This paper explores the issues that secondary history teachers on an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme in England encounter in attempting to incorporate more cultural and ethnic diversity into the history curriculum. It also assesses the impact that changes in their training course had on their views and pedagogical practice. Using questionnaires and scenario based interviews with three cohorts of trainee teachers, key challenges were identified, which were related to the purposes of teaching history and diversity, appropriate pedagogy and content, dealing with pupils, and teachers’ personal concerns. A framework for analysing trainees’ stances towards cultural and ethnic diversity based upon a confident-uncertain-uncomfortable continuum was developed. This operated within a socio-cultural framework that was identified and helps to explain the extent to which trainee history teachers were willing and able to embrace diversity within their teaching. The research revealed that the course had had an impact, although this was in subtle rather than marked ways, which raises further questions about what is possible within the confines of an ITE training programme and the need for additional support beyond the course

Harris, Richard

English

Southampton (e-Prints Soton)

Lesley’s position showed a very positive change during the year. Though well disposedtowards diversity from the outset, like Jess, her personal experience was limited and she felt thatdiversity was a medium priority. She expressed much uncertainty about her subject knowledge,which at times meant she would feel uncomfortable teaching some topics. She was quite clear thatdifferent strands of history ought to be interwoven and integrated, but she (naïvely) felt that alltopics should be of interest to all pupils, regardless of their ethnic background. Lesley was awarethat some topics may be more sensitive than others but was unsure how to deal with this, beyondsimplistic assumptions that she would adopt a balanced approach. She was deeply uncomfortablewith the idea of teaching about the ‘War on Terror’. By the end of the course her position hadshifted quite markedly. She admitted that she had gone through a period of confusion, broughtabout by the university sessions which had raised issues she had previously not considered, butreflecting on these meant ‘I think it then makes it easier to find out what your view is.’ Similarlyshe said ‘I just feel more decided’, as she spoke with greater confidence about the purposes ofhistory (and diversity related issues) and what she would teach and how she might approach thesetopics. Although she had not taught topics like the British Empire or the ‘War on Terror’ she wasvery positive about these, and had realistic ideas about how to teach them and why they ought tobe taught. She saw subject knowledge as a potential source of discomfort, but this was notpresented as an excuse not to teach something. Lesley was uncertain about the value of teachingabout the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, owing to a negative reaction to what she had had to teach onschool placement; she felt the departmental scheme of work focused too heavily on black peopleas victims and therefore created negative stereotypes. Thus she was still exploring what shethought would be a more appropriate approach. The change in Lesley’s position was all the moreremarkable because her confidence had been badly shaken during her second placement and shehad to move schools part way through the course. As part of the course though she had undertakenan investigation into her own practice which compelled her to adopt ‘risky’ teaching strategiesusing, for example, role play, with which she was deeply uncomfortable. As a result, she realised:‘I can change things about my teaching and, you know ... things did go wrong and some lessonswere awful but ... I just feel a lot more okay with things going wrong now.’ This breakthrough inher thinking and attitude towards ‘risky’ teaching enhanced her confidence in other areas of herprofessional thinking and practice. By the end of the course, Cate’s position had changed quiteconsiderably in some ways. when discussing whether a traditional British history programme wasappropriate, she was more assured in her view that it ought to be ‘more mixed’. She noted thatwhat was taught was essentially English history rather than British; she believed that pupils didnot really take much notice of what history they were taught, but she felt there was a need todiversify the curriculum. Her views were based upon her school experience, but both herplacements were in predominantly white monocultural settings; she had therefore been able toobserve the limitations of teaching a traditional curriculum, but had not had the experience ofteaching a more diverse one. Her views were shaped by her experience on the course and her self-reflection and as she explained in relation to national history:I think it should be definitely more mixed. There’s no reason why it just has to be Britishhistory. I was doing some reading about it and talking about its culture, it’s not a nationanymore, we can’t just define it as one nation.This reflects some current thinking about the issue of nation states (see Grever andStuurman, 2007), which are necessarily political constructs and therefore not necessarily the mostwas uncomfortable with her subject knowledge and teaching more diverse topics to classes shedid not know. Nonetheless, Emma did make insightful comments in the interview about whatcontent might be appropriate and the general need to make the curriculum more diverse.Collectively, her position revealed a mix of naïve confidence and uncertainty. By the half waypoint in the course she had become more confident in a number of areas, even though she had nothad opportunities to try these out in the classroom. Emma spoke more confidently about whatcontent she felt was appropriate and her appreciation of the reasons topics might be taught wasmore developed. However, her lack of subject knowledge hindered this; for instance whendiscussing the Trans-Atlantic slave trade she was unable to articulate why it ought to be taught,admitting: ‘I wouldn’t get rid of it...why I would choose to teach it, I’m less sure of ... I don’tthink it should be avoided but it’s sort of, I don’t really know why I feel it shouldn’t be avoided.’ Interviewing trainees at this point in the course generated helpful new insights. Most striking wasthe sense of powerlessness trainees felt. Though seemingly positive about diversity in historyteaching, there was a strong sense in which they felt unable to put anything into practice; Emmadescribed a conversation where the group had discussed this spontaneously over coffee: ‘we werelike, yeah, can’t really do that until we’re head of department ... and there’s lots of things whereyou’re sort of like, I need to take this on board but right now it’s not necessarily completelyrelevant.’            By the end of the course, Emma was clear that identifying the purpose for teaching a topicwas crucial to her thinking, and she was accordingly more committed to the need to embracediversity within the curriculum. This had become more apparent to her with the teaching of theHolocaust:I know it’s towards to the end that I started to get it but it’s almost through, I can see itthrough the Holocaust and I think almost doing that topic has made me realise with othertopics what their purposes are ... it’s almost like the penny’s dropped and I look at thingsslightly differently to how I did beforeShe was therefore clearer why she was teaching topics such as the Native Americans, which hadpreviously puzzled her.Anna, by way of contrast, through her degree studies had a much stronger insight into diversityand for her it was a high priority that needed to be addressed as part of the course. She was wellinformed and clearly confident about appropriate content, the underlying purposes of historyteaching and her subject knowledge. She was less certain about dealing with pupils and how theymight respond to topics and also less confident about suitable pedagogical approaches. The courseserved to reinforce, rather than change Anna’s position. She acknowledged: ‘I thought it[diversity] was a good idea and I think I’m clear about why it’s a good idea now.’ During thecourse she struggled to identify the best teaching strategies to use, although she was aware of thepossibilities and potential problems. By the end of the course she had developed several sequencesof lessons focused on diversity issues, in particular she had created an interesting scheme of workon the British in India, where she adopted the use of multiple perspectives, and her positiveexperience reinforced her growing understanding of appropriate pedagogy.One of the most interesting aspect of Anna’s progress was her ability to take opportunities; whileother trainees had said their host departments had given them the freedom to experiment withcontent and teaching ideas, most followed unquestioningly what was being taught and focused onfinding different ways to teach the material, whereas Anna seized any chance to bring morediverse content into her lessons. She admitted: ‘it’s not as easy as maybe I thought it was, asstraightforward to, to teach. … it’s more like ... getting it in the schemes of work and stuff and notbeing tokenistic’ and ‘a lot of the stuff, it really is really hard for us to implement now.’ What setAnna apart from the other trainees was a sense of commitment; whereas all the other traineeteachers had shown a willingness to embrace ideas about diversity, Anna was unusual in taking ita step further and actually doing something about the situation.Jake was a lot more confident in his understanding of the purposes of history and theposition of diversity. This was mainly centred round the need to understand others to promotesocial cohesion:you don’t want children to come out of school that are completely blind to the fact thatdifferent cultures are now completely influxed with Britain and you don’t want them to beblind and have no understanding because if they have no understanding, they can’tpossibly even begin to  associate what’s happening with what they read or what they hear.Jake’s views were not strongly linked to content, though he wanted a better balance betweenBritish history and non-British history; he did comment that he would be unwilling at this stage toargue against history colleagues ‘who have got more of a  grasp of the curriculum than I’ve got atthe moment’. Additionally he was concerned about his subject knowledge and admitted that hewould not be comfortable teaching some topics, e.g. the ‘War on Terror’ or aspects of Islamichistory until this was firmly in place, particularly as he would be concerned about beingmisconstrued or offending someone. Jake was very positive about the needBy the midpoint of the course, Jake had had some experience of how pupils respond tomore diverse content and so he was better able to discuss this aspect of his practice.  In particularhe was aware that pupils’ responses to topics may well reflect parental attitudes, and so he wasconcerned that challenging pupils’ views may provoke a response from parents. He was alsoconcerned about his subject knowledge and the pedagogical approaches he might adopt. Thisreflected a more sophisticated understanding compared to his initial position, though this was notreflected in his comments about the rationale for teaching some topics. For example, whendiscussing the British Empire and the slave trade, Jake argued they were important topics, butwhen asked why, he was unable to articulate a further response. The other main development inJake’s position was to do with commitment. His first interview showed that he was positive aboutdiversity, and though this was still undiminished, he was reluctant to develop this aspect of histeaching, commenting: ‘it would be something that I would do if time allowed it ... at PGCE stage,I’d be more likely just to follow the department’s set plan mainly due to time constraints.’This highlighted issues about time and his unwillingness to challenge a department; at onepoint in his interview he explained the shortcomings in a department’s scheme of work but said hewould work with it. Fitting in and passing the course were his priorities: ‘at the moment it’s moreof a focus on getting everything done, getting the basics done right’.By the end of the course, Jake’s position had developed in some ways but had also got‘stuck’ in others. In terms of pedagogy he was more comfortable with this and advocated theuse of ‘little’ stories. His earlier concerns about teaching potentially sensitive topics tominority ethnic pupils had been overcome and he found that pupils were more engaged bysuch topics. Previously when asked about the purpose of teaching the topics discussed in thescenarios, Jake had struggled to answer this; this time when asked he focused mainly on theneed to include content that offered different perspectives although he did not articulate whythis was important, and when asked further was only able to produce a vague answer.Although he expressed his ideas confidently, many were untried and occasionally came acrossas na?ve, for example he spoke about the need for diversity but also adopted what could beconstrued as an assimilationist stance towards minority ethnic pupils:if you’re integrating into a British society and Britain, British students know theirbackground, their culture, that kind of thing, and it is worthwhile that they [minority ethnicgroups] do know British culture, the British background, British history.He had also taken a backwards step in response to the scenario about the ‘War on Terror’.Although he had previously expressed concerns about this topic he had been willing to teachit, but now he was more firmly against teaching the topic as he was unclear about thepurposes, content and his subject knowledge. In one sense these are genuine issues andperhaps his move towards this position is sensible but overall it seemed to support the ideathat he had not moved as far forward as other trainees.His position becomes understandable given his school context. Jake had always beenconfident about his teaching but in his second placement his mentor became frustrated withJake’s inability to develop a broader range of teaching approaches to engage the pupils. Jake’sdevelopment had ‘plateaued’ early and his attention focused on ‘getting through’. Further, thedepartment did not value diversity highly. Given this situation Jake did not give due reflectionto diversity issues, and so although he still spoke confidently about many things his ideas wereoften undeveloped.Although not all the trainees developed as much as Emma and Anna, as can be seen in the case ofJake, their cases show how changes in the course had helped trainees move closer to a positionwith which they felt confident and informed enough to positively embrace a more diversecurriculum.Socio-cultural theory provides insights into the dynamics that underpin the extent of change thatwas observed (see Figure 5). Trainees operate in a social context that presents them with a numberof dilemmas or tensions. One tension is related to the issue of priority. The extent to which thetrainee and/or the host department where s/he is training see diversity as an important aspect ofthe curriculum is one element which influences the extent to which trainees are able to engagewith this area. Related to this is the willingness and/or opportunity for trainees to experiment withdifferent content. Trainees may well have the opportunity to teach diverse topics but may notseize this, whereas others may well be willing and seize any opportunities that arise, whether ornot the department is supportive. In addition, trainees need to have the time and space to reflectupon their practice so that they are able to examine their views on diversity and the extent towhich they see the need and look to exploit any opportunities that emerge. These factors interactwith the five areas identified as being necessary to support trainees’ ability to teach a more diversecurriculum. This interaction helps to explain the extent of the trainees’ confidence.Figure 5 – Tensions modelTeacherPriority

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Diversity and the history curriculum: an action research approach to help trainee history teachers embrace cultural and ethnic diversity in the curriculum

This paper explores the issues that secondary history teachers on an Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme in England encounter in attempting to incorporate more cultural and ethnic diversity into the history curriculum. It also assesses the impact that changes in their training course had on their views and pedagogical practice. Using questionnaires and scenario based interviews with three cohorts of trainee teachers, key challenges were identified, which were related to the purposes of teaching history and diversity, appropriate pedagogy and content, dealing with pupils, and teachers’ personal concerns. A framework for analysing trainees’ stances towards cultural and ethnic diversity based upon a confident-uncertain-uncomfortable continuum was developed. The research revealed that the course had had an impact, although this was in subtle rather than marked ways, which raises further questions about what is possible within the confines of an ITE training programme and the need for additional support beyond the cours

Diversity and the history curriculum: an action research approach to help trainee history teachers embrace cultural and ethnic diversity in the curriculum

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