Abstract
The goal of this study is to compare the presence of concepts for historical and geographical thinking in the national curricula for Primary Education in Spain and Sweden in order to analyze if these thinking concepts can enable new active learning methodologies in the Social Science classroom. The comparative study is based on a qualitative investigation using a horizontal evaluation instrument (international compared analysis). Compared items were divided in four dimensions: 1. curriculum structure—subjects, timetable, compulsory, ratio, etc.-, 2. educational methodologies—project-based learning, research, practical lessons-, 3. Objectives and evaluation—aims, evaluation criteria, standards-, and 4. Contents—conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal. The results show that, despite a different structure for the history and geography subjects in Primary Education, neither of the two curricula present historical and geographical thinking concepts as a fundamental aim for Primary Education and, at the same time, the low presence of these thinking concepts is linked to traditional teaching models still based on positivism and memorization.
Highlights
The Social Sciences, including History and Geography, have been school subjects since the first attempts to create a national educational system in all “western” societies at the beginning of the nineteenth century
The main target of this study is to compare the presence of competences for historical and geographical thinking in the Social Sciences development of Spanish and Swedish national curriculum for Primary Education
The countries selected in this study were Spain and Sweden, two similar countries attending to social stability, solid public education system, economic development and political belonging to the EU. In addition to this geographical and political neighborhood, both countries score similar in Science tests in the two last Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports known: 2015 and 2018, where they are surrounding the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average score, as we can see in the table below (Table 1)
Summary
The Social Sciences, including History and Geography, have been school subjects since the first attempts to create a national educational system in all “western” societies at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The target for Social Science education has evolved as the societies developed themselves: first, both History and Geography, had the goal of building the new modern nations and to justify the state-center power that they created. As Prats and Santacana (2001) has told, Social Studies teach students the society they live in and how to behave to become good citizens in the future. In this sense, this investigation refers to compare how national curriculum in Spain and in Sweden develop new skills through the concepts of historical and geographical thinking. The comparative study will be held, in this research, using the application AQUAD 7 to make a qualitative analysis through an ad hoc instrument created for both Swedish and Spanish national curricula
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