ABSTRACT
Imagine, for a moment, three history lessons, all taught in England. In one, 14year-olds analyse a document by Henry Stimson, the US Secretary for war, about the dropping of the atomic bomb. In another, a class of 11-year-olds collectively explore the interior of a medieval castle through the medium of an interactive CD-ROM. In the final lesson 17-year-olds debate religious threats to Elizabeth I. These three lessons represent considerable professional achievements. The teachers have transformed history into a form accessible to their students; they have crafted learning opportunities that take account of their goals for learning and their understanding of their students; they have engaged and motivated their students to generate a variety of cognitive and affective outcomes from the study of history in their school. It is easy to take all this for granted: it can appear effortless. However, if we want to go further than describing, admiring or even evaluating what sort of professional achievement they represent, then our existing research-based knowledge about understanding what happens in history classrooms in the UK is remarkably limited. We would be on the most secure ground if we looked to research to help us make sense of the students’ achievements. Both the individual and collective work of Shemilt, Lee, Ashby and Dickinson would enable us to recognize the ways in which many of the 14-year-olds have grasped sophisticated ideas about the nature of historical evidence and the complexities of constructing accounts about the past.1 The CHATA project would remind us that advanced thinking displayed by some pupils may not be shared by all.2 Pupils’ understandings of second-order concepts, and progression in their thinking, have been subjected to detailed analysis and discussion through this extensive research project. A very different body of research, in the US, has explored the social and cultural contexts that shape pupils’ thinking in history and the work of Barton, Levstik and Weinberg could be instructive.3 Barton’s investigation of pupils’ ideas about historical significance might help us to make sense of the diverse responses to the idea of religion as a real threat to monarchy, whilst Wineburg’s work on the influences shaping historical understanding might illuminate the 11-year-olds’ varied experiences of castles.
