History didactics

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History didactics is the scientific discipline that deals with the form, development and promotion of historical awareness. It is not a sub-discipline of general didactics , but an independent discipline, with references to history (especially history theory ), education or pedagogy and psychology as well as social and cultural studies . The school history lesson is the primary, but not the only field of action in history didactics.

History awareness in the center

Modern history didactics (in Germany since around 1970) distinguishes itself from an earlier understanding of seeing its task only as a pragmatic discipline to better convey historical knowledge to schoolchildren ( image didactics) in history lessons. Likewise, it is not a purely pedagogically motivated history pedagogy , as in education under National Socialism . She has found a center in the category of historical awareness that includes:

  • theoretical reflection on the logic and peculiarities of historical thinking ,
  • empirical research on the structure and genesis of historical conceptions and processes of historical thinking,
  • pragmatic efforts to develop principles and procedures (methods) of teaching history.

History of history didactics

The current self-image of history didactics in German-speaking countries has developed in the Federal Republic since the mid-1960s, when separate chairs for this subject were created outside of the practice-oriented universities of teacher education . In the GDR there was such a discipline only in a limited form. Since around 1960, the relevant discipline has only been understood as a methodology for teaching history .

Didactic reflection on history lessons has increased since the emergence of pedagogy as a science in the early 20th century. The didactic approaches stood between a strict science orientation in the upper school level and normative history education in the lower level and elementary school , in which they relied on simple knowledge reproduction or, ideally, experiential education through lively teacher narratives . It was only in the Weimar Republic , in which working instruction was even mentioned in the constitution (Art. 148), that a more open discussion about historical didactic questions was initiated only with reform pedagogy .

aims

The goals of modern history didactics are

  • With regard to theoretical reflection, the elaboration of a theory of historical thinking both by individuals and in collectives (societies) with regard to its structures, influencing variables and forms of development and its functions for society and the individual,
  • with regard to empirical research, the elaboration of different types of historical consciousness, historical forms of argumentation and thought and their determining factors;
  • With regard to pragmatics, the development of principles, procedures and categories for different forms of historical learning, which should enable the learner to develop a reflected historical awareness in the sense that he / she is able to
    • to independently relate experiences about the past to one's own present and future and thus to orient one's own actions today,
    • To inquire about statements of others about history, what they say about the connection between the past and the present and the future and about the significance of the past for the present and future.

Theoretical premises

The theoretical premises of today's history didactics include

  • the basic distinction between past and history : the former is only recognizable depending on a narrative , the latter term denotes a fundamentally narrative reference to the past and its connection with the present ;
  • the constitutive connection of past, present and future in historical thinking;
  • the importance of historical awareness for individual and collective identity ;
  • the insight that any statements about the past are historical perspective, a complete reconstruction of a past reality is epistemologically impossible (cf. Arthur C. Danto : Analytical Philosophy of History. Frankfurt am Main 1980);
  • the need for a multi- perspective view and communication of history in empirical research (specialist science) and history teaching;
  • the understanding of historical learning not as taking over knowledge that is supposedly valid across different perspectives, but as acquiring the competence for independent historical thinking.

Current Research Problems

Current research problems in history didactics include:

  • the question of the level of difficulty, the pupil and age equality of learning and thus the learning progression: Earlier beliefs that child development proceeds in fixed, maturation-based stages of development have been heavily criticized since the late 1960s. Demands that history lessons should follow this development with their content, goals and methods have therefore lost their persuasiveness - but also the conclusion that history lessons must be based on the necessary abstraction ability (what is “state”, “society”, “shift "?) Is only possible from the age of around ten to eleven and initially only has to focus on child-friendly topics. It is undisputed that younger children have other substantive interests. On the other hand: The change in their ways of thinking is individual, but not every child can be taught everything at all times. At the moment there is no elaborated system of categorical differentiation between levels of difficulty of historical thinking and learning tasks - neither for the differentiation between levels nor for a developed model of the learning progression.
  • the challenge of changing educational policy to the formulation of competence models and educational standards ; this discussion is held in the central subjects German, mathematics and English, so that history lessons should follow up on this discussion.
  • the challenge of interculturality and the more extensive transculturality , which both within German society and globally (internet, holiday and business contacts due to growing globalization ) make history lessons, which are thematically and categorically nationally determined, questionable. Society has to rethink the goal of historical learning. The integration of all learners into the (national) community cannot be the predominant goal. An alternative could be the ability to orientate oneself in a heterogeneous society. History lessons should therefore not aim to create meaning, but rather enable an independent formation of meaning that recognizes the cultural otherness of the other ( inclusion ). This is opposed by the state's right to enforce universal norms such as human rights against other types of cultural traditions. Furthermore, it remains open which role the cultural tradition of the majority has as a possible dominant culture that makes legitimate guidelines for living together. For example, the deal comes with the German responsibility for the Holocaust against the Jewish people in immigrant children on a completely different relationship to this question, especially if they come from Muslim families with a israel derived critical attitude.

Organizational form

History didactics as subject didactics in the Federal Republic of Germany is mostly located at universities and / or universities of teacher education . However, their organizational form there is very different. With regard to the institutional assignment, the integration into specialist departments (faculties, departments) dominates via the model of assignment to the educational sciences (as at the University of Hamburg ). A separate outsourcing of all subject didactics in its own faculty or department-independent institute was previously implemented at the Free University of Berlin , but has been abandoned. In the last decade, however, there have been increasing attempts to interlink history didactics more closely with other subject didactics, even when it is assigned to the subject of history, and to enable joint research projects, especially in empirical studies. One example here is the collaboration between all subject didactics in the Didactic Center at the University of Oldenburg .

History didactics is also organized differently at the universities with regard to the internal structure. There are entire institutes for history didactics, for example at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster , individual chairs and professorships within the historical seminars and institutes, but also the supervision of specialist didactics by representatives of the mid-level staff and lecturers (for example at the University of Rostock , University of Greifswald , University of Lüneburg , Technical University of Darmstadt etc.). In the latter model, it is not usually possible to establish a didactic research focus, but rather the teaching of didactic approaches in teaching dominates. But even when the history didactics are equipped with professorships, there are differences in terms of denominations . At some universities, mostly where history didactics is part of the history seminar, there are combinations of professorships for “history” or “modern” or “medieval history” with “subject didactics”. The denominations of "history and its didactics", which can still be found today, come from the tradition of the universities of education , in which the chair holders had to hold both specialist, didactic and methodological events. In contrast, at the University of Hamburg, all didactic specialists are professors “for educational science with special consideration of the didactics of” (here: history). Professorships in specialist didactics are rarely found, sometimes they are coupled with the denomination for the theory of history (as at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt ).

In addition to university history didactics, there are other institutions that are concerned with researching the public use of and dealing with history. With a view to teacher training , these are primarily the state study seminars, i.e. the training centers in the 2nd phase ( legal clerkship ) and the advanced training institutes. There are also independent organizations such as foundations and associations as well as research institutes. For the latter in Germany, the “ Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research” (GEI) in Braunschweig , which arose from the initially bi-, later multinational efforts to “detoxify” textbooks, and today also other textbooks, should be mentioned Takes a look at subjects. In recent years it has become very important in accompanying the transformation of history teaching in the formerly socialist countries, but also in the "pacification" of history teaching in crisis regions. Mention should also be made of the Körber Foundation in Hamburg, which organizes a biennial history competition for schoolchildren under the patronage of the Federal President and has done a great deal to establish the concept of learning through discovery or “ learning through research ”. This project, too, has acquired a European dimension beyond Germany in recent years.

Important scientific professional associations in German-speaking countries are the " Conference for History Didactics " (KGD) and the Society for History Didactics Austria (GDÖ). There is also the “ International Society for History Didactics ”. The subject-related interests of the history teachers and history teachers in Germany represents the history teacher association .

See also

Portal: History  - Overview of Wikipedia content on history

literature

Web links

Organizations

Open Access

Single receipts

  1. ↑ Stefan Jordan: The Development of a Problematic Discipline. On the history of history didactics. In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History. 2, H. 2, 2005. ( online )
  2. ↑ Knut Engeler: History Lessons and Reform Education. LIT, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-8258-1922-1 ( Google books )