Family memory and official history about the recent past in conflict: the case of Cyprus

Despite the inclusion of various media in the teaching process, textbooks remain an important tool in the education process. One of the reasons behind this is that textbooks represent the starting point of structuring, organising and directing the teaching and learning process. The question of whether or not a particular textbook fulfils the aforementioned roles can be ascertained through, first and foremost, analysing its didactic-methodological conception. The didactic-methodological conception of a textbook is determined based on a specific textbook instrumentarium and the set didactic-methodological criteria of its planning. One of the largest instrumentaria of every textbook is its visual tools. Hence, the attention of this paper is to specify desirable didactic-methodological criteria of visual tool presentation in textbooks. Using this criteria, the main aim is to detect which of the visual tools are represented in the Croatian humanistic secondary school’s history textbooks, to determine whether they fulfil their potential roles in the process of teaching and learning history, as well as to ascertain whether there are any differences in terms of the aforementioned between the Croatian humanistic secondary school history textbooks which teachers choose most often and the ones they choose the least.

Historical Arguments:Carlos Salinas and Mexican Women Writers Emily Hind (bio) Widespread suspicion concerning the legitimacy of Carlos Salinas' win in the 1988 elections stimulated Salinas and the PRI to recognize opposition victories for the governorships of Baja California and Guanajuato. This relationship of cause and effect does not appear in the Salinas administration's version of official history, produced in 1992 as part of the Libros de texto gratuitos (free textbook) series for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Those history textbooks omit any mention of the 1988 election scandal and focus instead on Salinas' narrow triumph and the fact that three principal candidates split the vote. The textbooks indicate that because Mexican politics have been pluralized since 1988, as manifested by the opposition governors, the Salinas presidency coincides with an improving democracy. Ironically, Vicente Fox's win in the presidential elections of 2000 shows that the history textbooks correctly predicted a political transition for the country. Even so, the books met with public opposition and were destroyed. Apparently, their content—a revised national history that deemphasized the heroes of the Mexican Revolution and the Niños Héroes, the heroic defenders of Chapultepec Castle against invading United States troops, along with other modifications such as an acknowledgement of the violent repression of the 1968 demonstration in [End Page 82] Tlatelolco—failed to satisfy an audience eager for change and yet reluctant to surrender the national myths and omissions that the PRI endorsed. In his analysis of the 1992 textbooks, Dennis Gilbert reports that Salinas and his secretary of education and successor, Ernesto Zedillo, were intimately involved with the revised official history. Both politicians read the texts in manuscript form and selected the cover design. The textbooks' withdrawal revealed factionalism in the PRI and precipitated Secretary Zedillo's resignation. At one point, it seemed that Zedillo's chances of becoming president had been spoiled as a consequence of the textbook failure. However, were it not for this accident of (official) history, Zedillo would not have fulfilled the requisite time spent out of office prior to nomination in March 1994, when he was chosen to replace the assassinated PRI candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Nonetheless, the risk he and Salinas took with the textbook project and the resulting controversy suggest the weight of official history in the Mexican public arena and the extent to which the Salinas administration was determined to revise the official version of Mexico's past. That determination can be seen in other Mexican cultural arenas of this period as well. Carrie C. Chorba notes that the Niños Héroes became an "unviable icon" during the Salinas administration's negotiations with the United States over the North American Free Trade Agreement, quietly disappearing from paper currency in addition to their decreased importance in the 1992 history textbooks (6). Andrés Oppenheimer also remarks on the Boy Heroes' lessened role in the textbooks, but notes a second motivation for the textbooks' withdrawal: the "suggestion that the armed forces were responsible for the 1968 massacre of students at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square." Although estimates differ, Oppenheimer cites calculations that the 6.8 million books cost some $4.05 million (121). To calculate the magnitude of the Salinas administration's attempt at historical revision, Gilbert identifies themes that distinguish the controversial 1992 texts from history books created in the 1960s under the administration of Adolfo López Mateos and in the 1970s under Echeverría. In contrast to prior official PRI history, Salinas and Zedillo's texts praise Porfirio Díaz. Critics of the 1992 textbooks objected not only to the newly benevolent portrayal of Porfirio Díaz' thirty-one year dictatorship, but also to the relatively positive evaluations of traditionally maligned historical figures such as Agustín Iturbide and Antonio López de Santa-Anna. The need for new textbooks implied fragility in the PRI's platform, because a revised official history admitted the irrelevance of policies that dictated previous understanding of Mexico' s past. [End Page 83] More generally, the new official history reveals the constructed nature of historical interpretation. Thus, the division between "fictional" and "non-fictional" texts seems potentially negligible, and comparison between textbooks and fictional...

Using historical thinking for analyzing the teaching and learning of secondary school history, this paper contributes to literature and debates on the pedagogical potential of museums in this endeavor. Despite the existence of museums and expansive literature on their historical significance in various world settings, there has not been much effort to connect history teaching and learning to this institution. Drawing our arguments from literature on historical thinking and museum studies, we explore the value of museums in the teaching and learning of secondary school history. We commend the inherent value in museums if their educational programs are packaged effectively for this purpose. Apart from connecting learners to cognitive activities as well as fostering an understanding and application of its disciplinary competencies, museums also engage with elements of historical thinking. Disciplinary competencies of history include critical thinking, extrapolation, evaluation of sources and detection of bias. Elements of historical thinking which makes museums stand out as potentially significant in secondary school pedagogy are empathy, historical significance, primary source evidence, cause and consequence and continuity and change. However, despite their esteemed pedagogical value, operationalizing teaching and learning of history using various museums facilities comes with several challenges which include high cost of organizing lessons, a strain on the school timetable, complexities associated with logistical and legal demands of out of school visits. Nonetheless, several innovations can be used to deal with such challenges.

This study examined History teachers’ perceptions and experiences on teaching and learning history in secondary schools in Kigoma region in Tanzania. The study focused on teachers’ perceptions of significance of teaching and learning History, teaching methods, perception of how students learn history, perception of learnability of History, and perceived challenges. About fifteen history teachers from seven secondary schools were involved. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The data were analysed using content analysis method. The findings indicated that the teachers highly perceived History as an important subject in secondary school education. They acknowledged the use of both teacher-centred and learner-centred teaching methods in teaching History, with more use of teacher-centred methods. Teachers highlighted various challenges to history teaching and learning in their schools. These include shortage of teaching and learning materials, use of English as the medium of instruction, lack of professional development opportunities and examination oriented teaching. It is recommended that educational authorities give priority to in-service teacher education and professional development and ensure availability of teaching and learning materials in schools. Article visualizations:

This qualitative study examined the issue of history education and its failure to understand and implement the most effective teaching and learning strategies for the discipline. It did this by conducting interviews, observations, and a focus group with a group of history teachers in a suburban high school in New England. While aiming to explain how history teachers' beliefs about teaching history affect their instructional practice and how much those beliefs have been shaped by their knowledge of current instructional theory, it also defined what constitutes teaching for historical understanding, elicited instructors' knowledge and beliefs, and compared the two as they are applied in practice. This study highlighted the contextual nuances that both hinder and help the application of best practices by asking the following three questions: (1) How do history teachers in a largely middle class, suburban high school think about the teaching and learning of history? (2) What has shaped their beliefs and understanding of the teaching and learning of history as reported by them? (3) To what degree is there an alignment between these teachers' stated beliefs about the teaching and learning of history and what is observed in their lesson plans and practice? In the end, the study identified that there are numerous contextual complexities associated with the teaching of history having to do with teachers' knowledge of history, understanding of pedagogy in the context of teaching history, and their personal belief systems concerning the proper instruction of students.

Este artigo teve por meta mostrar a produção acadêmica na área do ensino de história, tendo como fundamento a relação entre a Iconografia Pictórica Histórica e o ensino da história. A finalidade principal foi verificar a possibilidade do diálogo entre essa produção, considerada como expressão de uma cultura histórica de uma sociedade e o processo de ensino e aprendizagem da história. O artigo foi organizado da seguinte forma: foram apresentadas algumas perspectivas teóricas e metodológicas orientadoras para identificação da produção e seu diálogo com o ensino de história. Apresentou-se uma contextualização com a intenção de explicar o significado de Iconografia Pictórica Histórica e como ela é a expressão da cultura histórica de uma sociedade. Definiu-se o termo cultura histórica e como a Iconografia Pictórica Histórica enquanto expressão da cultura histórica, tem relação com a formação da consciência histórica e, portanto, com o ensino e aprendizagem da história. Apresentou-se uma definição para Iconografia Pictórica Histórica e o termo cultura histórica foi explorado juntamente com os elementos que o compõe, sendo realizado um estudo sobre a consciência histórica e a aprendizagem histórica. Palavras-chave: Educação Histórica. Iconografia Pictórica. Fonte Histórica.

Primary sources help us to visualize the past, bringing it into the present day. Primary sources are multifarious: they can be illustrations, original texts, maps and examples drawn from real-life events, all of which are important components of history textbooks. In order to use these sources, students can develop different skills, such as critical thinking, the ability to assess different views and the ability to think empathetically, all of which are crucial attributes in a democratic society where primary sources are to be used. To benefit from primary sources, history teachers and students must know how to use these sources effectively. However, it is a generally held belief that some Turkish history teachers do not use primary sources in history textbooks effectively. The purpose of this paper is to elicit history teachers’ perceptions about primary sources in history textbooks. A qualitative approach was used in this study in order to gather data in response to the research questions, and the information itself was secured through a semi-structured interview. History teachers who joined this study were chosen from the province of Trabzon through random sampling. In the light of the data, it seems that the majority of history teachers do not know how to use primary sources presented in history textbooks effectively.

Educating Palestine: Teaching and Learning History under the Mandate

This study aims to analyze the teacher's world view of sensitive and controversial issues in history learning. This research was carried out using qualitative methods with a descriptive approach. This study involved 90 participants. Data collection in this study used interview techniques relying on two techniques: first, one-on-one interviews with informants and second, group interviews or clustered discussions. Analysis of the research data using an interactive model. The results of this study indicate that the concept of sensitive and controversial issues in history learning has an important position for developing the thinking skills of prospective history teachers. To be able to manage sensitive and controversial issues requires an understanding of innovative learning strategies and evaluations. This study concludes that sensitive and controversial issues in history learning need to be mastered by history teacher candidates who are currently studying, so that this knowledge can have implications for history lessons that train critical thinking skills in schools.

Students’ critical reading skill is being decreasing, especially in learning history. In the other hand, students’ reading skill during learning history is important and has its significance to be developed. The indications can be seen from the ability on finding and comparing reading sources, analyzing readings, making notes from reading results, and sharing information from reading analysis results. Due to the significance of this research, author formulates some problems taken, those are: first, how to develop history learning using methods Search, solve, create, and share (SSCS). Second, how to implement the search, solve, create, and share methods (SSCS). Third, how to increase learning using the search, solve, create, and share methods (SSCS). Fourth, the efforts to overcome the obstacles arisen in the application of search, solve, create, and share (SSCS) method. This study aims to improve critical reading skills of student's history textbook during learning history. This study uses a classroom action research model with Kemmis and Taggart design consisting of planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. This study aspects of the textbook's Critical reading skills are selecting information from the historical textbook that corresponds to the discussion, finding information from the history textbooks, analyzing the content of the reading in the history textbooks, asking questions to the teacher or friends about the learning materials in the history textbooks, making notes based on the readings from the history textbook, sharing the work based on the reading results. Based on the results, this search, solve, create, and share (SSCS) may improve Students’ critical reading skill in history learning . This is indicated by the increase in the critical reading skill on textbook of the learning process in each cycle.

Social bookmarking is an online tool that can enable students to develop their skills in finding, sharing and (re)organising online information. Research has demonstrated that it has the potential to impact positively on students’ digital literacies – their ability to use the Internet critically to support their learning – and particularly on the kinds of online research skills that are vital to supporting inquiry-based approaches to learning and teaching in history. This chapter provides a detailed overview of how online social bookmarking tools have been used to support the development of students’ digital literacies in history in a number of UK higher education institutions. The general approach which has been adopted is based on constructivist principles and requires students to develop their skills and appreciation of the Internet as a venue for scholarly research in order to strengthen their inquiry skills in preparation for more independent work at higher levels of study. The chapter presents evaluative data that has been collected from students who have used social bookmarking to support inquiry activities within modules and as part of their independent learning activities. We also report staff reflections on the usefulness of social bookmarking to support student learning in history and make some recommendations for the practical application of such tools elsewhere. These include the potential significant impact of social bookmarking on students’ ability to interact productively and creatively with online resources in the course of their learning; the usefulness of the tool in supporting collaborative working and sharing materials; the need to ensure that students receive adequate training in using social bookmarking and that their work receives adequate credit (which will, in turn, increase motivation).

This study examined the function of history textbook as the social and cultural tool and its relation with the national knowledge. Ruling group, who dominates the state, wants to influence on people’s thinking and action in order to support their policies and ideologies. They have the monopoly of interpreting historical facts, constructing ‘official history’ to serve as the cultural tool.BR The emphasis on people’s lack of historical knowledge is one way for ruling group to utilize history education as the mean for instilling their ideologies. An intention for excluding historical consciousness and critical thinking is included in the argument that people’s historical knowledge is insufficient. And they often drive the difference of interpreting historical facts among history textbooks to ideological conflict. On this pretext, they attempt to intensify the control of the course of making the history textbook and its contents, and include their historical perspective in the history textbook. National narrative is a typical representation including the ideology of state in the history textbook. It would get people to have the national identity and the pride as one of nation-state members. The national narrative used to describe as a story of freedom and development in Korea as well as U.S. The narrative of Syng-man Rhee government is the story of liberal democracy, whereas the story of Chung-hee Park government is the story of development. We should open the historical interpretation in history textbook and improve pupil’s critical thinking through history for overcoming this problem.

Introduction. Historical memory determines a person’s attitude towards the country, towards their people, ethnic group, and other groups with which they identify themselves with. The formation of historical memory involves not only the state, which is interested in fostering a sense of patriotism and citizenship in the young generation, but also such social institutions as the family, school, University, media, etc. Family attaches the individual to the social experience of the past, as it lays the foundation of the individual forms of self-awareness, love for the homeland, and its past. Family memory is part of historical memory, because there is no family history outside the history of the country. Materials and methods. The article presents an analysis of sociological qualitative research of semi-structured interviews in order to identify the role of the family in the process of forming the historical memory of young people in the Finno-Ugric families of Mordovians and Udmurts. 28 interviews were conducted (14 Mordovian and 14 Udmurt families were interviewed). The research included the study of the main mechanisms, factors and features of the formation of historical memory in the Finno-Ugric families of Mordovians and Udmurts. Research and Discussion. It was revealed that the main mechanisms for transmitting family memory to the younger generation are family stories, observance of a certain family, ethnic traditions, commemorative practices, etc. The central event of historical memory in the families of Mordovians and Udmurts is the Great Patriotic war, which affected every family. Most of the informants participate in the action «Immortal regiment». The interest in the history of the family, the family name is higher than interest in the homeland, the history of their ethnic group. In Udmurt families, there was a better awareness of ethnic traditions and holidays than in Mordovian ones. The most visited places of memory are churches, cemeteries, and the Eternal fire memorial. Conclusion. The family aspect of historical memory is given more attention in the Finno-Ugric families of Mordovia and Udmurts than the regional (ethnic) or Federal one. Most respondents believe that family and school play a crucial role in shaping the historical memory of the younger generation.

ABSTRACTMost studies of Chinese nationalism are based on an unstated and unexamined assumption that history education in Chinese schools can effectively instill the official memory of the anti-Japanese war into students. This article tests this assumption through a multi-method study based on a survey, a textual analysis and qualitative interviews with high school students and teachers. The findings show that history education (including both in-class and extracurricular forms) has limited effects on nationalism among Chinese high school students. The in-class textbook education is largely ineffective in forging nationalistic sentiments among students, whereas some extracurricular activities, such as visiting the ‘patriotic education bases’, have limited effects. The limited effects can be explained by four factors: (1) changes in the content and form of the new history textbooks; (2) the students’ and teachers’ actual uses of the textbooks; (3) the students’ cognitive and emotional agency in receiving history education; and (4) alternative information sources such as the media and family memory. This study contributes to the understanding of Chinese nationalism and historical memory by emphasizing the complexity involved in receiving official narratives.

This chapter provides an introduction to research on inquiry learning in history, through a discussion of several central themes within the field. The chapter starts by addressing the question as to how inquiry learning is conceptualized within history education and, in particular, what sets it apart from inquiry learning in other domains. After considering the potential benefits of inquiry learning in history, the chapter then continues with a discussion of instructional approaches that have been shown to be effective in supporting inquiry learning in history. Finally, the chapter also addresses the role of the history teacher in inquiry learning, through an overview of research on history teachers’ adoption of inquiry learning, and teacher training with a focus on inquiry learning in history. Based on the discussion of these themes, the chapter outlines important challenges for future research in the field and the implementation of inquiry learning in history education.