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Table 2.2
The Two Traditions of History Teaching.
The ‘great tradition’ The alternative tradition
Learners and pedagogy • Emphasizes the
didactically active role
of the teacher.
• Assumes a high level
of teacher subject
knowledge.
• Learner’s role is
largely passive.
Content • Characterized by a
concern with national
history. Focuses on the
understanding of the
present through
engagement with the
past.
Purpose of learning history • Defined through the
content of the subject.
• Focuses substantially
on the cultural capital
of historical content.
Note: This table taken from Husbands et al. (2003, p. 12).
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• Emphasizes
constructivist models of
learner engagement with
the past.
• Places a premium on
teacher’s ability to
manage student learning
activities.
• Characterized by a
variety of content
•
reflecting world history
and the experiences of a
variety of groups.
Stresses the importance
of learning about a
variety of historical
situations and contexts.
• Defined through the
contribution of the
subject to wider general
education.
• Focuses substantially on
the preparation for
working life and the
acquisition of skills.
The traditional and progressivist approaches are often discussed as being diametrically
opposed (as indeed the epistemological emphases of the two are markedly different). Cope
and Kalantzis in their seminal work, Literacy in the social sciences contextualises these
differences to a general schooling context in the following way:
...primary school social studies has moved from learning social facts and contents to
‘enquiry’ learning in which students are active makers of their own social
knowledge, relevant to themselves and their particular sociocultural circumstances.
In secondary school history, there has been a move from students have to imbibe
‘facts’ of various kinds, and from of a view of history itself as singular,
uncontroversial and universalistic. Instead new emphases are placed on students
learning to be historians, by engaging in the ‘processes’ of behaving like historians—
working with documentary evidence which raises problems, investigating local
history, and so on...As a shorthand...the old concept-laden and authoritative
curriculum [is called] ‘traditional’ and the new ‘process’ child-centred curriculum
‘progressivist’... (1990, p. 118)