No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis systematically explores how far and in what ways, public (official, state-sanctioned) and private (non-official, individual) views of the "ancient past" inform and or are influenced by prevalent world views, present needs and conditions and, particularly, by notions of national identity. It identifies the mechanisms by which the past is made relevant to the present and investigates to what degree these mechanisms are generic or dependent on particular contexts. The project focuses on post-war West and East Germany (specifically on Bavaria and the (il)R post-unification Saxony) as a case study. The thesis proposes a theoretical framework for the relationship between historical consciousness and national identity, which is used as a basis for the development of methodologies and data-analysis. Two main sets of data are used to explore different aspects of the theoretical model: 1. 'Middle School' educational media as a source for public historical consciousness and national identity: The analysis of history schoolbooks and curricula investigates how public historical narratives about the "ancient past" fit into and are affected by the wider socio-political processes which generate and define public notions of historical consciousness and national identity. 2. Former students as a source for private notions of historical consciousness and national identity: Interviews with individual members of society explore the nature and level of people's knowledge of the past, their views of (and feelings towards) history and investigate how this is may be related to their sense of national identity. The final part of the thesis draws the results together and discusses the relationship between the public and the private sphere.

As one of the most prolific authors of the sixth-century, Gregory of Tours has long been a figure of interest in studies on Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Gregory's works are difficult sources to use, in large part because of his skill as an author, as well as his ability to manipulate his material in accordance with his greater literary aims. Much of what Gregory wrote, and much of what he chose not to write, resulted from his own relationship with the political and ecclesiastical leadership of Merovingian Gaul. Therefore, it has proved necessary to identify Gregory's historical context, as well as his opinions on contemporary issues, before utilising his works for scholarly purposes. While much work has been done in this regard, it has tended to focus more on various male figures - kings, bishops, magnates, and the like - rather than on the women in his works, even though several women feature prominently in both his writings and his life. This study opens with an examination of the influence that Gregory's own mother had upon him, and the way she left her mark on his works. It then analyses Gregory's opinions on various political leaders, such as the famous queens Brunhild and Fredegund, before turning to his ideas about gender, female sanctity, and laywomen. Along the way, opportunities are taken to examine certain historical issues, from the question of polygamy amongst the Merovingian royalty to the matter of cultural divisions with Gaul, in light of Gregory's information. Hopefully, this study will demonstrate the insights that become possible once the thematic content of Gregory's works is properly understood, and once the women in his works are given the dedicated attention of an in-depth study.

This thesis is a case study exploration of a group of 16-19 year old students' understandings of historical accounts. The thesis builds on prior research by the author, completed in the Institution Focused Study element of the EdD, and aims to add to existing understandings of the ways in which history students conceptualise historical accounts and controversies and the discipline of history. Twenty-four students in one institution, twelve in the first and twelve in the second year of their advanced level history studies, completed three written tasks over the course of an academic year. Twelve of the twentyfour students, six from each year, were interviewed. The written tasks and the interviews were designed to generate data on student understanding of historical accounts. Each written task focused on paired texts in which two historians made differing claims about an historical topic and the students were asked to answer the same four questions in each task. The interview questions mirrored the written task questions but were general in nature, looking at historical disagreement rather than at a particular controversy. Data analysis focuses on the students' ideas about explaining why historical disagreements arise, one of the questions that the research instruments explored. Data is analysed qualitatively, through a process of inductive coding, and a model of five ideal typical approaches to explaining why historical disagreements arise is posited and tested against the data. The purpose of the analysis is to inform pedagogy and to suggest ways in which students' thinking can be progressed. The discussion of the data links the ideal typical model to existing research, practitioner and historiographic literatures on historical interpretations and implications for practice and for further research are identified and discussed. A heuristic, for use in teaching and assessment focused on historical accounts, is outlined.

This thesis explores the ways in which secondary school students interpret different representations of the past as portrayed in the film. It focuses on the question of how they set the film director's view within a sociocultural context, and how they conceptualise what constitutes acceptable historical knowledge. Ninety-six secondary school students in South Korea viewed two sets of historical films that vary in terms of authorship, period, and genre. The viewings were followed by semi-structured interviews, which aimed to investigate a range of students' approaches to different representations produced at a given place and time. This thesis argues that acknowledging the structuring of historical knowledge as a part of cultural practice enabled students to make a shift in their picture of the past: from the idea of the past as being reproduced to that of the past as being organised and reconstructed. A range of ideas about historical knowledge, from a direct report of the event through an idiosyncratic interpretation of a literary past to systematic mediation of historical reality, was identified. Through analysis of students' approaches to revision of the past, this thesis also discusses the relationship between ideas about the role of perspective in history and ideas about the reconfiguration of the past for the present. Students tended to assume that more committed perspectives were likely to subject historical representations to greater revision of history. Students' ideas about changing representations of the past reflected their presuppositions about change of viewpoints in historical enquiry, mainly either in an empirical or cultural sense rather than in a methodological sense. Given students' tendency to conceive historical representations as being subject to perspective mainly fuelled by present interests, it is crucial to provide an opportunity for them to frame an historical account as an answer to a particular question, attributing a positive role to perspectival views of the past.