We have studied how eliciting historical empathy in a class of 13th grade students through using the film "12 Years a Slave" (McQueen, 2013) supported their in-depth understanding of slavery in nineteenth-century USA. Historical empathy is one of the core elements of the new curricular reform implemented from 2020 in Norway, and it is…

This article addresses memory studies from an educational perspective. In order to encourage pupils and students as independent agents in memory cultures they are part of, it is not enough to (as history education prescribes) learn history as a narrative about the past based on official sources or via the analyses of different uses of history.…

This article reports a local study of the presence of history as a subject in the kindergartens of Kristiansand, a municipality in southern Norway. There is no syllabus for history in the national curriculum; nevertheless, the research sought to find historical content in the kindergartens. The research method was informed by a precept of history…

This article discusses historical competence as reading and understanding use-of-history as it is expressed in different texts. Students need to develop competence in the use-of-history in order to approach the diversity and complexity of uses of history in our time. The use-of-history is also an aim in the curricula of Nordic countries. This…

Scholarly digital storytelling combines academic research and digital skills to communicate scholarly work within and beyond the classroom. This article presents three case studies that demonstrate efforts to integrate scholarly digital storytelling, a technology-enhanced assessment, across disciplines, geographic locations, and teaching contexts.…

Purpose: The current article on social studies in primary and secondary education in Norway covers a range of relevant topics which starts with a brief context of Norwegian society, history and social studies framework. Main topics are the new (2020) curriculum, textbooks analyses, social studies teacher competence and practices followed by…

Widely implemented in Europe over the last three decades, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has been researched in some European contexts more extensively than in others, with the Norwegian context being among the least represented. This paper attempts to contribute to filling in the gap by examining the impact of a short-term CLIL…

This special issue examines curricula and their histories as they have evolved throughout the 21st century as part of transnational and national education policies. With a specific focus on the policy transitions that are taking place in Europe, the articles demonstrate how curriculum making processes move in different directions, following their…

This article discusses the teaching of history in early childhood education and care centres and children's understanding of history. Based on interviews with eight Norwegian early childhood education and care teachers and on interpretative phenomenological analysis, the article shows how the early childhood education and care centres teach…

The background for my research project is to look closer at how social sciences such as history, geography and civic life can be taught outside the classroom by using tablets as a tool. This paper looks closer into how tablets can be used as a learning recourse in an interdisciplinary project outside the classroom. I will follow a group of pupils…

This article centers on a theoretical discussion of how use of history can be addressed as a distinct concept, analytically and pedagogically. The point of departure is the field of history education research in the Nordic countries where the concept has become a term to denote the space of action between historical consciousness and historical…