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Bridging historical consciousness and moral consciousness : Promises and challenges

Non peer reviewe

Identifying aspects of temporal orientation in students’ moral reflections

History education comprises moral issues and moral aspects, often perceived as an important and meaning-making foundation that makes learning relevant and interesting. The interrelationship between time layers fuels historical interpretations and facilitates perceptions of moral issues. This article focuses on a study investigating how secondary school students express inter-temporal relationships in encounters with a morally challenging historical event, which for the participants would have been a moral dilemma. Using historical consciousness as the theoretical framework, a matrix linking two prominent theoretical models – Jörn Rüsen’s (2004) types of narratives and Ann Chinnery’s (2013) strands of historical consciousness – was developed to analyse and categorize secondary school students’ expressions of temporal orientation. To carry out the research, 15-year-old Finnish and Swedish students read an excerpt from Christopher Browning’s (2017) book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland (originally published in 1992). The students answered and discussed open-ended questions regarding the relevance of the text to their lives and others’ lives, and the applicability of this historical situation to Europe now and in the future. Using this empirical material, the analysis provides a tentative overarching depiction of students’ expressions of temporal orientation, and reports on findings of how temporal orientations relate to moral reflection.</p

Can, and should history give ethical guidance? Swedish and Finnish Grade 9 students on moral judgment-making in history

History is often invested with moral messages. When asked what history for them is, 15-year-old Europeans have strongly supported the option that history is instructive stories of good and evil, right and wrong. But what do they actually think of the potential of history as a moral guide? Do they think history can communicate what was, or would have been, the morally good choice of action in specific historic circumstances? Do they think moral questions should be discussed in a History classroom? Do young people in different countries answer these questions in the same way, and if there are differences, what are they? This paper aims to give some answers to these questions, using Swedish and Finnish Year 9 students’ responses from a survey and interviews that focused on their reasoning on moral questions in relation to history, and their ability to deal with moral dilemmas situated in a historical context. The focus is on how the students see historical knowledge as different from, or related to, moral judgment and what patterns are discernable in this respect. This is done by analysing what functions the students give to history and what arguments they use in justifying the answer. The data provides an opportunity to locate similarities and differences between Finnish and Swedish students’ responses. Tentative conclusions on the basis of the findings are discussed.  </p

Mapping moral consciousness in research on historical consciousness and education - a summative content analysis of 512 research articles published between 1980 and 2020

The purpose of this article is to provide a unique overview of how third-order concepts, linked to moral consciousness, are expressed in research articles on historical consciousness related to education, as well as to document how frequently the concepts are applied between 1980 and 2020. A count of word frequency says something about how popular (strong) a concept is during a particular period, while different themes of moral consciousness enable teachers, students, and researchers to broaden their perceptions and sharpen their (moral) judgment in their day-to-day reflections and practices. The following questions guide the study: 1. How do words signal good/bad and right/wrong in the texts about historical consciousness? 2. How frequently are the words mentioned? And 3. What kind of frames do the choices of words indicate for educational practice and purpose(s)? Very strong, strong, medium, and weak words have been located between 1980 and 2020 depending on how often the words are mentioned. Five themes were found and are reported on in this article: cosmopolitanism, democracy, emancipation, character building, and existential struggles, which all come with different frames for how to approach the past in relation to the present and future in history education.</p

The good citizen: Revisiting moral motivations for introducing historical consciousness in history education drawing on the writings of Gadamer

Historical consciousness is regarded as an important means to stimulate moral citizens through history education. This article conceptually examines the moral dimension associated with historical consciousness by revisiting the paradigm wars between natural science based on positivism and human and social sciences during the 1960s–1990s as expressed through the voice of Gadamer. More specifically, the article explores: (1) the moral arguments that Gadamer put forward for introducing historical consciousness and (2) the epistemological and ontological building blocks for approaching morality in history education that his arguments brought to the fore. In general, moral consciousness in relation to historical consciousness draws attention to: (a) people’s life conditions, (b) that moral reasoning and practice are influenced by feelings and reason, (c) that reflections on past events can help to interpret our ways of being towards others in the present and future, (d) that a plurality of people, thoughts and history are important to acknowledge and (e) that every person is part of creating history and responsible for weaving the past/present/future web in ways that acknowledge others.</p

Why is ethics important in history education? A dialogue between the various ways of understanding the relationship between ethics and historical consciousness

In light of current tendencies, where appreciating plurality and uphold everyone’s equal value is being questioned from different directions, there is arguably a need to revive the ethical dimension of history education as a way of learning about difficult histories, including traumatic pasts. Since the 1970s historical consciousness has played an important role in articulating an approach to history with an ethical mindset. Although many theories suggest that there is a connection between ethics and historical consciousness, a deeper understanding of this link is generally absent. This article discusses selected key texts by major researchers in the field, namely Rüsen, Seixas and Morton, Chinnery, and Simon. Their texts reflect four different perspectives, which, in this article are kept in dialogue with one another as a way of stimulating and sharpening ethical understanding and judgement in history education through the theoretical toolbox offered.</p

On genocide and the Holocaust in Swedish History teaching

Teaching about the Holocaust and other genocides is emphasized in Swedish History teaching. In Sweden there is a public authority commisioned to work with issues related to tolerance, democracy and human rights. It is this context and under these conditions, that Swedish History teachers select a variety of topics for their students to learn, as part of the History curriculum. In addition to the Holocaust, they teach about crimes against humanity committed under communist regimes, the genocide of Tutsies in Rwanda, and mass murder and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. Teachers use a multiplicity of uses of history and teaching methods. They conduct a scientific use of history when focusing on the historical contexts and explaining the background, motives and consequences of genocide. Teachers also stress the students’ personal reflections and standpoints in a moral use of history. The teaching aims at developing understanding and empathy among students