ABSTRACT
Ambassador Beeman’s admonition to learn history provides an interesting point of departure for a discussion of historical thinking and perspective taking in an international context. Cognitive theorists and researchers in other disciplines have argued for some time that cognitive development takes place within a sociocultural context that establishes the parameters of expert practice. The specifics of the situation in New Zealand yield a national history curriculum that is complex, multivocal, contested, and in flux. As in the United States, the social studies curriculum in New Zealand became a forum for the expression of many of the competing interests. All students, for instance, expressed surprise that New Zealand created the world’s first old age pension and only one knew that New Zealand had been among the first to give women full suffrage. Once students established that nuclear weaponry and testing were problems, they moved on to discuss American intervention in New Zealand’s affairs.
