How do visual representations (VRs) in curriculum materials influence theoretical curriculum frameworks? Suggesting that VRs' integration into curriculum materials affords a different lens for perceiving and understanding the curriculum domain, this study draws on a curricular perspective in relation to multi-representations in texts rather than…

In reaction to the disasters of the first half the 20th century and World War II, a dramatic world movement arose emphasizing the human rights of persons in global society. The contrast--celebrated in international treaties, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and much cultural discourse--was with narrower world emphases on the…

The content decision-making process involved in developing Holocaust curricula is unusually complex and problematic. Educators must consider factors such as historical accuracy, selection of topics covered, potential teaching materials (such as textbooks and literary texts), and graphic materials (such as films and photographs) as they plan their…

The legacy of crimes committed during the Second World War in East Asia is still a stumbling block for reconciliation and trustful cultural relations between South Korea, China and Japan. The presentation of this issue in history school books is in the focus of a heated public and academic debate. This book written by historians and pedagogues…

This dissertation is an action research study examining the use of technology to encourage critical thinking and digital literacy in a community college history class. The students are responsible for researching course material and teaching the class. They then use a wiki to contribute to and edit an interactive, online textbook that has been…

Peter Gray explains how his Year 12 students came to research and write a resource on the history of Zambia, for history teachers "in" Zambia. The construction of the resource stretched the Year 12 students in new ways: the Internet was useless and there were no easy digests in A-Level textbooks to get them started. They would have to…

The Battle of Bull Run is routinely cited as the first land battle of the Civil War. This battle between Union and Confederate forces took place near Manassas, Virginia, on July 21, 1861. But was this battle really the initial skirmish between the North and the South? Historians today concede that the first land battle actually took place on June…

In recent years, the curriculum programs have been changed dramatically in Turkey, as part of a comprehensive reform initiative. The history curriculum for secondary schools was subjected to this transformation as well. This study examines the curriculum reform in terms of teacher autonomy, a key-concept for the comprehension and improvement of…

This article describes an attempt to bring disciplinary historical inquiry into the social studies classroom. This work emerges from a five-school 6-month intervention in San Francisco, "Reading like a Historian", which found main effects for student learning across four quantitative measures: historical thinking, factual knowledge,…

This article examines how issues of national, Pan-African and tribal identities are handled in Kenyan upper secondary school textbooks for History and Government. Kenya is a multi-ethnic country without a common pre-colonial history. As a result, the historical record does not easily provide a common narrative with which to unify the nation. To…

A feminist post-structuralist perspective offers an alternative paradigm for the study of gender bias in History texts. It focuses on multiple perspectives and open interpretation, opens up space for female voices of the past and present, and deconstructs realist historical narrative. Our aim in this article is to discuss feminist…

The philosophical background of the subject history in secondary education has been mainly addressed through research based on "obvious" source types (curricula, discussions in committees or journals, ...). This article proposes a narrative method of analysing history textbooks in order to study the underlining historical philosophy of…

Old textbooks are one resource for teaching about the evolution of historical interpretation. Some libraries contain collections of U.S. history textbooks spanning multiple years and some schools even keep older textbooks used in past years. Recently, the author used a book by Kyle Ward entitled "History in the Making: An Absorbing Look at How…

Graphs are often conjoined with text passages in history textbooks to help students comprehend complex constructs. Four linkages connect text and graphs: appropriate elements, fitting patterns, suitable labels and causal markers. Graphs in current textbooks contain few such linkages and seldom mirror the construct under study. An experiment…

This article examines how recent history textbooks from the United States, Japan, China, and South Korea present the Korean War. The comparative analysis focuses on four areas: the causes of the Korean War, American involvement in the war, Chinese involvement in the war, and the results of the war. Analysis of the central story lines reveals that…