Historical Thinking, Epistemic Cognition, and History Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter explores the specific form of historical thinking taken up in the recently formed Australian Curriculum (as an example from the Anglosphere), and the related idea of historical competencies influencing curriculum in Switzerland (as an example from the German-speaking world). It then turns to the research on teachers’ epistemic beliefs and their impact upon teaching practice, arguing that attending to pre-service History teachers’ epistemic cognition is important in the development of history teachers. The chapter then re-examines the original conception of “historical consciousness” as understood in the Germanic hermeneutic tradition, demonstrating a link with epistemic cognition. The chapter concludes by arguing that pre-service teachers ought to be engaged in explorations of their individual epistemological cognitions, and that this is a necessary aspect of developing their historical thinking as “historically conscious” History teachers for the twenty-first century.