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E-book History and the Climate Crisis

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Penilaian

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The history curriculum is never static. It is the result of an ongoing relationship between the present and the past. What is selected for study, as well as what is omitted, reflects the priorities and concerns of the present. This chapter presents a brief disciplinary history, highlighting the changing, and persisting, priorities from the nineteenth century through to today. The chapter argues that the current environmental crisis, itself an historical phenomenon, necessitates further revisions to the curriculum.We live in a time of rapid social change. Unsurprisingly, this has given rise to discourses about what we should be teaching our children, along with questions as to what criteria we use to decide. Discussions about the place of knowledge in schools and society, and considerations about what constitutes powerful knowledge, have shaped these con-versations. The chapter locates the current environmental crisis within these discourses and presents arguments for the role that history education can make. It addresses criticisms of this position, making the case for relevance, presentism and ethical enquiry as criteria to use in the selections we make for what to include in a curriculum. The establishment of history as a discipline in the nineteenth century went hand in hand with the process of nation building in the period from 1750 to the present. A belief in progress was a strong European Enlightenment value, and this assumed belief meant historians set out to race the progress of humanity through history. The combination of belief in both nation and progress resulted in histories which focused on the defining features of different nations – what sets one nation apart from others, often oriented towards culture, ethnicity and people, and often with assumed ideas of superiority (Satia 2020). Battles, wars, revolutions and constitutional developments became important foci for historical scholarship, purposeful episodes around which shared national narratives could be forged. Canons of national heroes and enemies were constructed and took shape. The focus laid stress on humans as the central actors within human history alongside prioritising events as agents of change.The nineteenth century was also the time when history became more professional. In order to achieve this status, historians needed to set out the theoretical and methodological basis which could justify their professional claim. University historians invented their own myths of origin, drawing from the work of Leopold von Ranke (Berger 2017) with the elevation of rigorous source criticism as the distinctive basis of expertise. Furthermore, the professionalisation was aided by emerging and existing nations which provided useful patronage and resources for historical writing as part of the national mission.The curriculum today continues to focus on national history: it remains a key staple or ‘guardian’ (Berger 2017: 53) of the history taught in schools today. The curriculum is structured by disciplinary second-order concepts such as causation, change and continuity, and these give the subject its epistemological shape. Among these, the focus on sources and evidence continues to be an underpinning methodological approach which is prioritised in classrooms. The nineteenth-century origins of professional disciplinary history are, therefore, still very much in evidence in the school curriculum today.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

375.001 HAW h

Penerbit

London : UCL Press., 2023

Deskripsi Fisik

218 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781800082731

Klasifikasi

375.001

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Curriculum Development

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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