Establishing World History as a Teaching Field: Comments from the Field

Abstract

IN THE PAST TWENTY YEARS, world history advocates have persuaded states across the nation to replace western civilization courses in the public schools with world history. The trend to adopt world history courses is happening perhaps more rapidly than was anticipated. With some frustration, however, world historians are recognizing that the world history label on a course does not necessarily mean a global perspective is being taught in the classroom. If teachers were presenting a curriculum informed by a global perspective, by interpretations based on the work of world historians, and by teaching strategies that were tailored to the world history field, we might say that world history had been established as a teaching field. That clearly has not happened yet, because state curriculum committees, public schools and teachers seem to have settled for a curriculum that merely reflects the old western civilization paradigm rather than presenting a fresh and dynamic global approach to world history. What needs to be done to ensure that instruction reflects world historiography and that we move beyond old curricula? As a world history educator at the undergraduate and graduate level and a methods instructor for history/social science teacher candidates at a university with a long tradition of teacher training in California, I have compiled a series of