ABSTRACT
Although much of what takes place under the title of ‘heritage education’ is not new, the use of the specific term appears to be of relatively recent origin. In the earliest mention I know of, Asa Briggs in an article entitled ‘Heritage Education in Action’ refers to the Heritage Education Group which was established as a by-product of European Architectural Heritage Year in 1975 (Briggs in M.Dyer 1986). He also notes the appearance of Heritage Education News first published in the same year and distributed to all schools in the country. Given its origins, heritage education was here closely linked to furthering knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the historic built environment and to using it as a resource to support the teaching of a range of subjects. In this chapter, however, I have considered ‘heritage education’ both more narrowly-that is I have been concerned only with its relationship to the teaching of history-and more broadly, by which I mean: first, that I have seen heritage education as relating not solely to the use made in teaching of the physical survivals of the past-buildings, historic sites, museum artefacts-but as also encompassing the non-institutionalised and less tangible-customs, folk stories, festivals, symbols and ritual. This I refer to as the resource model of heritage education; and, second I have taken heritage education to include the view that there is a body of essential knowledge about the past which should be handed on from one generation to the next, and that it is primarily the role of history teaching to do this. This I call the transmission model of heritage education.
