Manuel Köster Holger Thünemann Meik Zülsdorf-Kersting (Chair of the panel)

Standardization or Pluralization? History Education in a „Divided“ Society

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Abstract

In Germany as well as in its neighboring countries, history is taught in increasingly heterogeneous and diverse classrooms. Teachers as well as students are part of multifaceted cultural contexts, they choose different individual lifestyles and identities. Teaching history in a society whose ability and power to integrate numerous voices appear to decline rather than increase poses a challenge for history teachers in schools as well as to historians and history education researchers. This diversity does not just provide challenges, it also bears tremendous learning potential, which, however, often remains largely untapped by educational policy. Instead, political reactions frequently either consist of prescribing canonical content or of exclusively focusing on skills. Both reactions tend to standardize and homogenize historical thinking rather than utilize the potential inherent in a diverse student body. The didactics of history, on the other hand, has debated these matters intensively since the 1990s. However, the positions and concepts developed in these contexts so far appear to bear little effect on history teaching. This might be due to the fact that the specifics and realities of classroom teaching do not play a central role in these concepts. The panel will take a two-step approach, first outlining and explaining these tensions from the perspective of a theory of classroom history education. In a second step, these deliberations will be commented on and discussed by professionals from the fields of history education research, the theory of history, historical migration studies and journalism.

Holger Thünemann (Köln)
Einleitung
Meik Zülsdorf-Kersting (Osnabrück)
Heterogenität als Kontingenzfaktor im sozialen System Geschichtsunterricht
Carla van Boxtel (Amsterdam)
Between Standardisation and Pluralisation. History Education in the Netherlands
Jörn Rüsen (Essen)
Zwischen Relativismus und Leitkultur: Perspektivenvielfalt als Herausforderung für Historik und Didaktik
Christoph Rass (Osnabrück)
Schulunterricht und Geschichte in Migrationsgesellschaften. Historische Perspektiven auf Wissensproduktion und Diversität
Armin Himmelrath (Köln)
Gefangen im Nebenfach-Dilemma: Geschichtsunterricht aus bildungsjournalistischer Perspektive