Abstract
Schools have been a key site for state-sponsored histories since 1945, particularly in view of their universal compulsory impact on children and youth. But the nature of history in schools changed over time, varying in relation to political, cultural, and geographic contexts. In order to make sense of these variations, this chapter proposes a theoretical framework, a “history/memory matrix.” The matrix enables a broad periodization of the post-1945 period: the first where school history was foremost a vehicle for a common collective memory; a second from around 1970, where disciplinary historical thinking achieved a new prominence; and a third, from the final decade of the twentieth century, when the Holocaust, identity politics, and the concept of “experience” brought a resurgence of memory into history education.
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Recommended Readings
Carretero, M., Berger, S. and Grever, M. (eds.) (2017) Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education (London: Palgrave Macmillan).
Carretero, M., Asensio, M. and Rodriguez-Moneo, M. (eds.) (2012) History Education and the Construction of National Identities (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing).
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Seixas, P. (ed.) (2004) Theorizing Historical Consciousness (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
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Seixas, P. (2018). History in Schools. In: Bevernage, B., Wouters, N. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95306-6_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95306-6_14
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