Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore the processes of learning when students are engaged in intercultural historical learning (IHL), specifically how spaces of learning were, or were not, opened by students’ struggle to construct meaning. Since IHL is complex, involving both intrinsic disciplinary and extrinsic curricular goals, it is vital to understand this process in detail. The research questions address which aspects seem to activate intercultural learning, and which ones hinder or complicate it. The methodological approach employed was an instrumental, multisite case study where three teaching–learning sequences from two secondary classrooms were investigated. Here, the concepts of ‘decentring’ and ‘perspective recognition’, as aspects of IHL, were seen as threshold concepts. The threshold concepts framework – and specifically the idea of ‘liminal space’, a ‘place of potential learning’, the in-between moments in the learning process where students find themselves before ‘getting it’ – was applied as an analytical tool to uncover and describe specific moments in the selected teaching–learning sequences. Several liminal spaces were unpacked, and it transpired that ‘troublesomeness’ is an integral, potentially productive component when students navigate liminal space as a place for intercultural learning. ‘Barriers’ that obstructed learning, as well as possible ‘entry points’ where a student steps into a productive liminal space, were identified, as well as some major enabling breakthrough moments – ‘junctures’ – for IHL.
Highlights
This article investigates the learning processes in two history classrooms where the idea of intercultural historical learning (IHL) was applied
It should come as no surprise that IHL has blurry boundaries, as disciplinary knowledge is entangled with politics, contemporary events and debates on values (Carretero et al, 2012; Nordgren, 2017)
This study explored the processes of learning connected to IHL, how spaces of learning were, or were not, opened by students’ struggle to construct meaning
Summary
This article investigates the learning processes in two history classrooms where the idea of intercultural historical learning (IHL) was applied. The conceptual framework is presented as a matrix (see Table 1), where each of nine intersections represents a critical aspect to consider for advancing IHL – in short: concerning historical content, to position processes of cultural encounters and migration at the centre of historical narratives, and to open a space for a diversity of voices and for students’ own lifeworld experiences; concerning skills, to analyse narrative structures, to interpret sources, and to examine the dominant historical culture for inclusions, exclusions, or othering of historical actors; and, concerning the use of history, to analyse historical and contemporary uses of history, and to use history to formulate considered positions for orientation in one’s own present.
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