History class in Switzerland

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History instruction refers to any form of institutionalized, especially school instruction in history . The history lesson is organized according to cantonal regulations, in addition, there are frameworks by the regional-language education director conferences and the federal Director of Education Conference . History lessons take place in elementary schools, secondary schools, vocational schools and private schools; in some cases and canton-specific, history lessons only take place within the framework of different integrated subjects.

History lessons during compulsory school (1st - 3rd cycle according to LP 21)

The inter-cantonal agreement on the harmonization of compulsory schooling ( HarmoS Concordat ) means that curricula are coordinated at the language-regional level. The “Plan d'études romand” (PER) has already been introduced in the French-speaking cantons. In Ticino the “Piano di studio” is available, in German-speaking Switzerland the curriculum 21 . Curriculum 21 of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Directors of Education (EDK) standardizes the cantonal curricula in German-speaking Switzerland. All German-speaking cantons are involved in curriculum 21, including those that have not ratified the HarmoS Concordat. The concept of curriculum 21 can be adapted in the cantons to regional needs.

History lessons at primary level (1st to 2nd cycle according to LP 21)

German-speaking Switzerland: Department of Nature, People, Society (NMG)

According to curriculum 21, historical education is anchored in the nature, people and society (NMG) department as a curricular dimension. The NMG department comprises the four content perspectives: 1. Nature and technology (NT), 2. Economy, work, household (WAH), 3. Spaces, times, societies (RZG) and 4. Ethics, religions, community (ERG) . By the end of primary school, these four content-related perspectives have been combined in one subject. The focus is on aspects of action for competence development, not on content. In the NMG department, students learn to perceive the world, to open up the world, to develop new perspectives on the world, to orientate themselves in it and to act in it.

French-speaking Switzerland: Sciences humaines et sociales

The Plan d'études romand (PER) provides for cycle 1 (1st – 4th grade) and a. the “Sciences humaines et sociales” department. In addition to geography (relation homme - espace) and citoyenneté (relation homme - société), the school subject histoire (relation homme - temps) is an integral part of this department. In the history school subject, the students work on the topics in cycle 1: observation and comparison of periods of time, understanding of the different stages of life (birth, childhood, adulthood and death) and traces of time.

Ticino: Dimensional ambience

According to Piano di studio, the humanities and social sciences together with the natural sciences make up the dimension ambience at primary level in the canton of Ticino. History in the narrower sense is taught in this subject from the 2nd cycle (3rd – 5th grade). The main focus here is on comparing traditional rural society with modern urban society and on the technological, economic and social changes in the course of the industrial revolution.

History lessons at secondary level I (3rd cycle according to LP 21)

According to curriculum 21, the lower secondary level lasts three years and follows the 8-year primary level (including kindergarten). There is an exception for the canton of Ticino, which can keep its four-year “Scuola media” (6th-9th school year). The history lesson in lower secondary level is divided into the subject “Times - Spaces - Societies”, whereby the subjects history and geography are merged. The subject should convey competency-oriented orientation knowledge in space and time as well as basic knowledge in civics. Latin Switzerland, with the exception of Graubünden, accepted HarmoS (for lower secondary level). History is retained in the Plan d'études romand (PER), as is the case in Ticino. The learning objectives are based on both orientation knowledge and skills, with civics being prominently represented in both language regions. The subject of history has a different status in the education systems of the individual cantons. An overview of these systems can be found in the lemma education system in Switzerland .

History lessons at upper secondary level

History lessons at upper secondary level (general education schools)

There is still no federal harmonization for the area of ​​secondary schools, the curricular regulations there are exclusively cantonal. The individual grammar schools and their student councils, but also the individual teachers traditionally have some freedom with regard to the content of history lessons. Cantonal differences mainly revolve around the following points: curricula, number of hours, supplementary subject offers, Matura examination subject (yes / no). Federal framework conditions are regulated in the Matura Recognition Regulations MAR (1995) and recommended in the framework curriculum for Swiss Matura schools (1994). According to this, history is a compulsory basic subject for all Swiss high school students, which together with the other humanities and social science subjects (geography, possibly economics & law and / or philosophy) comprises between 10 and 20 percent of all lessons. The lessons should be competence-oriented. The lessons are mainly designed with topics from the early modern period and modern / modern history. The cantonal regulations stipulate civic studies (political education) in history lessons at secondary schools.

History lessons at upper secondary level (vocational schools)

Vocational training in Switzerland is federally regulated by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Accordingly, the curricular provisions for history lessons are also regulated nationally. The proportion of civic education (political education) is higher than in general schools. Here, too, teachers have a high degree of creative freedom; topics from the early modern period and modern / modern history dominate.

Present and public discussion

Three factors determine the presence of Swiss history teaching and the public discussion:

  • The debate about history teaching in Switzerland has been dominated in recent years by the introduction of curriculum 21 and the criticism of it.
  • Since the beginning of the process of tertiarization of teacher training, a history-didactic science has emerged in Switzerland, which has built up its own specialist journal, a professional association and a series of publications (insights into the more recent research in Swiss history-didactics ).
  • Public debates on historical didactics and understanding of history in Switzerland: In 2015, in the anniversary year of the Battle of Marignano, the Basel historian Thomas Maissen and former Federal Councilor Christoph Blocher held several public debates on the meaning of myths in Swiss historical consciousness, whereby they agreed that myths was an important one Take on a role, Maissen, however, feared their political instrumentalization and Blocher the loss of Swiss identity if historical myths were less and less heeded. What history Switzerland needs is not just a debate among history scholars and at the 500th anniversary of Marignano. In his work History of Switzerland in the 20th Century, Jakob Tanner poses the question «transnationality vs. Nationality »again openly and calls for a modern Swiss history / history didactics, which is released from its« container perspective ».

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curriculum 21
  2. ↑ http://www.plandetudes.ch/web/guest/citoyennete
  3. ↑ http://www.pianodistudio.ch/node/74
  4. ↑ http://edudoc.ch/record/38112/files/VO_MAR_d.pdf
  5. ↑ http://edudoc.ch/record/17476/files/D30a.pdf
  6. ↑ http://www.hep-verlag.ch/reihe/geschichtsdidaktik-heute
  7. ↑ Thomas Maissen: Swiss hero stories - and what's behind them. Baden 2015, ISBN 978-3-03919-340-0
  8. ^ Marc Tribelhorn: Blocher contra Maissen. In: nzz.ch. April 12, 2015, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Jakob Tanner: History of Switzerland in the 20th century. Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68365-7 .
  10. ↑ Oliver Zimmer: Under the spell of the special case. In: nzz.ch. September 12, 2015, accessed October 14, 2018 .