ABSTRACT
The 'framework' label attaches to a diverse set of instruments, practices and ideas exhibiting tenuous family resemblances. This chapter attempts to uproot usages for which more venerable terms should be preferred and to evaluate the utility of whatever survives semantic weeding. It offers a stipulative definition that holds for most of the 'frameworks' used in schools or cited in scholarly papers and research reports. In contrast, 'frameworks' enable students to organize material as instantiations of or exceptions to high-level generalizations. Debates about the quality, and hence value, of learning outcomes connect with others about the number and sorts of 'big' or 'bigger pictures' of the past students should possess, and hence with debates about the numbers and sorts of frameworks teachers should use. Ther chapter explores whether teaching of second-order concepts particular to history as an academic discipline should be integrated with framework approaches.
