ABSTRACT
There is probably no other subject area more conducive to, and in more need of, the application of the VEST principles discussed in Chapter 3 than the humanities. The use of VEST would do much to arrest the decline in popularity of the humanities in schools. Recent research (see Lomas, 1998) suggests that the major factor governing popularity of history is the quality of teaching, followed by the status afforded to the subject. The other subjects within humanities are likely to be similar. The humanities have long been viewed as very literary subjects, with the written word playing a predominant role in both teaching and assessment. They are probably more open than others to being labelled ‘Applied English’, and many humanities teachers find themselves marking more English than geography or history. In that light it is perhaps more understandable to find that boys achieve less than girls. If the humanities are Applied English and boys are so much worse than girls in English, it stands to reason that boys will under-achieve in humanities as well-an expectation borne out by the figures in Table 13.1 above.
