Abstract
Brief narratives created by pre-service teachers on a primary education degree course at the University of Murcia (Spain) were analysed to identify the ways in which they presented historical agents in European and Spanish history. The main units of analysis were categorized by the type of agent introduced in each narrative (individual, collective and institutional), then by identifying agents as either active or passive, and finally by describing the characteristics of their actions in terms of reasons and causes/consequences. The results reveal an emphasis on individual agents and the persistence of a superficial historical master narrative that perpetuates a distorted image of history.
Highlights
Students have to deal with interpreting ideas and concepts based on the predominant master narratives that dominate official national discourses, and those transmitted in popular culture and media, or often by family narratives (Barton, 1995)
As Seixas (2012: 544) points out, understanding historical agency as limited to the action of heroes is linked to what he defined as a ‘historical pedagogy of submission’, whereas students recognizing the role played by all citizens and social classes in the past could lead to a better understanding of the importance of collective action that ‘enhances their capacities as agents in the present’ (Den Heyer, 2003a: 412)
A first reading of the results shows that the category that appears most frequently in the students’ narratives (Aim 1) is collective agency
Summary
Students have to deal with interpreting ideas and concepts based on the predominant master narratives that dominate official national discourses, and those transmitted in popular culture and media, or often by family narratives (Barton, 1995). Among other things, these ideas and concepts reflect perspectives on historical agency and historical agents that have important repercussions for students’ sense of civic agency/efficacy. These ideas and concepts reflect perspectives on historical agency and historical agents that have important repercussions for students’ sense of civic agency/efficacy This is important when understanding history and the shaping of civic action. Teachers tend to focus upon large-scale institutions or abstract entities, or introduce events that explain changes in history, without paying
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