The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of primary source historical documents used in conjunction with the heuristics associated with historical reasoning (sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization) would lead to a subsequent development of historical empathy. Three intact groups (already formed history classes) from Northeast High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were studied throughout a baseline and four trials for this study. One group was designated as the experimental condition and received primary source historical documents as well as scaffolding of the historical reasoning heuristics of sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization. The next group was designated as the comparison condition which received the primary source historical documents but no scaffolding on the aforementioned heuristics. The final group was designated as the control condition and received traditional textbook instruction throughout the four main trials of the study. Results showed that mean scores of the heuristics involved in historical reasoning as well as historical empathy increased simultaneously for the experimental as well as the comparison group throughout the study, with the experimental group showing the highest mean gains. However, whether training in the historical reasoning heuristics of sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization lead to historical empathy cannot be conclusively proven from this current study. / Educational Psychology

Den här studien tar sin utgångspunkt i en av de förändringar som införandet av läroplanen 2011 innebar, nämligen att mellanstadieelever ska ges möjlighet att utveckla sin förmåga att föra historiska resonemang. Syftet är att bidra med kunskap om relationen mellan lärares planering för och mellanstadieelevers utveckling av historiskt resonerande och ämneslitteracitet. Genom deltagande observation följdes två lärare när de planerade arbetsområdet medeltiden och när lektionerna genomfördes i en klassi årskurs 5. Det empiriska materialet består av ljudupptagningar och fältanteckningar från planeringstillfällen, helklasslektioner, grupparbeten och elevtexter. Epistemologiskt utgår studien från antagandet att kunskap är socialt situerad, vilket är gemensamt för de teorier som används. Det historiska resonerandet sker i ett socialt sammanhang och ställer krav både på förmågan till historiskt tänkande och på förmågan att uttrycka sig i historia. I studien kombineras därför historiedidaktiska teorier om historiskt tänkande och resonerande med historiespecifik litteracitet. Resultatet visar att eleverna kan föra enkla former av historiska resonemang. Uppgifterna och den stöttning eleverna erbjuds i undervisningen är de redskap med vars hjälp de ges möjligheter att utveckla denna förmåga och att utveckla historiespecifik litteracitet. Uppgifterna i studien domineras av att vara öppna och manar eleverna till att vara aktiva och att samarbeta, men de organiserande begreppen och resonemangsformerna är ofta implicita. Den planerade stöttningen karaktäriseras av att gå från gemensamt arbete med uppgifter i helklass, till i smågrupper och avslutningsvis att genomföra dem individuellt. Eleverna ges med andra ord rika tillfällen till interaktion vilket är ett viktigt stöd i att utveckla det historiska resonerandet, däremot skulle de organiserande begreppen och det historiespecifika skrivandet kunna explicitgöras i större utsträckning. Det nära samarbetet i studien mellan lärarna och forskaren gör att studien kan vara en del i att fylla gapet mellan teori och praktik och mellanrummet mellan akademi och skola. Studien bidrar dessutom till den vetenskapliga grunden för mellanstadiets historieundervisning. / This study is based on one of the changes introduced by the Swedish curriculum in 2011, namely that middle school students should be given the opportunity to develop their ability to reason historically. The overall purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about the relationship between teachers’ planning for and middle school students’ development of historical reasoning and disciplinary literacy with examples from a subject area about Swedish Middle Ages. The study examines the opportunities that students in grade 5 are offered to develop the ability to reason historically and to develop disciplinary literacy in history teaching. Epistemologically, the study is based on the assumption that knowledge is socially situated, which is common to the theories used. Historical reasoning takes place in a social context and demands both the ability to think historically and the ability to express oneself in history. The study therefore combines history didactic theories about historical thinking and reasoning with history-specific literacy. The research questions originate from problems and difficulties that history teachers in middle school experience in their teaching. To get answers to these questions, the practice-based research approach Educational design research has been used. Through participant observation, two teachers were followed in the planning and implementation of history teaching in a class in grade 5 for 12 weeks. The empirical material consists of audio recordings and field notes from planning sessions and whole class lessons, audio recordings of group works and collection of student texts, both individual and collective. The licentiate thesis consists of two peer-reviewed articles, both published, and a commentary: Article 1 sheds light on middle school teachers’ conceptions of what historical reasoning entails specifically in writing and how teachers plan their lessons based on this. Seven planning sessions and one concluding conversation were followed through participant observation. A phenomenographic and a thematic analysis was made to answer the research questions. The results show that the teachers conceive of written reasoning in history as a) understanding the historical content, b) the active use of content concepts, c) shifting between time and space perspectives and d) perceiving text qualities. The results also show that teaching, according to the teachers, needs to include the use of teaching materials, be visually supportive, collaborative, reflective and attentive to text structure and linguistic patterns. Article 2 contributes knowledge about the opportunities that history teaching offers 5th grade students regarding historical reasoning, focusing on both historical thinking and history-specific literacy. The empirical material was collected during 15 lessons and analysed based on a model of historical reasoning and on theory of history-specific texts. The analysis is supported by a grammatical focus on temporality and causality. The result shows that middle school students use simple text activities such as retelling in historical reasoning about continuity and change. To a lesser extent, more complex textual activities, such as explanation and argumentation, which are important for historical reasoning about causes and consequences. However, oral processing of historical material offers opportunities to try more complex forms of historical reasoning and text activities. In the commentary the articles are related to each other through a synthesising analysis. The result of this analysis shows that middle school students are able to engage in simple forms of historical reasoning. The tasks and the scaffolding offered to students in the classroom are the tools that enable them to develop this ability and to develop history-specific literacy. The tasks in the study are predominantly open-ended and encourage students to be active and collaborative, but the organising concepts and forms of reasoning are often implicit. The planned scaffolding is characterised by moving from joint work on tasks in whole class, to small groups and finally to individual work. In other words, students are given ample opportunities for interaction, which is an important scaffolding in developing historical reasoning, but the organising concepts and history-specific writing could be made more explicit. One of the reasons why this is not already done may be that middle school teachers are often qualified in several subjects and thus may not have acquired sufficient knowledge of history, history didactics, and disciplinary literacy during their university education. In addition, the design of the history syllabus seems to have been influenced by history didactic research that has been carried out mainly in relation to older students. This also means that the middle school teachers do not have much scientific research to refer to, which means that they try out by themselves. With this study, I want to contribute to filling the research gap in Swedish context when it comes to historical reasoning in the middle school.

Läroplanen för historia på gymnasiet är omfattande vilket medför att ett stoffurval måste göras. Urval av detaljstoff ställer stora krav på läraren. Det räcker inte att läraren förhåller sig till det centrala innehållet, utan stringens är nödvändigt för att reducera stoffet till något som är hanterbart för elever. Strategier för urval av detaljstoff är inte något som uttryckligen lyfts i lärarutbildningen på ex. Malmö universitet, därför finns skäl att anta att urvalsprocessen kan vara problematisk för lärarstudenter, mindre erfarna och även erfarna lärare. Vidare kan en etablerad urvalsstrategi underlätta i en lärares arbetsintensiva vardag. Kunskap om hur detaljstoff kan väljas ut är relevant för nyexaminerade historielärare, mindre erfarna lärare, lärarutbildare och såväl som erfarna lärare. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med tre erfarna och två mindre erfarna lärare är syftet att undersöka om det finns förutsättningar att använda konceptet historical context som grund för en urvalsstrategi av detaljstoff i historieundervisningen. Informanterna svarar på frågor kring deras tillvägagångssätt för urval av detaljstoff samt hur de använder detaljstoff i sin undervisning. Materialet analyserades i förhållande till ett pedagogiskt verktyg för historical context och observationsinstrumentet FAT-HC. Analysen visade att detaljstoffurval är ett viktigt moment för informanterna men att urvalet är en relativt individuell process med vissa gemensamma nämnare. I lärarnas utsagor om deras undervisning återkom de till de tre ingående referensramarna i historical context: kronologisk och geogrask referensram i kombination med sociala referensramar. I och med detta finner studien att de tre referensramarna bör gå att använda som en ”checklista” för urval av detaljstoff som ett sätt för lärare att bli mer konsekventa, tydliga och effektiva i sina urval av detaljstoff.

This essay examines to which degree students in history in a swedish upper secondary schoolmanage to apropriate cogntive tools and frameworks in order to create narratives. The casestudy concentrates on a specific cognitive tool, namley narrative structure and to whichextent it helps students to make order of and organise historical subject matter intomeaningful narratives through teaching that is specifically designed to accomplish this kindof historical reasoning through cognitive tools and frameworks.Furthermore this study also examines epistemological beliefs and to which extent thesebeliefs either help or mislead the students on their way towards a qualified historicalconsciousness.This study also focus on the concept of narrative competence and to which extent studentsin history develop this competence through different frameworks and narrative structure.This study shows how students use cognitive tools and frameworks to create narratives. Butthe students often tend to mix different types of narration in their texts. The definetely tryto create histories with help of narrative structure but they do not manage to go all the waywith the result of their texts being hybrids of different structures of textWhen it comes to the epitemological beliefs many of the students tend to hold relativisticviews of history which doesn ́t necessarily mean they believe anything goes but more in thecontext of perspectives as important to change the direction of the narrative depending onwho is telling the story and what dimension of history that is displayed. Not many studentshave yet reached a evidence-based criterialist position.

Traditionally, the teaching of history tends to focus on content, where historical learning is reflected in memorizing important dates, events, and concepts about the past. In recent decades, research has drawn attention to a new way of approaching historical learning through understanding causes and effects as well as making connections between different events and stories about the past. Such an approach to historical learning implies a developed capacity for historical thinking. To shed light on this, this survey aimed to investigate the interest students have in history, how they perceive the purpose of history and how they experience the content and implementation of history teaching in upper secondary school. This study is based on semi-structured focus group interviews with 12 students in upper secondary school. The focus group interviews were based on the didactic questions of what, how, and why to achieve developed and qualified answers. The outcomes of the interviews were further interpreted and analysed according to the six sub-components advocated in the Anglo-Saxon history teaching tradition to categorize students' historical thinking skills. The results revealed that students' interest in history has a major impact on how they perceive the purpose of history and how they experience the content and conduct of history teaching insecondary school. Findings also showed that using historical sources is completely excluded from students' responses. The present study forms a foundation for future studies interested in a more practical history teaching approach. Furthermore, it renders insights into the complexities of teaching history from a student perspective, while at the same time points to some opportunities for development towards the teaching practitioner in creating a good history educational plan.