History Teaching, Sensitive Issues and Identity Building in France

Abstract

The teaching of history is connected to sensitive issues, which provoke social divisions and debates and which do not have scientific consensus. Sensitivity is explained by the social missions of history teaching: to catalyse the construction of identity, to build a border between “us” and “the other - the stranger”. The questions addressed during history classes are “time bombs”. Teaching history implies the transposition of social debate into the classroom and drawing attention to the political dimension of the subject. The article is focused on sensitive issues in history teaching in France. In 2019, we conducted a study to assess which issues were experienced by teachers as sensitive in class, what are the reasons for the sensitivity, and what personal and institutional conditions might help teachers in overcoming such situations. The article analyses the practices of the main actors of education - teachers confronted with official instructions, with the pressure of curricula, and with the reaction of pupils and their parents in France. The questionnaire collected 188 responses of French history secondary school teachers from all regions, from different social contexts, teaching pupils of different ages (from 11 to 18 years old). The aim of the article is not to conduct a banal review of the superabundant literature on the issue, but to bring a fresh and value-added look at empirical results in a specific context.