Conceptual Change in History

Abstract

The question dealt with in this chapter regards the extent to which results from research on conceptual change in science education can be applied to other domains, and in particular that of history. In order to answer this question, we must examine the peculiarities of history and history teaching and their possible implications for conceptual change. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part consists in a discussion of the characteristics of history concepts and how they may influence students’ prior knowledge. Particular attention is paid to second-order concepts (evidence, cause, explanation, empathy, etc.) that seem to play a crucial role in history understanding. In the second part, the peculiarities of history as a discipline and their implications for history teaching and learning are reviewed. The third part deals with the comparison between conceptual change in history and science. The characteristics of students’ prior knowledge and the goals of conceptual change in history and science are compared. Finally, some general conclusions are discussed.KeywordsPrior KnowledgeConceptual ChangeEpistemological BeliefFrench RevolutionHistorical ContentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.