig dessutom stå i förbindelse med ett unikt musikhistorisk arv som etablerades under hans bildningsresor på kontinenten under 1820-talet. Av särskilt intresse är Henrik Munktells besök i den Mendelssohnska salongen. Mendelssohns i Berlin var en av Europas viktigaste salonger och en förebild för den musikaliska salongen i Europa (Öhrström 1998, 2007). Projektet består av tre delstudier där den första upptar Johan Henrik Munktells bildningsresor under det tidiga 1800-talet. Projektets andra del undersöker hur salongen i Grycksbo formades och de förbindelser mellan Norden och Europa som salongerna skapade. Projektets tredje del riktas mot salongens didaktiska funktioner och den utbildning som döttrarna Emma och Helena Munktell fick via salongen. Genom att satsa på sina yrkeskarriärer bröt Emma och Helena Munktell mot samtidens konventioner och ideal. De avvek samtidigt mot den kanon och de genuskoder som historiskt format salongsmusicerandet. Med inspiration av begreppet immanent pedagogik prövar jag det lärande som sker i salongen i termer av ljusets och dunklets pedagogik. Begreppsparet kan knytas till bildningsdiskursen och det narrativa minnet av Berlins judiska salonger. Metoden baseras på Paul Ricoeurs hermeneutik och bygger på att de narrativa momenten kvalificeras genom tre tolkningsnivåer som tillsammans avser att ge det historiska materialet en nybeskrivning eller redéscription (Liljas 2007; Ricoeur 1984). Genom Falusalongerna kan den nordiska salongsforskningen breddas. I kopplingen till Falu gruvas internationellt kända historia finns upplysningar om salongen som i den tidigare salongsforskningen inte varit kända. Genom projektet redogörs för betingelser som bidrar till att förändra det utbildningshistoriska landskapet. Den musikaliska salongen kan med sin privat organiserade struktur ses som en möjlig utgångspunkt för att utforska pedagogiken under tidigare historiska epoker. Salongerna kan förväntas berika det utbildningshistoriska perspektivet och bidra till en djupare förståelse även av dagens skola och högre utbildning.

Historical Consciousness and Historical Media : A History Didactical Approach to Educational Media

This paper presents a theoretical approach to analysing educational media using the concept of historical consciousness. The concept of historical consciousness is defined and operationalised and its relevance for analysis of historical media discussed. One aspect of the theoretical framework proposed is then applied in an analysis of a history textbook account. The analysis finds that while the framework may be applied in analysis of textbooks, its results regarding historical consciousness are tentative and in need of further investigation from the perspective of how its users perceive and appropriate the textbook account. Still, it is argued that the framework proposed may be useful since it specifies how a historical consciousness may be manifested and what methodological approaches that can be used when analysing it.