Do master narratives change among High School Students?: a characterization of how national history is represented

Master narratives frame students’ historical knowledge, possibly hindering access to more historical representations. A detailed analysis of students’ historical narratives about the origins of their own nation is presented in terms of four master narrative characteristics related to the historical subject, national identification, the main theme and the nation concept. The narratives of Argentine 8th and 11th graders were analyzed to establish whether a change toward a more complex historical account occurred. The results show that the past is mostly understood in master narrative terms but in the 11th grade narratives demonstrate a more historical understanding. Only identification appears to be fairly constant across years of history learning. The results suggest that in history education first aiming at a constructivist concept of nation and then using the concept to reflect on the national historical subject and events in the narrative might help produce historical understanding of a national past.This article was written with the support of projects EDU-2010-17725 (DGICYT, Spain) and PICT-2008-1217 (ANPCYT, Argentina), coordinated by the first author. We are grateful for that support

Social Justice, Peace, and Environmental Education: Global and Indivisible

Th is book seeks to demonstrate that social justice, peace, and environmental preservation are integrally connected, that they are of equal importance, and that educators should play a major role in teaching students how to understand global problems and take corresponding social action. Inspired by the Alaska Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools (Assembly of Alaska Native Educators, 1998), we present standards and guidelines to assist educators who want to integrate social justice, peace, and environmental education (SJPEE) into classrooms and schools. Th is introductory chapter provides an overview of the topics covered in this book, and sets the stage for how urgently educational reform is needed

Towards a Collective Vision for Social Justice, Peace, and Environmental Education

Th is book offers a forum in which progressive educators and activists have described their vision for a better world, seeking to initiate a conversation on how educators and educational institutions can foster the principles of social justice, peace, and environmental education in their daily practice. Each author presents a vision of how their particular area of concern intersects with the overarching issues of social justice, peace and the environment. They do this by globalizing their perspective, and by looking for ways in which their particular concern is related to the others. Th is proved to be a very challenging task because the authors were asked to research and think beyond the traditional boundaries of their respective disciplines. Reading through all these chapters, it seemed possible to discern a common set of themes that had emerged from the six-year process of discussions, negotiations, and writing that produced this collection of essays. It also seemed possible to produce a tentative set of common standards that would synthesize the specific points laid out in each chapter. While they will not have the specificity of those in each chapter, a comprehensive set might assist educators in taking the next steps