The Relationship of the Study of History to Student Attitudes

Abstract

The Problem?The subject matter of his tory, in its widest connotation, is the record of all that has transpired up to the present moment. As it is taught as a school subject, it concerns primarily the significant ideas, events, and activities of the past which may serve to explain how the past has affected the world of the present. A principal benefit which many educators hope will result from the teaching and study of history is that, through the medium of an historical back ground, students will be able to make better judgments of contemporary affairs. Such a hope presupposes that, as a result of the study of history, modifications of student attitudes with regard to ideas and issues of current interest and importance will occur. By the time students have become seniors in college, generally they have elected and pursued in some detail a specialized curricu lum with one field of learning for their major study. Many students choose history as the subject in which they wish to specialize. Since they, more so than others, concentrate on a study of the records of the past, it might be assumed that their attitudes toward present ideas, affairs, and trends might differ in some recognizable way from the attitudes of students whose special interests lie in other subject matter fields. The economic status of students is another