ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that children in Northern Ireland and the United States bring very different perspectives to their encounters with history, and they hold different assumptions about the importance of the topic. In most fields of learning, educators are well aware of the importance of context. Children from different economic, ethnic, or geographic backgrounds bring distinct bodies of knowledge to school, along with their own ideas about the nature and purpose of education—ideas shaped by their families and communities. Systematic comparisons of the elements that go into the developing understandings can thus help illuminate the process by which individuals make use of the “cultural tools” surrounding history in different national contexts. In Northern Ireland, historic sites were particularly important sources of historical information. Students in Northern Ireland and the United States learn about history in many of the same kinds of settings—not only at school but from relatives, the media, and historic sites.
