Editorial
IJHLTR is now entering its fifth year. The journal has kept its eyes firmly on the basic
premise that led to its foundation: i.e. to serve as a forum for reporting research and
scholarship in the field of History Education at the interface of theory, scholarship,
research, policy and practice. As such, we have covered a wide and varied number of
topics and issues, and presented findings in different ways. Since the journal’s inception it
has reported on initiatives that prominent figures in the field of History Education have led.
Each annual edition contains two volumes.
The last two editions of IJHLTR for 2003 and 2004 indicate its scope and remit. In Volume
3/1, January 2003, we published papers delivered at a symposium that the late and much
missed and lamented Robert Phillips had organised. The British government’s Economic
and Social Sciences Research Council, the main funding body for educational research in
the UK, funded the symposium held on the theme ‘British Island Stories: History, Schools
and Nationhood’. This symposium was an important element in Robert’s related ESRC
project. At the heart of Robert’s seminar was the key question: what is history for in
schools? Instead of treating history narrowly within the context of the curriculum, the
symposium took a much wider view: the part that history plays in the construction of our
individual and collective identities in the modern world. Volume 3/1’s papers not only
examined the role of history in the wider curriculum for life in the 21st century but also
drew upon the testimony of Ralph Samuel whose contribution ‘A case for National History’
is as fresh as when it was written during the debate on the English National Curriculum for
History in the late 1980s.
The July 2003 edition, Volume 3/2, followed a similar pattern in taking the best papers
from an international conference on a particular facet of History Education: the nature and
role of textbooks in the teaching of history. Keith Crawford arranged and ran the
conference and wrote the editorial. Volume 3/2 highlights the importance of the textbook
as a vehicle for the transmission of cultural messages that reflect the values, beliefs and
aspirations of particular groups and interests in society. Indeed, in totalitarian societies
this has long been recognised as a normal and necessary element in the political
education, or rather indoctrination, of their citizens. Jason Nicholls sets the scene for
reviewing the importance of textbooks: the other contributions highlight the essentially
political education and citizenship role that history has through reporting on research into
textbooks in Serbia, Russia and the teaching of the holocaust in Britain and Germany.
In January 2004 IJHLTR in Volume 4/1 branched out in a new direction with the reporting
of two major pieces of research. Peter Lee had had a long lasting interest in the work of
Jörn Rüsen – Peter’s paper on ‘Walking backwards into tomorrow’ Historical
consciousness and understanding history’ relates the ideas of Jörn to fundamental
assumptions about the nature of History Education. Peter examines some elements of
Jörn’s theory of history and historical consciousness. His paper makes a preliminary and
tentative attempt to tease out the ways in which Rüsen’s theory may be helpful or
problematic for thinking about History Education’s role in orienting young people in time,
and in particular the extent to which his typology of the ontogeny of historical
consciousness may be useful for researchers. As such, Peter makes a major theoretical
contribution to the debate on the nature and purpose of History Education.
Robert Guyver and Jon Nichol’s paper on the professional development of trainees being
educated to teach history as a subject in the primary school curriculum is of considerable
relevance to all those engaged in the professional development of entrants to the
teaching profession who will teach history to 5-11 year olds. The paper is based upon
Robert’s research from 1993-2002 for his doctorate. The paper takes Shulman’s
knowledge bases for teaching paradigm and subsequent research into it. The findings
illuminate both the nature of the knowledge bases that trainee teachers of history develop
in order to become effective teachers and the unique role which HEIs play in this process.
The two main conclusions from the research were the valuable, seminal role that HEIs
have in developing the personal and professional persona of young teachers that affects
their orientation towards teaching and the importance of grounding expert teaching in an
academic discipline’s syntax. Teaching that reflects syntactic academic understanding in
turn empowers pupils to assimilate the discipline’s meta-cognitive processes, skills,
concepts and protocols that they need to ‘do history’, i.e. the first and second order
conceptual understanding, the problem solving, creative thinking and active learning that
enable pupils to ‘do history’ and thus construct their own historical understanding.
In the July 2004 edition, Volume 4/2, we report the outcomes of a new venture, the work
of the History Educators International Research Network [HEIRNET]. We had felt that
there was an ecological niche for an organisation that would enable colleagues in the field
of History Education to meet and share research ideas and findings. Nationally we had
already taken steps to establish research networks: the History Education and Heritage
Centre at St. Martin’s and the History Education Centre at Exeter. HEIRNET would mirror
in a more tangible form the international aims and aspirations of IJHLTR. HEIRNET would
complement the excellent work in the UK of bodies like the History Teacher Educators
Network [HTEN] and the Primary Educators NAC. Indeed, we are pleased to report that
HTEN has given and continues to give IJHLTR its full support and backing. The idea of
HEIRNET was greeted positively, even enthusiastically, on all sides. Accordingly in July
2004 we held our first international conference at St. Martin’s College, Ambleside.
The HEIRNET conference had two dimensions: a History Educators workshop on using
the environment and the research seminar. The workshop was mainly aimed at
colleagues from the new states of Eastern Europe – it was well attended and positively
received. The research seminar covered many facets of History Education research that
are currently of concern – details can be found at www.heirnet.org. There were over forty
participants from ten countries and four continents: Africa, America, Europe and Asia.
HEIRNET is continuing to be proactive. In July 2005 it is holding a seminar on Identity and
Museum Education at the English government’s Qualifications and Communications
Agency and in September 2005 a round table seminar at the European Conference on
Educational Research in Dublin. Next year HEIRNET will be meeting in South Africa: we
also hope that History Education will become one of the themes of the ECER from 2006,
enabling us to de facto run a HEIRNET symposium within the carapace of the ECER.
Apart from the HEIRNET conferences our aim was that HEIRNET would fill a more
general gap in the area of History Education research and related support. In the United
Kingdom the governments of all three mainland countries recognise the importance of
networks of scholars and researchers. With the change in funding in England towards
supporting groups that produce world class research we are pursuing the idea of
government bodies and the funding agencies recognising the existence of groups like
HEIRNET. Hopefully they will support them in relation to the development of evidencebased policy and practice that takes fully into account scholarship and research. One
aspect of networks and networking with their related conferences, symposia, publications
and dissemination is the involvement of administrators, policy makers and politicians. This
is a major aspect of HEIRNET and IJHLTR.
The conference papers from HEIRNET 2004 will be the focus of this and the next two
volumes of IJHLTR. Volume 4/2’s papers address the crucial area of cognition and history
in relation to children, pupils and adults. The eleven papers are wide ranging:
cumulatively they touch upon concerns that are central and relevant to the History
Education community. It would be invidious to pick out any paper as being of more
importance and relevance than any other: as History teacher educators we have both
already drawn heavily upon them in our teaching and research.
Hilary Cooper and Jon Nichol
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