International Perspectives on Teaching Rival Histories: Pedagogical Responses to Contested Narratives and the History Wars

Henrik Åström Elmersjö · Anna Clark · Monika Vinterek

Apr 2017 · Springer

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This book presents a survey of approaches to dealing with ‘rival histories’ in the classroom, arguing that approaching this problem requires great sensitivity to differing national, educational and narrative contexts. Contested narratives and disputed histories have long been an important issue in history-teaching all over the world, and have even been described as the ‘history’ or ‘culture’ wars. In this book, authors from across the globe ponder the question “what can teachers do (and what are they doing) to address conflicting narratives of the same past?”, and puts an epistemological issue at the heart of the discussion: what does it mean for the epistemology of history, if it is possible to teach more than one narrative?
Divided into three sections that deal with historical cultures, multicultural societies and multiperspectivity, the chapters of the book showcase that dealing with rival histories is very much dependent on context, and that diverse teaching traditions and societal debates mean that teachers’ abilities in engaging with the teaching of rival narratives are very different. The volume will be compelling reading for students and researchers in the fields of education, history, sociology and philosophy, as well as practising teachers.

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Henrik Åström Elmersjö is a researcher in history and education at Umeå University, Sweden. He has published extensively on negotiations of historical cultures and the history of Scandinavian history education. He is also on the editorial team for the Nordic Journal of Educational History.
Anna Clark holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and is Co-Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She has written extensively on history education, historiography and historical consciousness, including her most recent book, Private Lives/Public History.
Monika Vinterek is professor at at Dalarna University, Sweden, where she is also Director of Education and Learning. She has participated in several international projects, including European History Crossroads as Pathways to Intercultural and Media Education, Popular History Magazines and History Textbooks, Teaching Aids from a User Perspective and Comparing Our Pasts.