1:00pm-2:00pm on Friday 22 March
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Free School Lane, CB2 3RH
History is a contested school subject and a topic of polarised public debates. These discussions involve the attributed meaning to the narrated and remembered past, while shaping identities and world views. This was, for example, visible during the Black Lives Matter protests in England. Campaigners sent an open letter to the Education Secretary, calling on him to ‘decolonise’ the history curriculum, and to make the teaching of black history a compulsory part of the national curriculum.
In this talk, Dr. Tina Van der Vlies discusses how and why ideas on the value and purpose of school history for society changed in the period 1924 – 2024.
This example is part of a long history of public debates about school history’s role and purpose in society, related to ideas on identity, citizenship, values, community cohesion, and processes of inclusion and exclusion. All these discussions about history education produced more newspaper coverage than any other school subject. How and why did ideas on the value and purpose of school history for society change during the period of 1924–2024? Next to change, continuity is also taken into account.
As history is a compulsory subject in many national curricula, disagreements have often resulted in “a public and vibrant debate over the national soul”, with attempts to attribute specific characteristics to the nation. While some have advocated in favour of national history and the inculcation of national values, others have emphasised European citizenship or a global perspective and historical thinking skills.
History education engages with ‘cultural truths’ and moral values, and people with varying – sometimes conflicting interests – have discussed school history’s value and purpose. They disagree about which histories need to be addressed and in what ways. Public discourses are an important route to understand the ways in which events and persons as well as cultural, economic and political developments have affected views on how school history benefits society, and why this is such a contested issue.
