There is a case to be made for a more-than-human experiment for history education that challenges the inside/outside of the history classroom by expanding our understanding of the past beyond the limits of the human-centred, historical past. This more-than-human experiment can be realised by bringing agent ontologies into conversation with historical thinking. Agent ontologies are philosophical positions where humans are not the apex of existence and agency is not seen as something only humans have. It is the position of this article that certain assumptions to do with time, distance and the concept of the human frame the inside of the history classroom and, to truly overcome the inside/outside binary, where anything outside is seen as other, it is necessary to develop ontological positions that challenge these assumptions. Two more-than-human concepts, the history-student-in-place and historical affect, are outlined to provide tangible and theoretically sound ways for history educators to adapt their teaching practices. While a more-than-human experiment for history education is related to making space for Indigenous and Western history-making practices in the history classroom it is not the only reason for dismantling the inside/outside binary of the history classroom. More-than-human iterations of the past exist outside the history classroom in many ways, perhaps most pressingly in relation to AI-produced histories. The aim of this article is to outline two concepts to meet this challenge by confronting some of the things everybody knows when it comes to history education.

This article explores the connection between historical and political learning as well as their contribution to the promotion of democratic consciousness in Austrian lower secondary education. The analysis is based on the assumption that students need not only historical orientation skills but also competence in political judgement and political action to develop into historically critical, mature citizens. Against this background, the Austrian curriculum for the combined subject of History and Civic Education at the lower secondary education level was categorised historically and examined for points of reference regarding the promotion of democratic consciousness. Using the deductively derived categories of democracy, orientation and maturity, the article finds that while the curriculum refers to democratic values and human rights as an overarching goal, historical and political competences are not consistently linked. In addition, it includes teachers’ perspectives on the subject combination of history and civic education and their teaching and learning objectives. The analysis of 43 expert interviews shows that the combination of subjects is mainly considered from the perspective of history teaching. Although the interviewed teachers make various references to democratic participation in the present or to citizenship, many of them find it difficult to systematically relate the different subject perspectives (historical, political, democratic) to each other. To further explore this relationship between historical consciousness and democratic consciousness, the article concludes that more interdisciplinary cooperation between the respective subject didactics is ultimately needed.

This article aims to contribute a framework for how historical consciousness can be guided by moral consciousness. It argues that through adopting a goal of cultivating democratic consciousness and implementing a dynamic pedagogy, teachers and students can meaningfully engage with mis- and disinformation to challenge the suppositions they bring with them. These approaches work against the virulent effects of misinformation, which was a prime factor in the failure of Australia’s Referendum on the Voice to Parliament, as well as national elections in 2024 which produced victories for authoritarian or populist candidates. The first section briefly reviews how the descriptions of Civics and Citizenship Education have shifted in Australian curricula, from the issue of the Hobart Declaration (1989) to the present, to respond to cultural and social developments. A second section examines the key challenges and opportunities for democratic renewal, particularly in relation to how teachers can instruct students to plan for effective political participation at school so as to more authentically engage with their communities. This focus includes what can be learned from the ineffectiveness of in-school programmes such as Discovering Democracy (1997–2007) and the entrenched positioning of Indigenous peoples within a Western, colonialist understanding of cultures, place and time. Lastly, several suggestions are made for how educators can shift within their local contexts to cultivate democratic consciousness as part of their teaching of history.

Poetry has, historically and currently, been used to express resistance against hegemonic powers and power abuses. Poems have the potential to be both historical sources and personal comments on history, containing historical content and framing this content in a narrative. Poetry can also be useful in teaching difficult and painful histories, bringing emotions to the forefront of historical engagement. This article argues that poetry can be a powerful site of history education and exploration outside formal education spaces, using both published poems and student poetry writing exercises. It argues that poetry can be a site of history education through finding and exploring historical and existing poetry, and that poetry can be a site of history exploration through students writing poetry themselves. Poetry presents a way to explore voices of resistance and marginalised voices on their own terms, in an emotive expression that nevertheless carries historical argument. Writing poetry can bring students into contact with history in a different way, where they are in touch either with the histories that have affected and shaped them, or with history interpreted from their own viewpoint. This article examines history learning from both angles: it explores two poems that express a historical argument and two poems written by students in response to historical learning. While poetry can be used in formal education spaces, this article explores poetry itself as a site for history education and exploration, suggesting that expansive poetry engagement and writing can enhance history education.

In the ‘historical thinking’ tradition of curriculum design, the philosopher of history W.H. Walsh’s concept of colligation has mostly been adopted to enable students to construct coherent, powerful and usable big pictures of the past. Less attention has been paid to the potential of colligation in enabling students to construct causal arguments at meso- and micro-levels, despite Walsh’s arguments emerging from twentieth-century debates regarding the status of historical explanation. A theory-building case study was conducted with a class of 17- and 18-year-olds at a sixth-form college in England to identify possible curricular goals for colligation in students’ causal arguments at higher resolutions. To characterise the status of disciplinary colligation, analytic philosophies by Walsh and others, as well as authentic historical explanations from one historiography – the Salem witch trials – were analysed by reference to one another. The students’ work suggested that some were capable not only of constructing their own causal colligations, but also of appreciating the disciplinary framework that underpinned those constructions. Curricular goals for historical causal colligation are identified: individuation and historical contextualisation; reification of underlying explanatory models; and clarity regarding colligation’s status in relation to disciplinary and substantive concepts. Finally, recommendations are made to those operating in the historical thinking tradition on how they may achieve more empirical warrant for their claims regarding the essential nature of historical explanation.

This article explores the relationship of family memory and children’s history learning about the troubled events of 1974 in Cyprus, reporting on aspects of a broader qualitative study on how Greek-Cypriot survivors of these events remember and build self-narratives for communicating their experiences to the younger generation. For this study, research data were collected: (1) via one-on-one semi-structured interviews with 5 history educators, 23 parents or grandparents and 10 joint interviews with (grand)parents and their children; (2) through the methods of document analysis of the history textbook; and (3) by observing classes teaching recent Cypriot history. This study shows that these survivors approach the history textbook and teachers as vehicles transferring the state’s approach to 1974 and claim their own share when talking about the past. It reveals that they see politics as a barrier to having an authentic representation of the past and undertake initiatives, such as storytelling, witnessing funerals of missing persons and visiting places with certain meanings for their family histories, to help their children draw links between the troubled past and present. These memory sites stage adults’ stories and are appreciated as enabling youngsters to inherit family history and values while acknowledging their positionality in society. These findings highlight the importance of further investigating intergenerational narratives, as they may help children to develop a coherent understanding of the past or they may distort their ideas about the past, adopting the adults’ beliefs, memories and knowledge of the past. These findings suggest the need to enhance our knowledge of family-intergenerational memory and emotional issues in history learning in Cyprus and other conflict-ridden societies.

The aim of this scoping review is to systematically select, analyse and synthesise recent empirical research to better understand the factors that influence students’ learning of historical empathy, as well as the implications for educators. The review also maps conceptualisations of historical empathy, finding that it is predominantly understood as both an affective and a cognitive concept. Notably, there appears to be a slight shift in conceptualisations over time, from a notion of ‘stepping into other people’s shoes’ to a focus on ‘understanding’ perspectives of people in the past. Two particularly influential pedagogical frameworks are identified: one by Keith C. Barton and Linda S. Levstik, and the other by Jason L. Endacott and Sarah Brooks. Key factors influencing students’ learning of historical empathy include the ability to contextualise and see multiple perspectives, student engagement and emotions, presentism and moral judgment, and student identification and identity. The synthesis of findings suggests several implications for educators aiming to foster historical empathy. These include the importance of introducing multiple historical perspectives, providing sufficient substantive knowledge, scaffolding contextualisation, harnessing affective dimensions, encouraging moral responses while challenging presentist judgment, and being aware of the influence of contemporary contexts, namely societal narratives and values, students’ identities and the historical topic at hand.

This article analyses the historical representations of women, as individuals and as groups, in the past (from 1750 to the present) in currently (2023) used secondary school history textbooks in Hungary and Flanders. This international comparative perspective has been chosen as both countries, at least partly, share a common history and present. At the same time, there are also differences to be discerned, such as the liberal tradition versus post-socialism in society at large. Two main research questions guide the analysis. The first one is how women in the past are represented in chapters about the Hungarian and (pre-)Belgian national past, and about the past in general, since 1750. Specific attention is paid to the representation of the three consecutive waves of feminism. The second research question concerns the presence or absence of underlying patterns in the history textbook accounts with regard to the representation of women’s position and role in the past. For instance, do textbooks take a gender perspective, or rather give the impression of having added some women’s history to an existing storyline? The analysis is based on current history textbooks being used in Grades 10, 11 and 12 of secondary school history education. The analysis draws mostly on a qualitative content analysis. Results show similarities (for example, few mentions of women as individuals and as groups; close alliance to popular historical culture, not to academic historiography) as well as differences (in terms of recognising the importance of including women in textbook accounts of the past, and underlying storylines).

Art and history museums are increasingly adopting multiple sensorial technologies, challenging people to reconsider how these immersive museum experiences may add to learning art and history. This study explores the use of emerging technologies in museum exhibits, and how it reshapes art and history education in museums. Comparative case study methodology is used to analyse differences and similarities between two immersive augmented reality and virtual reality exhibitions in the Netherlands. While Case 1 offers a structured, guided experience integrating historical artefacts, Case 2 is more open-ended, prioritising imaginative engagement. Drawing on these cases, we posit the construct of immersive learning experiences in museums and reflect on how they relate to traditional museum learning. Interaction and multimodality emerge as critical components of immersive learning experiences in museums that enhance the depth and breadth of visitor engagement, while guidance and interaction ensure that the educational objectives are met without stifling individual curiosity. Both cases vary to a large degree in the way in which they integrate these aspects of learning into their design.

Despite the significant impact of identity and cultural characteristics on historical thinking, the influence of religious aspects on students’ historical understanding remains under-researched. This article addresses this gap by exploring the historical significance attributed to biblical stories among secular and religious Jewish adolescents, while also examining how history education extends beyond formal history classes. Although the Bible holds a central place in Jewish historical culture, biblical narratives are absent from Israeli school history curricula. This study employs quantitative methods to investigate students’ attitudes towards biblical stories through two key questions: (1) What are the five most important events in history?; and (2) When did Zionism begin? The research sample included 350 Jewish Israeli adolescents, surveyed approximately two months after completing K–12 education in either the non-religious state education or the state-religious education systems. The findings reveal a profound impact of religious identity and culture on students’ historical significance. Among state-religious education graduates, more than 50% cited at least one biblical event as one of the most important in history, compared to less than 7% of non-religious state education graduates. Similarly, when considering the beginning of Zionism, state-religious education graduates referred to the biblical period three times more often than their secular counterparts. Despite the differences between educational systems, around 20% of non-religious state education graduates included biblical stories in their responses, underscoring the Bible’s lasting influence on historical understanding in Israel.