Over the past 20 years, there has been a shift in history education away from a view of history as the pursuit of an objective, universal story about the past toward ‘historical consciousness,’ which seeks to cultivate an understanding of the past as something that makes moral demands on us here and now. According to Roger Simon, historical consciousness calls us to ‘live historically’ – to live in a particular kind of ethical relationship with the past. However, no matter how (...) much educators might believe in the importance of learning to live historically, if students do not see it that way, even the most thoughtfully designed program in history education will never get off the ground. This paper is an attempt to see whether the notion of ‘caring for the past,’ based on Nel Noddings' ethic of care, might help us begin to address the problem of moral motivation in educating for historical consciousness. (shrink)

The article provides a new interpretation of the most widely cited essay on historical consciousness, Friedrich Nietzsche?s?On the use and abuse of history for life? from 1874, reconnecting it to current debates in educational science and the role of the historian and educator in a post-colonial situation. It reminds us how historical consciousness is an always contested and critical space, where our existential commitment to justice is also tested. The interpretation moves beyond the standard understanding of Nietzsche as only favouring (...) a life-affirming use of history. It displays how his argument opens the door toward understanding historical consciousness as a transcultural ethical space of an encounter between the dead and the living. It addresses the contemporary debate in education science concerning the relation and preference between a broader and more limited notion of historical consciousness, questioning the possibility of a conclusive theory of historical consciousness for practical-pedagogical purposes. It exemplifies its conclusions in regard to the legacies of the Holocaust and to Apartheid, as also pedagogical challenges. (shrink)

Québec’s model of cultural diversity, Interculturalism, has been the object of considerable debate since Bouchard and Taylor released in 2008 their now famous report, Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation. Among other things, the authors recommended that schools take more seriously Québec’s Intercultural model as a means of bringing diverse cultures into a single society. In this dissertation I consider the uptake and implication of Intercultural ideals in Québec’s History and Citizenship education course. This study involved three secondary school (...) history teachers in Montreal Anglophone schools. Using Thacher’s “normative case study” as the methodological framework, I combine curriculum documents, classroom observations, open-ended interviews, and photo-voice methods to illuminate the Intercultural model’s shortcomings with regard to issues of power and identity. The guiding question for this dissertation is: how do the historicized power dynamics embedded within Québec’s Intercultural policy shape history education in Québec? Two sets of tensions are found to be at the crux of the issue of history teaching in Québec: first the theoretical debates on history education do not take Québec’s specific brand of cultural negotiation into account, resulting in a lack of research on the civic implications of history education particular to the Québec context. Second, the Intercultural model itself does not adequately deal with entrenched issues of power relating to marginalized identities, which raises many questions for how civic education is being carried out in the province. (shrink)