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Diverging from the dominant discourse– some implications of conflictingsubject understandings in theeducation of teachersElizabeth McCruma
a Institute of Education, University of Reading, UKPublished online: 27 Sep 2013.
To cite this article: Elizabeth McCrum (2013) Diverging from the dominant discourse – someimplications of conflicting subject understandings in the education of teachers, TeacherDevelopment: An international journal of teachers' professional development, 17:4, 465-477, DOI:10.1080/13664530.2013.837093
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2013.837093
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Diverging from the dominant discourse – some implications ofconflicting subject understandings in the education of teachers
Elizabeth McCrum*
Institute of Education, University of Reading, UK
(Received 31 October 2011; final version received 20 February 2013)
This paper addresses beginning teachers thinking about the nature and purposesof their subject and the impact of this on their practice. Individual qualitativeinterviews were undertaken with 11 history teachers at the beginning of theirteaching careers. Data was analysed using writing as the method of analysis andrevealed that teachers whose thinking was at odds with dominant discourses, forexample in the form of a national curriculum, encountered difficulties embracingpedagogies and aspects of the curriculum that do not accord with their owndeep-seated beliefs, demonstrating a need for the initial training and professionaldevelopment of teachers to forefront consideration of subject understandings.
Keywords: teacher education; beginning history teachers; teacher thinking;initial teacher education; qualitative research methods
Background
Beginning history teachers come to their initial teacher training with a range ofunderstandings of history which are influential through and beyond their training(Pendry 1997). Where they have undertaken degree programmes in history in whichhistoriographical and methodological issues have been less explicit, they often artic-ulate an understanding of the subject which emphasises singular narratives, factual-isms and the discovery of truths; these then have to be reconsidered in the light ofteaching in school in relation to the National Curriculum for the subject.
This reconsideration is not always straightforward. Deep-seated beliefs abouttheir discipline are often difficult to challenge within the context of a nine-monthcourse, most of which is undertaken in practice-based settings. Patrick’s (1988)analysis of the design and content of PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education)history courses found that PGCE history tutors prefer to place their students inschools where the teachers share their thinking about the teaching of history. Thisraises questions about the experiences of those students on programmes of historyeducation whose thinking about history is at odds with dominant discourses ofhistory teaching.
There are different discourses of history teaching and these relate specifically tounderstandings of the nature of the subject as an academic endeavour. Centralto debates on the nature of history are beliefs about the extent to which it is possibleto recover and represent the content of the past through the form of the narrative
*Email: [email protected]
© 2013 Teacher Development
Teacher Development, 2013Vol. 17, No. 4, 465–477, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2013.837093
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(Munslow 1997). A broad distinction can be drawn between modernist andpostmodernist perspectives, based on their conceptions of the ontological nature ofexistence and resulting epistemology, with modernist perspectives characterisedaccording to their belief in the knowability of past reality, accessible through itstraces and able to be represented in the text of the historian. Postmodernist perspec-tives can be characterised as those that reject the possibility of a knowable past real-ity. Instead they conceive of knowledge as the construction of the historian, gainingmeaning only through narrative discourse.
Within both modernist and postmodernist perspectives on the nature of historythe central issues of debate concern: the knowability of the past; the role of the his-torian in acquiring knowledge of the past; the nature and use of evidence; the use ofsocial theory and explanatory frameworks; and the significance to historical explana-tion of the narrative form. Positionings in relation to these debates vary within thebroad categories of modernism and postmodernism. Debates can therefore becharacteristed further. Drawing on conceptualisations of the nature of history byMunslow (1997, 2006) and Jenkins and Munslow (2004), debates can be organisedaccording to literary genre as organising principle with genre attributed according toways of knowing into the categories Reconstructionist, Constructionist andDeconstructionist.
Reconstructionists and Constructionists share a belief in a knowable past reality,discoverable through the traces of the past, and which it is possible to represent innarrative form. The Reconstructionist historian privileges the events of the past oversocial processes and structures and emphasises the methodology of the professionaldistanced historian in striving for objectivity. For Constructionist historians, notionsof objectivity are more problematic although they retain a fundamental belief in theknowability of the past. They shift in emphasis from the actions of individuals togroups, believing in the possibility of discerning laws or patterns in human behav-iour which help to explain the past. Postmodernist perspectives are categorised asDeconstructionists. For Deconstructionists, history is a figural narrative creation ofthe historian in the present. Social theories and concepts are imposed upon the pastby historians. They emphasise the role of language in the depiction of reality.
While Reconstructionist history is sometimes presented as representing themainstream of historical thinking, the Constructionist perspective is more dominantand postmodern perspectives have had less impact on history as an academic under-taking or as an area of study. The understanding of the nature of history that under-pins this research might be broadly characterised as postmodern, it is one in whichhistory is seen as a narrative discourse created in the present by socially situated andideologically positioned historians and which is necessarily partial, selective, textual,intertextual and relativistic, created within and gaining meaning from dominantdiscourses of power.
The national curriculum for history is a dominant discourse of history teaching.The schools history curriculum, in the form of the National Curriculum for History(Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency [QCA] 2007), governs theteaching of history across Key Stages 1 to 3 at which the subject is statutory. Thiscurriculum reflects its context of production (Phillips 1998), across several iterations(Department of Education and Science 1991; QCA 1999), and demonstrates a shiftin the discourse of history teaching which, with successive versions, has increasinglyprovided opportunities for interpretations more sympathetic to the postmodernorientations which dominate the literature on history teaching.
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The National Curriculum for History (QCA 2007) has moved away frommodernist concerns with factual historical knowledge, the centrality of Britishhistory, historical truth and notions of the meta-narrative towards a national curricu-lum which forefronts historiographical and methodological practices, encouragesdiverse interpretations and emphasises cultural and ideological heterogeneity,recognising the possibility of multiple narratives.
Earlier versions of the National Curriculum (QCA 1999) specified content to betaught, organised into chronological subdivisions, that focused on changes in sci-ence, medicine and technology implying teleological chronological development.Pupils were taught ‘to analyse and explain the reasons for, and results of, thehistorical events, situations and changes’ (QCA 1999, 20), as if events have neatuncontested causes and consequences, and were asked ‘to consider the significanceof the main events, people and changes studied’ and to make reference to ‘what pastsocieties were like’ (QCA 1999, 20), implying that there is a universally agreedmethod of assessing significance and the possibility of finding out what pastsocieties were actually like.
The current National Curriculum for History (QCA 2007) no longer specifiescontent but instead outlines themes, such as: the development of political power;movement and settlement of diverse peoples to the British Isles; and how lives,beliefs, ideas and attitudes have changed. Reference to historical concepts nowrecognises a greater complexity and provisionality. The concept of change is prob-lematised beyond the reasons for and result of changes to consider its extent andpace and whether it amounted to progress and, if so, for whom (QCA 2007, 112).Drawing on literature in this area, notions of causation are complex and nuanced,embracing the notion of the ‘causal argument’ and its relationship with evidence andinterpretation (QCA 2007, 112). Reference to historical significance now recognisesthat it is a process of reasoning not a given condition (Counsell 2004).
The part of the curriculum that most explicitly counters notions of the possibilityof an uncontested past and requires pupils to view history as a construct is the con-cept of historical interpretation. Here the past and history are recognised as beingdifferent with the past only accessible through interpretations. The inclusion of therange of interpretations and interpreters challenges the primacy of the privilegedaccount of the professional historian. The model of historical enquiry is a reflexiveone in which pupils are encouraged to present their histories through a variety offorms and media in the awareness that their end product is an interpretation.Changes in historical enquiry reflect a movement in the teaching of historicalenquiry away from working with historical sources in isolation in order merely todetect limitations, towards working with them as a historian would, for example,integrating evidential understanding into extended writing (Mulholland 1998), andusing sources to construct tentative narrative accounts on the basis of the fragmen-tary and imperfect sources available (Byrom 1998). The explanatory note on enquirymakes the distinction between evidence and sources and includes a focus on the lan-guage of sources (QCA 2007, 114). This new focus on language is also apparent inthe attainment target, where, for example at level 8, pupils are expected to ‘use his-torical terminology confidently, reflecting on the way in which terms can changeaccording to context’ (QCA 2007, 118).
Teachers’ knowledge of their subject can influence their teaching and theirstudents’ learning (Ball 1991; Grossman 1991; Grossman, Wilson, and Shulman1989; Shulman 1986, 1987). History teachers’ thinking about the nature and
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purposes of their subject matters because it has the potential, whether tacitly orexplicitly, to impact on what and how they teach. It can influence the ways in whichteachers communicate to pupils what is important about a subject, how knowledgeis constructed and validated. It has the potential to influence course structures;curricula; goals for instruction; assessments; and classroom questions. A betterunderstanding of this teacher knowledge can help in the process of preparing anddeveloping teachers making explicit what teachers need to know as well as be ableto do (Turner-Bisset 1999).
Methodology
Goals and research questions
This research aimed to ascertain: history teachers’ thinking about the nature andpurposes of their subject; and the ways in which this is manifested in what and howthey choose to teach in their classrooms. It is undertaken within a broadly postmod-ern paradigm (Alvesson 2002), sensitive to discourse, the fragmented subjectidentity and the generation of understandings within a context which recognises thecentrality of the positioned researcher in producing an authored account.
Participants
The research focuses specifically on the impact of debates on the nature of historyon history teachers’ practice on entering the profession, specifically at the end oftheir initial teacher training. This is, in part, because it was hoped that teacherswould be more able to articulate their rationale for the subject and to consider theorigins of their thinking about it earlier in their careers, particularly having giventhis some consideration on deciding to enter the profession.
The research was undertaken in an English, urban, multi-site university. Intervie-wees were not selected in terms of their representativeness; no effort was made totarget respondents who might speak reliably or validly for a population. An invita-tion to participate was issued to each of the 13 students in a cohort of history stu-dents completing their initial teacher training. The students had completed aone-year Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course. This is a full-time,36-week, subject-focused teacher education programme in which students spend 24weeks on placements in schools. All of the students on the programme were gradu-ates with degrees in which the study of history had been a component. The studentscame from a variety of backgrounds, had a wide range of prior careers and hadpreviously studied in universities across the United Kingdom.
The research valued the subjective and idiographic, therefore did not require alarge number of participants. It was concerned instead with the depth and richnessof the responses collected from a small number of participants. The adequacy ofdata was determined not by quantity but by the richness of the data and the extentto which it illuminated the aspects being investigated (Goodson and Sikes 2001).Interviews were undertaken with each of the 11 students who agreed to participate.
Research tools
Data was collected through in-depth individual qualitative interviews with the 11teachers completing their initial training. The interview schedule (Robson 2002)
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focused on: how these beginning teachers conceived of the nature of their discipline;the rationale they presented for the purposes of their subject in the school curricu-lum; and how they are manifest in what and how they teach. In order to maintaincoherence and to represent the richness and complexity of each teacher’s own storythese were written, analysed and presented as narrative accounts.
Interviewing was chosen as the main method of data collection. If knowledge isconceived of as the social justification of belief rather than an accurate representa-tion then this can be constituted through conversation (Kvale 1996). This allowsrecognition of the narrative nature of knowledge through consideration of the storiestold, the way in which language, as the way in which knowledge is generated andunderstood, constitutes reality. It enables the contextuality of meaning to berecognised and forefronts the interrelational nature of knowledge within theinterview (Silverman 2010). It recognises the discursive context.
The form of interviewing chosen was one in which knowledge is regarded asgenerated between people, emphasising the centrality of human interaction forknowledge production described by Kvale (1996) as the qualitative research inter-view and Holstein and Gubrium (1995) as the active interview. Individual interviewswere undertaken in order to consider the particular understandings of each individualteacher in some depth. The use of these interviews allowed descriptions of how theinterviewee understood their life and their world to be obtained from their point ofview.
Data analysis
Oral accounts given by respondents were transposed into accounts to be presentedto the reader. During this process the accounts were analysed in order to drawconclusions. This was undertaken with due care given to making explicit themethodology of the analysis process.
Writing was chosen as the method of data analysis. This is an approach takenfrom Richardson (1994), in which the act of writing itself is not just the mode of‘telling’ about phenomena in the social world but is also the ‘way of knowing’ it(Richardson 1994, 923). This is consistent with the postmodern approach in that itprivileges the role of language and recognises the central place of the researcher inthe report. It is an approach that makes explicit that, as in any social scientific work,the interpretation and organisation are going to be value laden and organisedaccording to metaphor and the expectations of writing within a genre (Richardson1994).
The analysis of each interview began with repeated readings of the entire inter-view transcript in order to get a sense of the whole narrative of the interview. Theinterview was then organised according to its perceived relevance to each of theresearch questions. This then led to the construction, for each respondent, of a storythat characterises their own views, thinking, thoughts and experiences in an attemptto understand them on their own terms before drawing comparisons or highlightingdifferences between them (Richards 2009). The interview was one completenarrative, made up of a number of relevant stories, so it was important to keep asmany of these stories together as possible. This also enabled there to be someconsistency in form between the original interview, and the analysis and thereporting of it.
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During the writing of each of the stories, patterns and themes that emerged werenoted and comparisons were drawn between the analysed interviews. Analysingeach interview individually therefore did not preclude the possibility of drawingsome conclusions from all of the interviews that could be linked to a formalisedbody of knowledge in the form of constructs and theories. All of the accounts werereviewed in relation to the first research question: how do beginning history teachersconceive of the nature of history? in relation to historiographical debates. Concep-tions of the nature of history were identified and attributed to positionings identifiedfrom the literature. In considering how conceptions of history are manifest in class-rooms, the analysis considered respondents’ articulation of their conception of thenature of their subject alongside their categorisation of what and how they prefer toteach.
Analysing the interviews in this way influenced the method chosen for reportingthe results of the data analysis. Having analysed each of the interviews individuallyit would then not have been appropriate to present this data in too fragmented a waywith many verbatim quotations placed in the text interspersed with comments, anapproach which suggests that it is possible to avoid subjectivity by presentingsufficient ‘raw’ data in the final text.
Trustworthiness
The trustworthiness of the research is established through the collection of credibledata, logical analysis, sound interpretations and plausible reporting of findings.Attempts were made to ensure the adequacy of the data ensuring, for example, thatthe interview questions sought to generate knowledge about the desired areas, thatthe design of the research and the methods used were adequate, and that intervie-wees were able to respond freely. A reflexive account is presented. The process ofthe research and conclusions reached are charted and justified. The author’s position-ing is made explicit and its impact on the research acknowledged. Insights are drawnfrom the data which have resonance with, and which may be of value in, alternativecontexts. An attempt is made to produce a coherent and persuasive account but thetext will, ultimately, be judged by its verisimilitude.
Results/findings
The teachers
The results and findings of the research will be exemplified with particular referenceto two of the teachers: Charlotte and Anne. Charlotte and Anne were chosen forparticular consideration because of the discord that emerged between their views onthe nature and purposes of history and dominant discourses of history teaching. Thismakes their accounts of particular interest in considering the implications ofconflicting subject understandings in the education of teachers.
Charlotte’s interest in history centres particularly on a love of historical fiction.The central premise of her thinking about history is that of history as story. This isevidenced in her conception of the discipline as one in which the historian attemptsto come as close as possible to what happened in the past. This can be seen in herpreferred teaching style and learning activities which are based around the teacher asstoryteller. Anne emphasises history as a substantive body of knowledge. Her
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rationale for the purposes of the subject centres around the need to learn thisknowledge for its own sake and because of its role in contextualising our lives. Thisapproach leads Anne to feel most comfortable with a classroom pedagogy thatemphasised methods of acquiring, largely uncontested, substantive knowledge.
The nature of history
The beginning teachers took a broadly empiricist approach towards history withinwhich they emphasised the role of the historian in striving for objectivity throughtheir use of historical evidence and in order to re-present the past within their text.More postmodern perspectives had not been influential beyond impartingrecognition of a need for a greater degree of reflexivity.
None of the students were bluntly Reconstructionist. The teachers did not believethat it is actually possible to know for sure what happened in the past but they feltthat this should not stop the historian from striving to get as close to the truth ofwhat happened as possible. When describing the process of coming to know aboutthe past, ‘picture’ and ‘jigsaw’ metaphors predominated. The past was conceived asthe ‘bigger picture’ – ‘what happened’ and ‘what it was like’, history is the exerciseof piecing this together. There were a number of reasons suggested for why it isdifficult to complete the picture: the availability of evidence, the reliability of thisevidence, and distance from the object of study. The teachers varied in the extent towhich they felt that the historian was shading in the unknown details. History, forthese teachers, is something constructed by historians who can use the evidence leftover from the past but who have to weave a story from it and put their ownperspectives onto it.
None of the teachers thought that it is possible for historians to be entirelyobjective. They differed according to the extent to which they believed historiansare able to control or suppress mediating influences. They fell on a continuum froma belief in the desirability of eliminating all preconceptions to an acceptance that,unable to do this, they can merely declare their own influences. Charlotte describedher increasing uncertainty about the possibility of finding out what happened in thepast having led her to the position that, while it is not possible to know for sure, his-torians should try to do all that they can to come as close as possible to knowing.They do this by being aware of their own preconceptions so that they can ensurethat they do not compromise their objectivity and, by the closest scrutiny of thehistorical evidence, ensure that this supports their account of the past. Similarly, it isthe historian and their relationship with the traces of the past that determines theveracity of accounts of the past for Anne. The historian reaches an approximation tothe truth of the past through the amount of research undertaken, including the num-ber of sources considered but also the way in which this is done by the historianvarying according to their intellect or ability to refrain from making suppositions.
None of the teachers thought that historians should use explanatory frameworksto make sense of the past. It would contradict the desirability of the objectivity ofthe historian if they went to their sources with such preconceptions of how the worldis ordered. This would be using a way of making sense of the past that imbued itwith a structure that has not really existed. The teachers’ views on the significanceof the narrative form in shaping explanations of the past also varied along acontinuum. Few believed that the historian can literally re-present what happened inthe past in their account without their interpretation coming in to it. Most thought
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like Anne that it is impossible for the historian to re-present the truth of the past, butthat they should try to do so all the same. The veracity of historical accounts comeseither through their correspondence with the past reality or through the extent towhich they come close to this by the exercise of appropriate historical method inengagement with the sources.
The purposes of history
The teachers’ views of the purposes of history were influenced to a greater extent byhow they saw themselves as teachers and emphasised broader educational, socialand moral purposes. Whilst largely matching their views on the nature of history,they also included a much greater emphasis on the constructed and disputed natureof historical knowledge manifest in different historical interpretations.
All of the teachers saw an important role for the subject in providing substantiveknowledge that contextualises contemporary events, societies and issues. For Anne,history’s relevance comes in the ways in which it enables us to understand the pres-ent within the context of the past – knowledge of the past helps us to understand theworld we live in today, helping to give us a sense of place within the broad chrono-logical span of time. Anne argues that there are areas of historical knowledge thatpeople, particularly her pupils, ought to know because of their historical significancebut chiefly because of their impact on contemporary society.
The teachers’ rationales for history tended to emphasise purposes which wereextrinsic to the subject. These took the form of the development of moral disposi-tions, most of the teachers saw the potential of history to teach more personal,moral, lessons; but also included the development of political literacy.
Despite the broadly empiricist emphasis in their views on the nature of history,there was little emphasis on the specific skills of the historian. Instead the teachersemphasised skills developed through a study of history that are transferrable to othercurriculum subjects or work contexts, for example: skills in speaking and listening;analysis; essay writing and critical thinking.
The influence of more postmodern perspectives on the teachers’ conceptions ofhistory can be seen in the emphasis on the role of history in developing criticalintelligence through cultivating a critical reflexive methodology. It was notable thatall of the teachers talked about the role of history in developing skills of historicalinterpretations.
Impact on practice
These accounts revealed that the teachers’ knowledge and understanding of historyimpacted upon what and how teachers teach. Anne’s emphasis on history as a sub-stantive body of knowledge that the pupils should learn for its own sake andbecause of its role in contextualising their lives led her to feel most comfortable witha pedagogy that emphasised methods of acquiring, largely uncontested, substantiveknowledge. She recognises that she is most comfortable in her classroom when sheis directly addressing the substantive content area, when she is providing pupils withthe large amounts of contextual knowledge that she feels that they need, and shouldwant, to know. Charlotte’s emphasis on history as story can be seen in her choice ofteaching and learning activities, dominated by storytelling, exposition, and question
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and answer. Her curiosities about the past and questioning disposition are manifestin a desire to encourage independent learning.
The recognition of the majority of the teachers of the constructed nature ofhistory leads to a focus on a more pupil-centred pedagogy and related learningactivities. Views of history as constructed by the historian from the sources leadthem to favour teaching styles in which pupils are more ‘active’. This leads to apreference for learning activities like debates, role plays and card sorts that involvepupils in engaging with history themselves.
The teachers’ emphasis on the knowability of past reality alongside theirempiricist concept of history means that sources are heavily incorporated into theirteaching but that there is little consideration given to skills of historical enquiry withpupils. There was a focus on teaching using evidence, such as visual sources,cartoons and paintings; using learning activities like layers of inference diagrams, rip-ple diagrams and extracting information from sources. The sources tend to be usedmore for finding out what happened in the past or to judge the veracity of historicalaccounts with less consideration given to developing the skills of historical enquiry.
The predominance of extrinsic motivations for history can be seen in theteachers’ emphasis on teaching historical interpretations. This appears to be less asan influence of more interpretive approaches to history and more a part of equippingyoung people with necessary life skills through their study of the subject.
Diverging from the dominant discourse
The views of teachers, like Charlotte and Anne, on the nature and purposes of historyimpacted on their own learning. This was most apparent in those whose views weredifferent from the dominant discourse that they encountered in their training, readingand curriculum, and in the schools in which they did their teaching practices. Theseteachers often found their views of history to be at odds with those with whom theyworked or trained. They found it difficult to counter their deep-seated beliefs whichoften led them to have difficulty in embracing different pedagogies, leading to diffi-culties in professional and training relationships and in some cases to disillusionmentand dissatisfaction with teaching in school history classrooms.
Anne’s conception of history informs her view of the teaching of history in theclassroom and leads to some difficulties accepting some of the more dominant peda-gogical models of history teaching. She recognises that she is most comfortable inher classroom when she is directly addressing the substantive content area. This hasled to some tensions in her relationship with the pupils and she has had difficultycomprehending and dealing with pupils’ lack of intrinsic interest in the aspects ofthe past that she has taught them. She told me the story of how she had tried toteach a year 8 class on the black people of the Americas:
these children weren’t interested. And I just felt they had no right not to be interested.I was quite indignant, how can you sit there and think that you don’t need to knowthis. You need to know what people in the 1900s did to Black people in America. AndI felt quite despairing that they didn’t feel that they needed to know, couldn’t bebothered, it had no relevance.
This caused Anne to feel anger and frustration and left her wondering where theirlack of interest in the history that she is teaching, and values so highly, leaves her asa teacher.
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As part of her PGCE course Anne tried to embrace different teaching andlearning activities. She tried to use role plays but found them difficult as they justseemed to her ‘like make believe’. She feels that you can engage pupils throughdifferent media, such as film, as long as it is clear that this is just using a mediumthat they are comfortable with to get them interested in the past, but it is importantto ensure that those pupils understand that ‘it is just an interpretation, it is not realhistory’. She tries to embrace the place of something like historical interpretations inthe school curriculum but is reluctant because this has not been part of her ownhistorical education.
Anne tried different teaching and learning methods, and does recognise theirvalue, but ultimately finds them difficult to embrace and successfully utilise becausethey do not accord with her own dominant views. Similarly, she is aware of the needto address different areas of historical understanding with pupils. She can see somevalue, for example, in teaching about historical interpretations but ultimately theseare not areas and approaches to the past with which she feels comfortable.
Anne’s views of history and school history and the resulting pedagogy have ledher to be slightly disillusioned by and dissatisfied with teaching history in schoolclassrooms. She does not feel that the current curriculum and dominant discoursesof history teaching allow her the time to give pupils the contextual knowledge thatshe feels that they need. Even when the time is available, you have to rely on themwanting to absorb it in some way. This has not been her experience of pupils thatshe has taught whom she has found to be not really interested in the knowledge thatshe is giving.
Like Anne, Charlotte’s approach to history also impacted on her learning tobecome a teacher. Charlotte’s teaching style comprises elements of storytelling andencouraging a great deal of questioning and answering. She also tries to encouragemore independent learning in pupils by sparking an interest to be followed up. Char-lotte talked of trying other teaching methods like ‘group work and role play andstuff’ but she was not convinced of their value or appropriateness. She had watchedother teachers using these methods with success ‘I have gone wow that is so, that isreally exciting, but I almost can’t imagine doing that. But I have tried.’ This led toCharlotte having a difficult relationship with her mentor and other teachers sheworked with in school, their approaches to history and resulting pedagogy were sodifferent and the other teachers could not understand why Charlotte could not usethe new methods she was observing, and which they valued highly, with any convic-tion or great success. Charlotte’s approach to history and to teaching history led herto be most comfortable teaching A (advanced) level history and led her, ultimately,to reject the dominant mode of teaching she encountered in the state sector and totake up a first teaching post in a public school (i.e. an older, independent, fee-payingschool) where, she feels, the expectations of her pedagogy will better match herown orientations.
Discussions/conclusions
Teachers’ thinking about the nature of history can be seen to impact on what theyteach and how they teach it. Insufficient understanding of issues in the nature ofhistory can be seen to have a negative impact on practice with, for example, theaims of the National Curriculum for History in the teaching of historical enquiry and
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historical interpretations being limited by teachers’ conceptions of the nature andpurposes of the subject.
History education programmes need to give further consideration to improvingthe teaching of those areas of the school history curriculum most influenced by morepostmodern perspectives. This requires additional in-service and initial training on,for example, teaching areas of the National Curriculum for History such as historicalenquiry and historical interpretations. Part of this training would be making explicitthe thinking about the nature of history which underpins them. It would need to bedone by all those involved in the training, including school-based mentors andcoaches. This would enable teachers to teach the whole of the school historycurriculum and help all pupils to attain better in all aspects of the subject.
Student teachers’ thinking about the nature of history also impacts on theirdevelopment as teachers. This has implications for the processes of preparing anddeveloping teachers. The understandings that students bring to training programmescan be one of the most important determinants of what they take from their trainingprogrammes, acting as ‘a filter or lens through which all that they experience in theirtraining must pass’ (Pendry et al. 1998, 23). This means that beginning teachersneed opportunities to clarify their own beliefs and conceptions about history and itsfunctions for society and for individuals (Virta 2001); and to reflect consciouslyupon the ways in which their orientations to history influence the curriculumchoices, learning activities and areas of historical understanding emphasised bythemselves and by those with whom they work. This could be achieved through dis-cussions with the students, for example as happens in interviews for initial teachertraining programmes, in their discussions of the nature of their prior learning of thesubject or in their discussions of the orientations of those that taught them or whoseteaching they had observed. They will also arise out of discussions of their views onthe curriculum, learning activities, innovations and others’ teaching, as well, ofcourse, as from reflection on their own practice.
The move towards making teaching a Master’s-level profession (Balls 2008;Department for Children, Schools and Families 2007) and the introduction ofMaster’s-level components on most programmes of postgraduate initial teacher train-ing could provide the space and opportunity to address the nature and purposes ofthe subject and the link between these and pedagogy and the curriculum.
This has implications for either the entrance requirement for programmes wheretutors do not accept onto the programme students who have little grounding in thenature of the discipline. Or for the preparatory work that students are asked to doprior to a course, focusing less on the acquisition of substantive knowledge andmore on finding ways to develop syntactical knowledge.
It is important that training in schools as well as in the university engage withthe beliefs that students come with. This poses issues in ensuring that universitytutors raise awareness amongst mentors and develop their skills in enabling this tohappen. Pendry et al. (1998) advised that, having found out what these beliefs are,mentors have to do a skilled job of finding the balance between legitimising andchallenging them. It is unhelpful to accept ideas uncritically as students need toscrutinise them in the light of what they are learning about history teaching. It isalso unhelpful to ignore them as this runs the risk that ‘these ideas will besubmerged and go underground; tenaciously retained but infrequently articulated’(Pendry et al. 1998, 23). Effective mentoring will help student teachers to explore
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their grounds for holding such views and their implications; working with existingideas rather than against them.
This process will also require mentors to open up their own practice to studentsand help avoid students being judged as wanting where their orientation is differentfrom their mentor. It will mean mentors discussing their own personal and learninghistories in the subject in order to establish their positions in relation to discourses,and to unpack connections between those and student teachers’ ideas about teachingand learning. It also helps student teachers to identify mentors’ positions in relationto debates so these do not remain hidden, or oblique. This would also go some wayto addressing the disadvantages faced on these programmes by students, like Anneand Charlotte, whose firmly held beliefs about the nature of their subject do notaccord with dominant discourses of history teacher education.
Notes on contributorDr Elizabeth McCrum is an Associate Professor in the University of Reading’s Institute ofEducation.
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