History in Education
The project
The
History in Education Project is a two-year research project, which
started in January 2009. The aim of the Project is to create and
publicise a historical record of history teaching as it has developed
over the past century in English state schools.
We are looking at:-
- What history was actually taught in elementary, primary and secondary schools throughout the twentieth century;
- How ‘what history was taught’ in schools changed and why;
- How the experience and expectations of history teachers and students changed over time;
- How the ‘on the ground’ experience was affected by the development of national policy;
- To what extent regional and local priorities shaped the history taught and learnt.
The Project is significant because there has been no previous attempt to consider the development of history teaching across the twentieth century in the context of national and regional policy together with the ‘lived experience’ of those in the classroom. It is intended to publish the results of the Project for a range of audiences, both academic and ‘popular’, via printed and electronic means and also to create resources for use within the classroom.
Methods of research
We are using a range of sources: the Project starts in 1900 and research on the earlier period will inevitably depend on using surviving documentary and material sources – memoirs, diaries, exercise books and artefacts as well as official material and contemporary writing on the teaching of history. For the more recent period up to the present day, with its intense arguments and controversies at national and local levels, we are looking not just at the official sources but are also organising a substantial oral history programme interviewing former school students, teachers and ‘expert witnesses’ who can shed light on teaching in this period.
About the project
The History in Education Project is funded by the Linbury Trust and based at the Institute of Historical Research under the leadership of Professor Sir David Cannadine. The Project employs two post-doctoral research fellows, Jenny Keating and Nicola Sheldon, contactable on 0207 862 8804 or by email: jenny.keating@sas.ac.uk and nicola.sheldon@sas.ac.uk.
Please do contact us or complete our survey form (below) if you are interested in the Project and especially if you could provide either documentary evidence or accounts of your personal experience for the research archive.
Please email your completed form or send it to Jenny Keating or Nicola Sheldon at the Centre for Contemporary British History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.
