How Students Navigate the Construction of Heritage Narratives

Abstract

Using a multiple case study design, I examine how public high school students (n = 17) make sense of narratives about defining events with which they have specific heritage connections. Focusing on 3 groups of students (Hmong, Chinese, and Jewish) studying 3 heritage events (respectively, the Vietnam War, Modern China, and the Holocaust), this article addresses the following research question: How do students in public schools construct narratives of those events with which they have a heritage connection? Findings indicate that students appreciate, benefit, and learn from the inclusion of heritage histories in their high school classrooms; they can engage in complex historical thinking about subjects that may hold heavy emotional weight; and emotion can facilitate student engagement with heritage histories. Importantly, including these histories in the official knowledge of the classroom legitimated the stories and demonstrated to the students that their own and their families’ pasts are an important part of history.