Characterising curricular goals for colligations in students’ causal arguments

In history curriculum design in England, currently at least two loci of authority – the history teachers’ ‘extended writing movement’ and the national awarding body Pearson Edexcel – present somewhat contrasting portrayals of the narrative mode for the purposes of historical causal explanation. Nonetheless, both loci suggest they are reappropriating academic knowledge for the purposes of secondary schooling in a fashion similar to what Basil Bernstein (1986) dubs ‘recontextualisation’. As a practising history teacher, I provide a phenomenological critique of Pearson Edexcel’s specifications for the national GCSE and A-level examinations from the perspective of the extended writing movement’s realisation of the Bernsteinian model, with a specific focus on the narrative mode for the purposes of historical causal explanation. In order to characterise the status of historical narrative in the academic field of production, I draw on analytic philosophies of history, theories of history by practising historians and historical explanations from one historiography: the Salem witch trials. Finally, I make recommendations for future reforms in national history examinations in England: constant revaluation with reference to academic knowledge; the avoidance of specific yet unsustainable claims about the discipline of history generally; and the abandonment of a genre-led assessment in favour of an epistemology-led alternative.

There are few episodes in American history as interesting and controversial as the Salem Witch Trials. This work provides a revealing analysis of what it was like to live in Massachusetts during that time, creating a nuanced profile of New England Puritans and their culture. What was it like to live in the colony of Massachusetts during the last decade of the 17th century, the decade famed for the Salem Witch Trials? Daily Life during the Salem Witch Trials answers that question, offering a vivid portrait essential to anyone seeking to understand the traumatic events of the time in their proper historical context. The book begins with a historical overview tracing the development of the Puritan experiment in the Massachusetts colony from 1620 to 1692. It then explores the cultural values and day-to-day concerns of Puritan society in the late-17th century, including trends and patterns of behavior in family life, household activities, business and economics, political and military responsibilities, and religious belief. Each chapter interprets a different aspect of daily life as it was experienced by those who lived through the social crisis of the witch trials of 1692–93, helping readers better comprehend how the history-making events of those years could come to pass.

Since 1986 witchcraft (“Wicca”) has been a constitutionally protected religion; witch/wizard covens are maintained across the country, though they are, perhaps understandably, concentrated in Massachusetts. Nonetheless, the very mention of the seaboard city of “Salem,” for all except those who live there, has never shed its association with the infamous “Salem witch trials,” even though the trials arose in the neighboring inland community of Salem Village, now Danvers. Three centuries of notoriety have made the bibliography of the Salem witch trials (hearings, transcripts, polemics, history, historical fiction, drama, scholarship) so voluminous that no one can hope to master its entirety. My emphasis here is on exploring one long-neglected cause of the Salem trials, and studying selected renderings of it. During the sessions of the 1692 Special Court of Oyer and Terminer, confusions of racial color symbolism (red, black, and white) were expressed in the testimony of the afflicted who swore they had seen specters. Before, during, and after these testimonies, Essex County was sending its militia to fight Indians and Frenchmen who had been threatening and overrunning the county's northern borders since King Philip's War. The interconnections between these two developments demand our continuing attention if we are to understand not only the trials of 1692 but also the historiographical tradition that follows them.

This article reports research into the role and responsibilities of the chairs of governing bodies of further education colleges and sixth-form colleges in England. Further education colleges and sixth-form colleges represent a significant part of post-16 educational provision in England. Every college in the sector has a governing body, which has a chair elected from and by the governing body’s membership. Sixteen chairs from further education and sixth-form colleges in England were interviewed and data themes identified: the chair’s role and responsibilities reflect those of chairs in non-further education/sixth-form college settings; a range of expertise is required, but detailed educational knowledge is not a priority in the requisite skill-set; chairs consider they bring a range of high level values and commitments to the role; chairs’ participation in role-specific training and development was not a strong theme; the responsibility of being the chair is substantial and complex; high-quality chair–principal relationships are crucial and complex; the governing body clerk has a significant role in relation to the chair, the principal and college governance generally; and the role and the responsibilities of chairs and the way they are specified locally by their governing bodies have significant implications for further education and sixth-form governance.

This chapter presents an overview of mobbing in workplaces, schools, and other organizations, and it situates mobbing within a historical context while distinguishing it from bullying. Unlike bullying, mobbing is identified as a systemic phenomenon involving the interplay of individual, group, and organizational dynamics. Detailed examples of workplace mobbing and school mobbing are provided with accompanying analysis and key points. From a historical perspective, the Salem Witch Hunt and the McMartin Preschool sexual abuse case are analyzed and identified as mobbings. It is argued that overreliance on explanatory frameworks focused on the individual lead to inadequate understandings of mobbing and represent examples of the fundamental attribution error.

This article draws on a recent New Zealand study of how young people learn to think critically about the past when they conduct internally assessed course work. The research demonstrated that, although students can develop advanced understandings of historical thinking when they conduct research projects, this development is largely dependent on how well teachers understand the conceptual nature of historical thinking. Teachers who understand how the discipline of history operates are more consistent and accurate in making judgements, able to provide specific feedback to students during the research process and they structure their assessment tasks to reflect historical thinking concepts. In the high-stakes internal assessment environment of NCEA understanding how the concepts of historical thinking drive teaching and learning at this level matters. It provides a robust, disciplinary framework that teachers can draw on when they are judging students’ work. This framework equips them to have the confidence to mark holistically when this is appropriate and to see the criteria as a guide.

Beginning with an overview of the Reformation, the chapter places the religious beliefs of the family portrayed in The Witch in historical context. The chapter provides the necessary background for those unfamiliar with the Puritan religious tradition to understand the animating fears and anxieties of the family. The chapter includes a summary of the particularities of New England Puritan religious history and beliefs, Anne Hutchinson, and the Salem witch trials.

Since visually impaired students in Türkiye are subject to the general education curriculum, they may experience difficulties with the topics and activities included in the existing program. Especially in a subject like history, which involves abstract concepts, students can overcome these challenges more easily through activities specifically designed for them. In this context, the aim of the study is to develop the historical thinking skills and creativity of a group of visually impaired middle school students within the scope of the 5th grade "Journey to History" unit. The study is a qualitative research designed as an action research. The study group of the research consisted of 14 visually impaired 5th grade students, 5 girls and 9 boys, aged between 10 and 12, studying at a middle school for the visually impaired in Turkey in the 2022-2023 academic year. The data of the study were collected through face-to-face interviews with the students during the stages of the action research. The data obtained were transferred to the MAXQDA 2020 Plus qualitative data analysis program and analyzed with the descriptive analysis method and themes were created. According to the findings of the study, visually impaired students had the opportunity to develop their historical thinking skills and creativity. Students gained a deeper understanding of historical periods, chronological concepts and historical events. In particular, the processes that students learned by touching and feeling during museum activities improved their historical empathy and historical analysis skills. In addition to historical thinking skills, the activities also strengthened students' creative thinking skills. Within this process, the students had been informed about the ancient civilizations of Anatolia and their historical contexts, and these pieces of information had been expressed by creative writings and animations. Students gained a significant improvement in historical thinking and creativity skills. Braille timelines and museum activities made it possible for students to comprehend abstract history concretely. It was an effective example to reduce the difficulties faced in front of visually impaired students while studying history. This study aims to emphasize the importance of accessible teaching practices that support the historical thinking and creativity skills of visually impaired students, while also contributing to both the curriculum and teacher training for inclusive history education.

Following incorporation all further education, tertiary and sixth form colleges became independent from their respective local authorities and are now required to manage the health and safety of staff, students and visitors. A questionnaire was sent to colleges in England and Wales to establish the measures in place for measuring health and safety including the provision of a safety policy, a health and safety adviser, how performance is measured and inspection by the Health and Safety Executive. The survey concluded that the provision in sixth form colleges is much less well developed. In particular, they are less likely to have union representation on the safety committee, have a designated safety adviser, or have had a recent inspection by the HSE.

In pursuing a meaningful secondary school history education, at the same time aimed at fostering students' historical thinking, oral family history can play an important part. Oral family history can be understood as the construction of a family history, through the use of oral history methods and techniques. It addresses the historical stories circulating via oral tradition within families, who range over three to five generations. This chapter starts by addressing the way students, teachers, history curricula, and history textbooks perceive oral family history. In a second and most important part, it especially examines the contribution oral family history can make to fostering students' historical thinking. Through the analysis of concrete examples, the chapter explores pitfalls and trumps of oral family history in the pursuit of four important key elements of historical thinking: asking historical questions, historical contextualization, using oral history sources as evidence, and the concept of continuity and change over time. In making connections between private, micro histories, and macro history, oral family history can contribute to a meaningful history for students.

With the aim of analyzing the teaching discourse in history classes and its relationship with the development of historical thinking skills, an observational study was carried out in 28 social science classes taught by 14 trainee teachers with master’s degrees in teacher training secondary education students between 15 and 18 years of age. Lag sequential analysis and polar coordinate analysis techniques were used to identify patterns in the teaching discourse and its relationship with teaching strategies and student activity. The results show a predominance of historical contextualization discourse to the detriment of activities that promote critical historical thinking. The sequential lag analysis revealed significant relationships between interpretive discourse and the use of case studies, as well as between historical contextualization and the use of the press as a resource. Polar coordinate analysis showed a mutually inhibiting relationship between the exploration of prior knowledge and the development of historical thinking skills and a mutually activating relationship between interpretation and historical thinking, especially as it relates to the evaluation of sources. The implications of these findings for teacher education and the improvement of secondary history teaching are discussed.

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an ‘elite’ sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educational policy. Drawing on theoretical work by Bourdieu and Foucault, we demonstrate how the students in this study appeared able to re-make disability as a liberal intellectual identity marker and use it as a form of capital within the bounded college sub-field. However, we argue that these empowered disabled subjectivities were strongly middle-classed and precarious. The findings have implications through advancing current understandings of young people’s complexifying relationships with disability in education, of enduring inequalities around disability, and how social class is implicated in this.

As anyone who teaches a survey in early American literature can attest, one of the difficulties of the course is conveying to our students our interest in and passion for early American studies. Students often have no background in the texts, history, or culture of the early period. Unlike in courses in later American literature, they cannot readily bring their inde pendent readings to bear on, say, Thomas Morton's New English Canaan or Mary Rowlandson's Sovereignty and Goodness of God. Even when they have heard of the authors or events under discussion, they are as likely to mis take anachronistic or contemporary representations for historical context. They know Pocahontas through the Disney movie; they're sure women accused of witchcraft in Salem were ducked and burned (after all, they sculpted a diorama of such trials in their sixth-grade social studies class). I've had students tell me that Olaudah Equiano's narrative was boring be cause his description of slavery was not as visceral as that of Toni Morrison in Beloved. This last example aside, most students are interested in hearing the real story as conveyed by our big, authoritative anthologies. Neverthe less, few members of my survey class are there by choice. Most take it to fulfill requirements for the major. And it's clear in the first weeks that many students ?graduates too! ?often cannot fathom why we are so obsessed with pre-1800 materials.1 I suspect many survey-takers make their way through the course wondering why, if I could have chosen to read and study Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, or Alice Walker (whose works have obvi ous merit, as my students assure me), a smart woman like me went for Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (never mind the horrors of Cotton Mather and James Fenimore Cooper). This state of affairs continues in such classes until quite late in the semester, when stu dents have a critical mass of readings on which to draw. It's only then

This paper investigates the expression of historical thinking by students in the school and museum environment, based on the study of the past through archaeological remains. The empirical investigation was carried out in five schools in Athens, four state and one private, and included a total sample of 189 middle and high school students (12–13 and 15–16-year-olds). The students were exposed to archaeological remains in three different forms, actual physical objects, printed images of the objects, and digital representations thereof. Data was collected from written responses to a questionnaire and from their responses during a semi-structured interview, as well as from observations by the researcher during the whole process. Based on an analysis of their responses, it was clear that most of the students had grasped the historical significance of the archaeological remains they had studied. They referred to them in relation to their historical context, based on their recollection of pre-existing historical knowledge or the use of relevant information given to them. However, the expression of interpretative historical thinking in several responses appears to be influenced by the historical or non-historical character of each question or task, as well as the type of archaeological remains they had studied. Parameters such as age, gender, and socio-cultural background also appear to have influenced their expression of historical thinking.

Introduction. Historical thinking skills are crucial for students to analyze and synthesize historical events critically, enabling them to engage with broader societal challenges. However, these skills remain underdeveloped in many higher education institutions, due to the use of inadequate teaching models. Recognizing the universal importance of fostering historical thinking in shaping critical global citizens, this study aims to develop a research-based learning model applicable across diverse educational contexts. Research methods. This study employed the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) and involved 120 students from the History Education Department at the University of Riau, spanning semesters 3 through 11. Participants were selected using purposive stratified sampling, ensuring diversity in academic backgrounds and research experience. Data were collected via observations, questionnaires, and interviews. The model was validated by six experts and tested using t-tests to evaluate its effectiveness in improving historical thinking skills. KEYWORDS Results. The research-based learning model fundamentally integrates historical inquiry and direct research activities into the teaching process, encouraging students to actively engage with primary sources, analyze historical contexts, and synthesize findings into coherent narratives. This approach cultivates a deeper understanding of history through critical and analytical thinking. The implementation of the model demonstrated significant improvements in students' historical thinking skills. The experimental group's pre-test average score of 67.31 increased to 82.17 in the post-test. Statistical analysis using an independent samples t-test showed a t-value of 18.933, exceeding the critical t-value (1.658), with a significance level of 0.000 (<0.05). These findings confirm the model’s strong and statistically significant impact on enhancing students' ability to critically engage with and interpret historical materials. Conclusion. The research-based learning model is a valid, reliable, and practical approach to enhancing historical thinking skills. It provides opportunities for students to engage in real-life historical research, improving their analytical, critical thinking, and synthesis abilities. The model also contributes to curriculum development in history education, promoting both local and global historical understanding. Further research is recommended to broaden its application.