A New Concept Proposal in History Education: History Capital

Abstract

History capital is a new interdisciplinary concept proposal in the field of history education, including the fields of history and sociology. In this study, a discussion was conducted on the conceptualization of science capital as a sub-heading of the concept of science capital, which was developed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's sociology and the British academician Louise Archer's joint work based on Bourdieu's sociology. It is seen that students achieve more success in the field they study, engage in research and reading activities, spend more time on educational activities in this field outside of school, and benefit from more resources. The fact that the student's interest in the course is a determining factor reveals the need to investigate the factors affecting his interest. Bourdieu explained accumulation with the concept of capital and divided it into economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. He proposed the concept of "habitus" as a concept expressing interest, tendency and predisposition. The concept of field refers to certain locations with their own rules and accumulation criteria. If his capital and habitus are compatible, the person can achieve high success in that field. However, in order to measure a person's interest, tendency and predisposition in a field, his capital and habitus must first be measurable in accordance with the field. It is clear that in order for this problem to be understandable and measurable, it must first be conceptualized. For this reason, we first propose the concept of "history capital" to the literature. The aim of this study is to explain and define the concept of history capital in accordance with the field of history education, determine its scope and discuss the content of this concept. It is thought that this discussion and evaluation process will contribute to the literature by expressing students' tendencies, interests and predispositions with a concept in line with their knowledge. At the end of the study, by using Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus and field with the concept of science capital, the following definition in the field of history education was reached with the dialectical method in which deduction and induction are used together: “The accumulation (capital) acquired from (social and cultural) sources that affect and form a person's interest, tendency and predisposition (habitus) in history (field) is called history capital.”In addition, eight dimensions used in science capital were taken into account for the dimensions affecting the level of history capital.