Exploring World History Teachers' Beliefs and Conceptions of Historical Significance in Practice and Textbooks

摘要

History has been a standard offering in the U.S. public school curriculum since the late 19th century. The instructional method that has dominated history instruction since its inception into the curriculum is referred to by scholars as "traditional history." The subject of history has been a popular course elective in the secondary school curriculum in the United States since the late nineteenth century. However, instructional practices have changed little from how history was first taught in American schools over a century ago. The textbook is universally recognized as the de facto curricular tool and teachers have become dependent upon it. The value of examining how teachers negotiate textbook narratives and instructional practice in light of historical significance and historical thinking, more generally, can reveal potential pathways to improving pedagogical practice and teacher knowledge. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to analyze how historical thinking was conceptualized and used by a sample of world history teachers and how they negotiated the application of historical significance as critical lens, a conceptual tool, in theory and practice. This study was an analysis of the procedural concept of historical significance and how world history teachers ascribed historical significance in their personal and professional lives as well as evaluating the effectiveness of representing historical significance in their chosen textbook using a rubric. The units of analysis, as defined by Partington (1980) and adapted by Levesque (2011), were used to evaluate the content of the textbooks. The units of analysis were: (a) importance, (b) profundity, (c) quantity, (d) durability, and (e) relevance. Participants were recruited from several private schools from the southeastern United States. A questionnaire was required of all prospective study participants. Based upon answers to the questionnaire, a strategic sampling technique was used to select participants that best fulfilled the expert-novice study design requiring participation in open-ended, semi-structured interviews based upon their responses to a card-sorting activity, and classroom observations for triangulation of data.