Opening or closing Pandora’s box? – Third-order concepts in history education for powerful knowledge

Abstract

In this article, I introduce third-order concepts in the history teaching as a way to reach powerful knowledge. If we understand powerful knowledge as a means to give students a competence to understand the contemporary world, to help them to engage in society´s conversations and debates about itself, and to understand the grounds for accepting or rejecting knowledge claims, we must then help them to understand what ontology the discipline of history rests upon. Consequently, third-order concepts can help students as these concepts shed a light on what perception of reality the historical narratives and the first-order concepts build upon in the history classroom. However, at the end of the day, I have my doubts – what if we provide arguments for groups that have an anti-liberal and anti-democratic agenda?