Contents

6 1. Editorial

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2. Introductory Notes

3. Keynote addresses

3.1. Controversial issues concerning History in the new National Core Curriculum in Hungary by Imre Knausz, Head of Department, The National Public Institute, Budapest

3.2. Teaching History from different perspectives by Fran~ois Audigier, ,

t I Research Co-ordinator for History Didactics, the National Institute of Pedagogical Research, Paris

4. Presentation by members : Preparing for the 621st

4.1. Scotland : Jana Huttova 4.2. Slovakia : Ian B. Mckellar

5. Presentation by members : 1848 as a case

5.1. Austria : Elisabeth Buxbaum 5.2. Belgium : Paul Vandepitte

6. The Youth and History Project : presentation by Signe Barschdorff

7. The Workshops : presentation by Martin Roberts 1' ,

7.1. Summumary of the discussions 7.2. Recommendations

I Editor of the BULLETIN : Martin Roberts

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Editor of the Bulletin : Member : Sue Bennet H6lBne Edgren 137 Rusthall Avenue Sysslomansgatan 24 GB - Chiswick, London W41BL S - 112 41 STOCKHOLM Tel. +44 181 742 82 26 Tel. +46 8 6534842 Fax +44 171 222 50 97 +46 70 531 13 56

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+4217 526 63 96 Fax +4217 566 97 25

1. Editorial

In planning the 1997 Annual Conference in Budapest, the aim of the Euroclio Board with representatives of the Hungarian History Teachers' Association was to choose a theme which would interest all our members. Focusing on that theme, the sessions of the conference, we intended, should be organised so that a series of addresses and presentations would stimulate discussion about issues of common concern. Workshops would give some structure, we intended, to these discussions and culminate in recommendations for the improvement of

r 7 history teaching which Euroclio and member-associations separately could pursue.

As this bulletin shows, these aims were more than adequately achieved. The main theme, syllabus design for the C2lst, was clearly pertinent to all member associations and everyone had grappled to some degree a t least with the Europeanlnational, chronologylthemes, depthbreadth and skillsknowledge dichotomies. In addition the 1848 Revolutions case study approach provided a further and sharper focus to our discussions.

(. The two keynote addresses more than fulfilled the planners' aims. Imre Knausz' analysis of the present situation in Hungary was not only fascinating as a description of how the present situation had evolved but, by his clear exposition of controversial contemporary issues like social studies versus history, separate subjects versus integration, and the pressures of innovation on hard-pressed poorly paid teachers, he posed questions for the participants which would enrich the informal and formal discussions for the rest of the conference. Francois Audigier's address - a rich, multi-layered exposition of the varied factors inter- relating in the formation and development of history syllabuses, illuminated by the recent French

experience with a more thematic approach - was equally compelling, not least in its insistence on the continual pressure from governments and the general public that school history must have a role in the creation of a sense of collective identity.

The presentations by members augmented further the aims of the conference by highlighting the concerns of Slovakia and Scotland where history teaching developments are concerned, and the diversity of the Austrian and Belgian experiences of the 1848 Revolutions.

The workshops gave rise to wide-ranging and often passionate discussions yet the chairs and rapporteurs performed to high standard not only by promoting and recording these excellent debates but, more importantly for the future, by leading them to some conclusions in the form of recommendations which the Euroclio Board and member-associations can consider actively in the next few years.

Since this is the last edition of the Bulletin I am editing, I hope members will allow me the indulgence of a few reflections about the origins of Euroclio and about its present success. After all, one of the prime functions of history teaching, as the Budapest conference reminded us, is, through the knowledge of how we have got to where we now are, to help our pupils to a profounder understanding of their present situation and a better estimation of their futures.

A word of caution. I have never kept a diary. My Euroclio Board papers are in untidy heaps in my study. The following comments are based, therefore, entirely on memory; evidence, consequently, of a subjective and unreliable kind.

From this perspective, the prime cause of the origins of Euroclio was the frustration of a number of us who were working full-time in schools about

European conferences on history teaching which, though very interesting and dealing with important issues, had little influence on school practice. The main reason for this state of affairs, it seemed to us as we talked together in the various cafes and bars Erst of Bruges and then of Strasbourg, was that most participants in such conferences were transient education officials rather than practising history teachers and that findings of the conferences were slow to be published and, when eventually published, seldom got further than national ministries.

The solution, we thought, was an association of European history-teachers' associations the chief purpose of which would be to build links between the associations and their practising teacher members and create a network of transcontinental contacts which would lead to a sustained, vigorous and independent discussion of issues important to history teachers and, from these contacts, policies which would improve the quality of pupils' learning.

I do not think that any of us involved in those initial debates ever expected that Euroclio would grow so fast. Why such growth? Like most historical explanations, it is of course multi-causal.

The first reason was our timing, which was by chance, not design. The fragmentation of the Soviet bloc from 1989 posed immense challenges to the whole of Europe. The role of history teachers in reinterpreting the twentieth century and in assisting in the redefinition of national and collective identities in Central and Easter Europe has been and remains hugely important. Simultaneously the Council of Europe, philanthropic foundations, the European Union and some national governments have realised how constructive the role of hstory teachers can be in these years of significant transition. In various ways, Euroclio has benefited from the benign support of the Council of Europe,

primarily through Maitland Stobart, of the Korber and Soros foundations, of the Human Rights Foundation within the EU and from the Dutch and from other governments.

The second reason has been a strong determination among history teachers (which, like the impatience with authoritarian regimes in 1848, seems genuinely transcontinental) to associate themselves together so that they are genuinely independent and be in a position to comment critically should need arise about excessive government intervention in the design of syllabuses or methods of teaching. Hence the interest a t the Budapest conference in a Charter for History Teachers and the 6 encouraging readiness of teachers to write to the Euroclio Board with examples of such excessive interference.

The third is a matter of personalities. The success of Euroclio is due to a combination of the dynamism of Joke van der Leeuw-Roord, supported by the efficient administration of Helene Bude, harnessed by members of the Board who very quickly settled down as a team. In addition, though all of us had our own particular mles and were ready to have candid exchanges of view, we have had no trouble in reaching collective and, I hope, coherent policies for the development of Euroclio. C

As for the future, I should be surprised if the institutional climate in Europe is as favourable to such initiatives as Ewoclio in the next decade as it has been in the 1990s. The immediate crises of post-1989 have been weathered a t least on the surface. Much depends on whether the EU regains its impetus and overcomes the scepticism of many of its citizens with currency reform (or not) and with the addition of new members like Hungary and the Czech Republic. That should not matter to Euroclio if its members maintain their determination to link together to provide mutual support and sustain their independence

as teachers and if the Board with its changing membership responds, as I have no doubt it will, intelligently and energetically to the needs of its members. For any voluntary organisation operating across a large geographical area, funding will remain a preoccupation since the demands of communication, e.g. travel costs, are an unavoidable and expensive item. However the beneficial potential of electronic data transmission for organisations like Euroclio is immense and this the Board is continually evaluating.

It has been for me a great (and thoroughly enjoyable) privilege to have been in a t the start of Euroclio. Sue

(9 Bennett, who taught history in an Oxfordshire secondary school before becoming the History Subject Officer a t the Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA) in London is taking over as Editor of the Bulletin. She is joined on the Board by Jana Huttova from Slovakia. They replace Jens Dalsgaard (Denmark) and myself. I know that Jens will join me in wishing Euroclio the best of fortunes in the years ahead.

Martin Roberts

2. Introductory Notes

This Bulletin is the last on which our friend, Martin Roberts, is collaborating as editor. For five years we have worked together to develop English and French editions of our bulletin, an important means of communicating with our members. These years, we dare to hope, have been fertile, useful and full of potential. Martin Roberts has made his mark on our bulletin and even if others now pick up the torch, he will always inspire our journal. We thank him for having worked on the publication of the first eight numbers with such competence, effectiveness and good humour.

For our fifth conference and general assembly, the members of EUROCLIO met in Budapest where the Hungarian Association of History Teachers gave us a very warm welcome.

Through her history and geography, Budapest lies a t the heart of Europe and in the spring of 1997 drew together history teachers from different countries into Europe, their common home. The theme of the conference, of the specialist addresses, the presentations of our colleagues, the responses to the questionnaires sent out to each of the member- associations of EUROCLIO, as well as the workshops all revealed the same preoccupation. The teaching of history is essential for the sustenance, diffusion and application of democratic principles. The study of 1848 - the Springtime of Peoples - one year before its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary - once more demonstrated the importance of the movement of ideas and of ideas common to Europeans, even if the history of liberalism evolved in different ways depending on the national context.

The importance of the meeting of EUROCLIO in Budapest was underlined by a number of events. The President of the Hungarian Republic, Mr Arpad Gonez, did us the great honour of opening officially our conference. In his speech of welcome, he stressed the importance of history teaching and its essential role in the education of Hungarian youth. The mayor of Budapest similarly honoured us with a reception in the magnificent City Hall of the Hungarian capital.

We owe particular thanks to the members of the Hungarian Association of History Teachers who worked so hard and so successfully a t the planning and organisation of this major conference, in particular to Esther Glavinics, Laszlo Bero and Judit Stefany.

The conference was also enriched by a splendid talk about history and culture

in Budapest around 1900 by Andras Gero, Assistant Professor a t the ELTE University, which whetted our appetite for a carefully considered and therefore exceptionally interesting guided tour of Budapest.

This first meeting of EUROCLIO in Central Europe is the prelude to other conferences in what we, in the West, were once accustomed to calling Eastern Europe. The general assembly of our Permanent Conference further strengthened the position of Central Europe by electing Dr Jana Huttova from Slovakia to the Board of Directors. That is a good augury.

EUROCLIO continues each year to meet in a different country. In 1998 the Finnish Association of History Teachers will be our hosts. That will be an opportunity to discover the North of our continent. In future years other horizons will beckon. One of the riches of Europe, our common home, is the diversity of its cultures. Everywhere the muse of history inspires the teachers of regional and national associations and causes them to transmit to their pupils the common characteristics of our European heritage. The more we meet the more we become aware of this dimension which we have the opportunity to make known to those who are Europe's future, our pupils. This dimension which both permeates and moulds their environment opens up promising perspectives a t the dawn of the third millennium.

Claude-Akain Clerc

3. Keynote Addresses

3.1. Controversial issues concerning hi&ory in the new National Gore C u n c i d u r n i n I Z u n ~

The change in curriculum control in Hungary

Before the eighties Hungarian education used to be controlled very strictly by the government. This tradition originated in the 18" century, in the system of the enlightened absolutism of Maria Theresia. The first central curriculum was published by the beloved queen in 1777 prescribing the main contents of I each subject taught a t the different levels of schools and establishing the royal right to approve all the textbooks used in the schools of the Hungarian Kingdom. This system of a highly centralised curriculum control, however, held in respect the right of the different churches to develop their own syllabi and to use their own textbooks in their own schools. To understand the significance of this fact you have to realise that religionat pluralism has been common in Hungarian society since the 16th century. As a consequence education in Hungary was characterised by some kind of uniformity regarding the contents and by diversity regarding the style and I approach of instruction. This diversity, however, was not based on the autonomy of the single schools, but on the different intentions of the maintainers, especially that of the churches.

On the whole the situation remained unchanged until the total nationalisation in 1948. The communist dictatorship liquidated every kind of autonomy, and the everyday life of schools became totally controlled by the government. The ideological standpoint of the party was enforced on the schools by inspectors appointed by the governance. They were also responsible for the implementation of the central curricula. As an end of a long way of gradual and partial

liberalisation the institution of inspection was abolished in 1985 by a new Educational Act that provided schools a very wide-ranging autonomy. What is more, four years later, in the days of the change of the political system Hungarian school system, previously very uniform, also disintegrated.

From 1945 up to 1989 Hungarian school system was very simple. The so called ,,general" school (i. e. elementary school) was compulsory for everybody from 6 up to 14, and it was followed by a four years grammar school or a four year secondary technical school or a three year vocational school. In 1989 some elements of the pre-war school system were

d restored, and it became possible again to leave general school a t the age of 10 entering an eight year grammar school, or to leave general school a t the age of 12 entering a six year grammar school. Of course, each new type grammar school has its own independent curriculum, and the other schools also tend to develop new local programs suitable to attract children and parents and to compete with other schools.

The new National Core Curriculum in 1995 was a response - or a t least an attempt of a response - to this challenge of hsintegration. It has a double purpose. It aspires to comprehend the

i , common knowledge necessary for everybody up to 16, regardless of what type of school shelhe attends. As a second purpose it defines the contents of all the key stages of compulsory education, again regardless of the different types of schools. This second function provides a possibility to change schools, or even types of schools (e. g. a general school for an eight year grammar school or vice versa), which is very difficult now, because of the extreme diversity of curricula.

Despite of all this aspiration to uniformity the National Core Curriculum does not return to the former centralised control over the contents of education. It

does not want to regulate every aspect of learning. The ten years of compulsory education is divided into four key stages : the first stage is four years long, the further stages are two years long each : 5th-6th, 7th-8th and gth-loth grades. Every school is obliged to have a school curriculum, and the composition and arrangement of the material in this school curriculum is free within the framework of these key stages. One thing about our national curriculum that seems to be unique in international comparison is that it does not define subjects. The material is arranged into different cultural domains, but it is only a technical framework, and the school curriculum is given the right to define the subjects themselves. It offers the possibility to deviate from the traditional pathways creating integrated programs by the fusion of several fields of knowledge.

As I have already mentioned, every school is obliged to have a school curriculum that fits in to the children's needs, the parents' expectations and the teachers' philosophy. But, of course, they are not obliged to develop their own curricula. It is the task of the government to provide a supply of teaching programs easy and &ee to access for everybody. A supply of programs means a choice and variety of different programs where each school is able to find the curriculum that responds to their needs. On the other hand, the government has no monopoly in developing and publishing curricula. Textbook-publishers, regional institutes of education, colleges and schools are encouraged to put programs into circulation throughout the country.

New elements in the National Core Curriculum

Our national curriculum is only a framework, but it includes some new elements that will change the everyday work of Hungarian teachers. These characteristics of the document have

been widely discussed in Hungary even since its official approval. From this point on I will focus on the chapter of the national curriculum which includes

t history. Its title is The individual and the ! society. (The ,,official" translation is Man

L and Society, but the Hungarian word for 'man' means 'woman' as well, so 1 do not think this translation is exact enough.)

One of the new and controversial elements is the s t ruc ture itself. The Hungarian school system is now a mixture of different and contradictory systems. It seems to be impossible to define uniform teaching cycles for different types of schools. The first two key stages - up to the 6th grade - include the period for developing basic skills and abilities. The second two key stages - from the 7th to the 10" grade - include the period of systematic studies. The systematic and chronological teaching of history starts in the 7" grade and ends in the 10fi one, and this is an obvious contradiction with the dominant 8+4 school system : a chronological cycle of studying history begins in the general school and ends in the secondary school. Of course, history is represented in the lower grades as well in the form of stories, studies of development (e. g. the development of writing or transportation) and studies of depth (e. g. everyday life in a medieval town). I t is considerably new for Hungarian teachers accustomed to the only way of teaching about history as a comprehensive whole from the beginning to our days.

Another new element in our national curriculum is social studies as a complementary aspect to history. In the common Hungarian usage this phrase does not include history. I t stands for the studies of the present day society, that is roughly economics, sociology and government. This field of studies has been almost missing from Hungarian schools until the change of the political system, but among the conditions of market economy and democracy it is inevitable to strengthen its position. It is

quite a challenge for the teachers of history. Social studies - in this narrow sense of the word, without history - is an important part of the national curriculum a t each key stage. At the first stage it focuses on family, local community and homeland according to the principle of broadening horizons. At the second one this review is repeated on a higher level with the title : From local community to the great wide world, while an other part of the learning material provides elementary economics. At the third key stage curriculum is dominated by sociology and government followed by economics again a t the last key stage.

The third thing about the new curriculum I would like to point out as something new is the so called human studies within the general chapter ,,The individual and the society". It appears a t the last two key stages, it is totally unconventional, and nobody really knows who would teach it. That is : what kind of qualification is necessary to teach a subject that includes some sort of human studies. On the other hand the topic is really very exciting. It focuses on the human being from the point of view of psychology, philosophy and ethics.

Alternatives a n d controversial issues in developing school curricula

1

1. Social sutdies vs. history

The national curriculum prescribes teaching both history and social studies, but it does not claim how much time you are to spend with each. Developing curricula means mostly management of time. The more time you spend with lessons about the past, the less time you can save for lessons about the present, and vice versa. And this decision is up to the schools themselves. Regarding the needs of the future generations nobody disputes the increasing importance of social studies, I mean the studies about the present. On the other hand, however, our teachers are trained to teach history,

and only history. To be honest, they cannot imagine themselves as teachers of economics or government despite of all the promises about in-service training offered by several institutes and colleges. The publishers are ready to publish new textbooks of social studies, but these textbooks are not yet here, and this lack of instruments, again, raises the fear of teachers. It is fully understandable. The living standards of Hungarian teachers are very low - and even decreasing - in international comparison, their majority has a second job, not to speak of the household, since most of the teachers are women, many of them divorced with children. So they are tired and poor, and

[r 1 not very responsive to new challenges.

Some days ago I participated in a conference, where the attainment targets of the new 16+ examination were discussed. The targets, when accepted, will have a great influence on the school curricula. The question of the proportion of history and social studies emerged on this conference, too. The proposal of the expert team was 60-40 percents, naturally 60 for the history. The majority of teachers disputed it already before the conference, and the participants of the conference proposed a 70-30 percents proportion.

l 2. Separate subjects vs. integration

One thing the new teaching programs, made for the cultural domain ,,The individual and the society", differ from each other is the grade and type of integration. Of course, the most traditional way of curriculum development is creating separate subjects like history, social studies (or civics) and human studies. The strongest push that induces integration is time management. 1 mean, only a limited number of classes is disposable for the schools, and it seems to be easier to solve this problem by the help of some kind of fusion of subjects. The most obvious possibility is integration within the cultural domain ,,The individual and the

society". We know fully integrated curricula including all the three fields of studies. One of them e. g. is based on case studies. The basis is the chronological narration of history, but at certain points, e. g. conflicts, debates or important decisions it stops, and the case is analysed by the help of historical analogies from the viewpoints of sociology, economics, social psychology or ethics. Social studies and history can be integrated without human studies, too. One example for this kind of integration is a program of history and social studies with a special emphasis on ecological topics. It deals with the usual topics of history, economics, government and sociology, but from an ecological point of view in every possible case. Social studies can fuse with human studies without history, too. In this case the material is arranged in thematic modules, and chronology can not play the role of a guiding principle.

We know some attempts to integrate history with other fields of studies outside the cultural domain ,,The individual and the society". There is a traditional aspiration in Hungary, and in Central-Europe in general, to teach history, literature and arts together. The implementation of the National Core Curriculum provides a possibility for these old aspirations as well.

Although we have a great number of integrated curricula, and integration as an idea has deep roots in Hungarian educational thought, I do not think it would spread very widely and rapidly. I t requires a fully new culture of the teachers : the ability of focusing on problems instead of narrating a well constructed story of facts and causal connections. On the other hand, it requires team teaching in many cases, a co-operation of teachers accustomed to independent work. A co-operation of teachers who hardly tolerate any kind of control over their classroom activity.

3. Knowledge vs. skills

Analysing the aims of teaching history nobody disputes the importance of both knowledge and skills or abilities. Both are stressed in the National Core Curriculum, too. Still, usual classroom practice is something different. Teaching history mostly remained what it had been in the lgth century : a more or less fascinating narration of the events of the past. The main problem is time again. Namely the time you spend on analysing sources or discussing sensitive issues or using co-operative techniques in the classroom etc., proportionally reduces the amount of the facts the teaching of which seems to be indispensable. The invisible canon of basic historical facts is very strong. It works in the minds of teachers as a second national curriculum, even more rigorous than the written one.

Another problem about it is teacher training. Teachers of history get a very good professional training, but a t most colleges they get very little of methodology and of training techniques.

One thing that has had a very great influence on classroom practice, particularly from the eighties on, is the system of entrance examinations into higher, and sometimes even into secondary education. Testing historical knowledge they require nearly exclusively the knowledge of facts, often in very great detail. This condition, that is the competition of schools in meeting the requirements of entrance examinations on different levels of the school system, enforced a conservative methodology on schools in the last decades, increased the amount of facts in the learning material, and reduced the significance of developing skills.

4. Some other related problems

Many dilemmas of teaching history in Hungary can be treated by the help of the same pattern. The National Core Curriculum offers an opportunity of

modernisation, but the power of the invisible canon of facts and the deficit in methodology or, more exactly, in teacher training, makes it impossible to make the best of this opportunity. One of the key points is the problem of the so called depth studies. The most important tradition of our history teaching is to teach something about everything in more or less equal proportion. A depth study would be just the opposite : teaching more about one thing. In this relation the historical phenomenon analysed in a depth study is an example by which you can present the main characteristics of an age or a civilisation. Everybody acknowledges that this approach would be useful for constructing a deeper and more reah t ic knowledge of history. But to do so you have to give up teaching about a lot of things that seem to be indispensable. The principle of depth requires a sacrifice in breadth and teachers of history are reluctant to do so.

Another consequence of the same contradiction is the difficult modernisation of the contents itself. It is a very old tendency in our curriculum development to reduce the proportion of political events, wars, fights, uprisings, programs, acts etc., and increase the proportion of culture, everyday life, mentality etc. An old tendency with very little result. A fairly unimportant I

peasant uprising in Transsylvania in the 15th century has a separate - although very short and not compulsory - chapter in even one of the newest textbooks published this year for secondary schools. But this insistence on teaching customary facts makes it impossible to teach more about culture. Since curriculum development means time management in this respect, too.

I wanted to introduce you to our national curriculum not as a solution to our problems, but as their encyclopaedia. A looking-glass that reflects the unsolved problems of teaching history in our country. I wish this conference would be

an important mile-stone on this way to a more modern and more effective history teaching.

Imre Kmausz

3.2. History Teaching in from different perspectives

The argument which I shall develop in this address has two particular characteristics. It is didactic and national. Didactic since, as a researcher, I work on teaching and on teacher training in history, geography and civic education; the essence of my work

10 therefore consists, with teams of associated teachers, of gathering together and studying a range of material in order to describe and to understand our disciplines, using lesson observations, interviews with pupils and teachers, questionnaires, analyses of pupils' writing, etc. National, because I am part of a particular culture which has its own conception of the School and of the place which history occupies within it. In France the school is thought of as a liberating force since the School is a means of distancing pupils &om the particularities of the family, region and religion in which they hve and to give them access to the more universal values of humanity, knowledge and reason. The State, in which is found the national identity and national sovereignty, is also deeply liberating. At the extreme, this concept of the State contrasts to other concepts which value more the liberties won against the state power and which therefore distrust any intrusion of this power. In France, history is an essential discipline for providing the younger generation with a collective identity and through that to transmit to it a sense of belonging : a past which shows the progressive construction of the nation and territory, with a break at the moment of the French Revolution which signifies a new era marked by progress and by political participation. This has two major consequences : syllabuses

must be national since they must transmit a shared culture and chronological continuity imposes itself as the main organising principle of these syllabuses since they must show how the present is the consequence of a long evolution. This is very quickly retraced and demands nuances and glosses, but we remember a t which point our concepts of history teaching and its syllabuses are bound to the concepts we possess of a social and political nature and of citizenship.

However, if cultural anchorages are very influential, analysis shows that many other elements are a t work in the construction of syllabuses and the curriculum. In order to illustrate the complexities which preside over this construction, I shall describe the French experience of the thematic teaching of history which has already lasted more than twenty years, before setting out some more general propositions about the numerous processes a t work, as much in our construction of syllabuses and the curriculum as in our daily teaching. Indeed, if an explanatory logic of history, which I shall explain later, has dominated most of our teaching up to the present, that is because it corresponds well with the requirements of school history. But today our discipline is powerfully challenged by changes in our economic, social political and cultural experiences. That requires us to undertake a fundamental rethink of our approaches.

1. A particular approach to teaching: thematic history

Before exposing the reasons for the thematic teaching of history and criticising recent methods, I have two comments :

a in some way or other we make everything thematic, that is to say we divide reality in to domains or categories - political, economic, social, technological ... which are studied for

various lengths of time having been put together under the same heading in the same chapter. For example, the study of 'liberalism' is thematic with successively technological, economic and social emphases for the Industrial Revolution and then a political emphasis for the conquest of freedom, etc. All this shows the difficult tension between these divisions of reality and of society and the divisions of space which very often the State prefers. Thus when we study technology and culture, it is easier to take a more international or multicultural approach than when we study politics since we have to return to political authority and so, very often, specifically to political institutions and to the power of States;

8 the contrast between thematic and chronological teaching does not make sense. Time remains the essential organising principle of teaching and the sequence of topics; thematic teaching is another way of organising teaching and of choosing its content. Let us go further : learning, the understanding and mastery of competences concerning time, historical time - duration, sequence, simultaneousness, change, evolution, progress, regression, etc.- ought they be the spontaneous result of a teaching which sets out the events one after the other, or should they be one of the principal objectives around which syllabuses and teaching should be organised?

In the 1970s, many countries tried out thematic history in varying degrees. the reasons for this choice stemmed above all from growing dissatisfaction which teachers and educationists expressed about the often very mediocre results of history teaching, notably among young pupils around the age of 13 : the lack of understanding of historical periods, the failure to assimilate essential characteristics of civilisation and related ideas, a very great sense of abstraction. After studying this balance-sheet and

consulting various experts, the teachers of secondary education, co-ordinated by the National Pedagogical Institute and eighteen colleges with many thousands of pupils introduced thematic history teaching for the two initial college years (for 11-13 year-olds for one and a half hours per week). This new approach meant studying, each school year, two themes from pre-history to the present day : in the sixth class (11-12 year-olds) the first year of secondary school - pupils studied 'agriculture and the peasants', then 'transport and commerce'; the following year, in the fifth class, they studied 'the great religions', then 'the child in its family and school'. This approach replaced the traditional one in which pupils studied Antiquity, then the Middle Ages. This method of proceeding is a means which allowed pupils to gain a better understanding of long periods of time, evolution and change, to link the past and the present. Thus pupils would return four times in two years to the same periods and civilisations; that required re-using and, it was hoped, the consolidation of knowledge and skills already acquire. Each theme was organised around an important human activity and was studied, as far as possible, through active methods and the use of documents.

This approach had been partially restored in the official syllabuses which appeared in 1976 before being abandoned in 1983-4, but I shall not spend much time on this aspect. On the other hand, it is more interesting to consider for a moment the reasons which provoked violent attacks on this approach which led to its rejection. The chosen themes gave priority to the characteristics of civilisation and led to the decline, indeed the disappearance, of events which previously had been regarded as indispensable in history teaching : for example the Punic Wars, the Battle of Salamis or Alexander the Great, the Treaty of Verdun, the 100 Years' War ... In fact what related to the political dimension had practically disappeared

giving way to social, economic, cultural, technological knowledge, which was considered more effective and relevant to the task of initiating pupils in history. Certainly, with the next year-group, studying the '216th and later, traditional history regained its rights. However, what had been considered important in the earlier years as far as forming the national identity was concerned was no longer there. 'One no longer taught the history of France to the children of France!' No argument, no evaluation however positive, of trained teachers could succeed in shaking the opposition.

Without prejudging from such a short analysis, I would note here for our

C') purpose today what this experience and the opposition it excited confirmed :

m the importance of the relationship between history teaching and the collective identity as conceived in its political and social dimension; that indicates very clearly that the selection of subject matter of school history should be approved from the point of view of the State or more generally from the point of view of what I would call 'political territory', in particular for the study of the more distant past, searching for the elements from the present which will legitimate its study; e k 0 the difficulty of taking into account. in the organisation of syllabuses and the curriculum, considerations other than those which follow from the precedmg point; one returns to the need to break the 'political identity' emphasis with its strict observance of chronological continuity.

This brief account of an approach which gave good results for those who put it into effect but which was rejected by the great majority of other teachers and people interested in history, led me to try to unravel different elements which come together in the creation of syllabuses and the teaching of history.

2. History Courses and Curricula from different perspectives

History courses and curricula, and more generally the teaching of this discipline, are affected by different logical perspectives which are not necessarily compatible with each other. I call them 'logical' perspectives to the extent they have different domains each with its rules and recognisable components. Let me make a quick summary. Each point should have more detail and depth which is not possible in this address, but will do enough, I hope, to excite an echo in order that, in the future, we may be able to change our reflections and ways of working.

2.1. The perspective of the world of history

Under this heading I include two ways of considering time in history :

0 the logic of the historian's work, he who writes history (Geschichte), is a logic of construction. That is to say that the time of the historian is not a given fact, rather it is a principle of arrangement and of intelligibility, a tool, for understanding. It is constructed by the historian who regroups, periodises, compares. A historian who studies the revolutions of 1848 does not start by studying 1847 then January 1848, February 1848, etc. He moves about in every sense within the relevant temporal space. However, and it is here that things become difficult, when he writes history, when he reviews his work, the order of time imposes itself on him and he is then in a second logical context. a logic of explanation where chronology and the sequence which it imposes takes command. With the logic of explanation we are well away from the work of the historian and his concerns with time. The discourse so produced describes itself as a truth which tells of past realities as they

happened. Words become things. We are far from an intellectual and critical formulation. On what principles can we organise syllabuses and what can we offer to our pupils?

To these two processes and remaining always in the area of the historian's work, we must add that which is relevant to concepts, to the task of interpretation and the actual writing of history. We are entering a plural world and a world of debate where the history of historians is challenged by the uses to which our societies put history. Facing such large questions school history normally takes a prudent refuge in traditional certainties.

2.2. The perspective of t he pupils' worlds

For some years many people have come to agree that the pupil is neither a blank page upon which a historical text can be written, nor an empty glass to be filled with the sweetness of knowledge. Pupils have different ways of understanding those things about which history speaks; societies and human behaviour, the social world. In studying the 1848 revolutions, they need to be brought to realise that in the name of national ideals and of their conception of liberty, people built barricades, took up arms (which were neither automatic nor laser- powered), communicated across frontiers (without telephones nor internet), fought the great powers (for the most part authoritarian kings or emperors), risked their lives (without an effective health service or social security) ... in a social, material and cultural environment very different from our own.

Facing such an ocean of unknowns, the teacher most often acts as if the teaching of historical facts and events will automatically produce the conditions for understanding. Numerous research projects stress the simplifications pupils make in order get a better understanding of the concepts being taught to them,

based on their own understanding of the world and of human behaviour.

2.3. The process of learning

Even if we wish that our pupils are interested, better still that they derive pleasure from their history courses, they are in fact at school to learn. Moreover, although most of their work is set in a constructivist perspective which insists on the fact that it is the subject itself which determines knowledge, its knowledge, there is no theory of learning which commands unanimity. The situation is complicated by the fact that what pupils must learn includes numerous and varied competences : factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, skius, attitudes, etc. What weight should be given to these different competences is hard to determine. It is as much a matter of historical concepts as of choosing those concepts which are good, useful and important for pupils to know and to master as part of their learning. Furthermore I have not spoken a t all about the age of pupils - another delicate issue; in no way can it ever be said that the most ancient periods are the simplest, as respect for lengthy chronology tends to suggest.

2.4. The perspective of t h e constraints of school life

(

Our history courses do not take place in a disembodied universe but in settings and institutions which impose their constraints and have their own rules. Also we only study modest and limited things; we do not study 'the' revolutions of 1848 but a caricature, two maps, three texts, one or two pictures, naming some personalities, citing, describing and analysing some acts ... 'little things' really which we set out under imposing titles and chapters in order to construct an impressive general view.

Let me give four examples of these rules and constraints which are for the most part shared &om Reykjavik to Athens

and from St Petersburg to Setubal :

e the division and organisation of time. History teaching presents itself in the form of a succession of sequences, the length of which will vary from forty minutes to an hour, sequences unconnected from one to the next. The division of time orgamses a division of knowledge. They are not the same revolutions which are studied for two or for eight hours or a t the age of 12 or of 18. The idea that it is only a question of depth or of simplification is a false idea. Form and depth are hound together;

r the existence of class groups. Our

C3 pupils are grouped together in classes according to their age and attainment. Teachers will principally address the class rather than individuals. More or less consciously they will define a class average which ends the variations in the strategies used to help pupils progress, and of the approaches and interest they have concerning the subjects studied;

e the presence of the 'book'. Whatever may be its form, content and usage, a history book exists, a textbook which serves as a reference book for pupils and for teachers. This book presents history as a text already established, knowledge already there which requires the mediation of the teacher

6 if pupils are to grasp it. assessment exercises. It is probably in this area that our practices and concepts are most varied. It would be a most interesting area of research in comparative studies between schools where assessment is left entirely a t the discretion of teachers, those which take national examinations, those which have a written dissertation and those which use multiple choice questions. We know well the retrospective effect which assessment has on teaching.

These differing perspectives, and perhaps others which I have not mentioned here, mingle together in the

composition of our projects, our syllabuses and our curriculum to drive our teaching and to lead us to design those thousands of arrangements which teachers make with their pupils in their daily history lessons. To deepen the analysis of these processes would cause us to vary our syllabuses and teaching methods; however it seems sensible that the earliest form of history, that of history as text with explanation a t its heart still for the niost part dominates school history. I t is like this because such history is regulated by the civic and political requirements, the importance of which I have, from the first, emphasised.

3. Conclusion

These requirements are demanding and varied in their demand. They are cultural, patrimonial and identifying; they are also intellectual and critical; they are practical too, bound to action and to social attitudes and conventions. The first requirements are there in order to invite pupils to hold to what we teach them; this is important since we wish thereby to engrave in them a cultural and social continuity, to establish them as members of a collective. The second requirements ask us to train pupils to keep their distance, to be capable of standing back, to recognise reality etc.It is a matter of understanding that every historian's discourse is constructed from a certain point of view. As for the third, they help us to dream; we hope, we believe that with a little more history, pupils will become more responsible citizens, freer, more active, more tolerant ... briefly nourished in all those virtues which make the citizen and the honest man.

For a long time all such things were included in apparently stable and coherent constructions, a t least a t an intellectual level. But our world has changed. The landmarks have changed and are moving. Identities are plural and mobile. The nation-states from which Europe was made in recent centuries

have been corroded from head to foot; regions, communities, localities on the one hand, supra-state institutions on the other. We are looking for new horizons, for new identifying references. In this task, history is indispensable; it transmits a reasoned knowledge of the past and contributes to the definition of the collective identity; it enable each person to work out a relation to the past and to others. However we already find difficulty in judging the place to be given to the group, to the collective and that which should be given to the individual.

The development of this theme would be the object of another paper. So, here and within these perspectives, I shall content myself with a final suggestion in giving my support to the three categories of time which are defined by Reinhard Koselleck. In this formulation, developed elsewhere by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, Koselleck strictly defines the past as 'the space of experience', the future as 'the horizon of expectations' and the present as 'the time of initiatives'. There can be no rapport with the past if the future has no horizon. Nor is there any point in going on at pupils about the importance of school history if we are incapable of outlining to them the important trends leading to our common future. Let us pause for a moment to respond to that constant question : what is the point of history? To invent the future so we can act in the present? Europe, since it is the object which brings us together, can it be a reference to that common future? I know about the lively and important debates about Europe. The history of the world is determined neither by the unavoidable emergence of Europe since Greek times, nor by the claims of communities and tribes, but by what we shall make of it. So we should construct a horizon of expectations to be debated and open to diversity and plurality. History and its teaching are here plainly 'citizens'. We have much to construct since the C2lst will be new. Is that not the modest but necessary contribution which history and

its teaching can offer to those who will be responsible for the world in 20 or 50 years?

Fran~ois Audigier

4. Preparing for the C2ls t

4.1. Slovakia

I should like to discuss the problematic areas we have encountered in our efforts to reform Slovakia's history curricula.

The first and most problematic area has been the actual creation of the new history curricula. One challenge has been to devise a curriculum which balances knowledge, skiUs and attitudes and allows flexibility and individual variation while ensuring certain minimum standards. Another challenge has been finding room for many important topics, since the Ministry of Education mandates only three years history for secondary schools, and even less for technical and trade schools. We have been attempting to secure a greater time allocation for history, but, due to the extremely complex nature of government-led ministries, we are continually stymied in our efforts.

The history curriculum is determined by the Ministry of Education. Drafts are prepared by the History Curriculum Board. Those for primary and for secondary technical schools were submitted to teachers and university professors for comment. A gymnasium- level (grammar school) curriculum has just been finished and because of time pressure given to the Ministry without previous public discussion.

The new history curricula provide only a framework for the topics which should be covered. Teachers may decide individually on the time allocation per topic. The on-going problem is a shortage of teaching materials.

The aims and objectives of the new history curricula show considerable changes compared to previous ones. The goal is to achieve a balance between knowledge, skills, attitudes and critical thinking. For reasons which will be mentioned later, in reality the emphasis remains on knowledge.

Throughout the process of developing new curricula we have encountered many problems - few experts with theoretical knowledge on curriculum planning, a lack of materials (e.g. history curricula from other countries, comparative studies of history curricula), the traditional emphasis in Slovakia on knowledge-based curricula, the non- existence (until recently) of a general document on education in Slovakia which stipulates any specific requirements for history curricula and, since the last election, the increasing control and influence of the Slovak National Party.

Implementation of the new history curricula for primary schools began in 1994 and for the gymnasium this year. This includes teacher training and the publication of new textbooks, source materials and methodological handbooks. The problems we have encountered in this phase are, once again, lack of textbook authors, teacher trainers, and - due to financial constraints - lack of materials. Since they do not as yet exist, it is difficult to implement the new approach to history teaching.

The second problematic area is the textbook situation. At the moment our secondary school have temporary teaching materials for the C19th and C20th which were published immediately after 1989 to replace the old socialist-oriented texts. Otherwise, for history before 1780, the old books are still in use. While new primary materials are now being developed, the lack of a revised national history curriculum for secondary schools means that these schools will have to wait even longer for new textbooks.

In the preparation and publishing of new textbooks and teaching resources, the main problem has been a shortage of quali6ed pedagogical experts who could elaborate the didactical part of the textbook, such as adding questions and activities to the documentary material. Another problem is that some topics of national history are very controversial and there is an attempt to see history textbooks as tools for enforcing a nationalistic approach.

The third problematic area has been with history teachers themselves. Unfortunately we have, currently, a high proportion of unqualified history teachers (those whose specialisation is ia a field other than history) due to the desire on the part of many schools to save money on personnel. Another problem is that practising teachers have to date received very little guidance about implementing the new curricula. For this reason it is absolutely essential that the National Pedagogical Institute and the Ministry of Education (in consultation, of course, with the History Curriculum Board and the Slovak History Teachers' Association) improve both initial and in-service training for history teachers a t universities and methodological centres.

In general, teacher training is provided by the newly established National Pedagogical Institute and various methodological centres. They organise seminars and workshops, prepare new teaching materials and initiate meetings with historians of differing opinions on various historical topics (particularly C20th ones). Unfortunately, as a coherent and well-thought-out training programme in the new curricula is still only in the conceptual stages, the support they currently offer is generally insufficient and sometimes disorganised and unfocused. Moreover, there is a perpetual lack of teaching materials and experienced teacher trainers.

Since the official document on education

in Slovakia is only currently in development, the initiative for training must come from the methodological centres. Support for new teachers is inefficient and often depends upon the personal involvement of the teacher trainer in his or her particular region. Another problem is the rather small numbers of new hist,ory teachers. Many graduates decide not to teach (due to the low wages in the profession) and find other kinds of work.

The next challenge for history teaching will be the reform of the find exams in history a t secondary level. Traditionally, the history exam only consists of an oral test which is prepared by the individual school's history department and is primarily based on knowledge. It is thus very subjective and unbalanced, as it does not test students' attitudes or skills, such as the ability to analyse in writing. Secondary school students are further disadvantaged by the lack of a final written exam in history, since Slovak ~aniversities presently require a written exam for admission. Unfortunately, this exam is also unbalanced and exclusively knowledge-based. Clearly there is a pressing need for co-o~dination between secondary schools and universities.

Jana Huttova

4.2. Developing History Skills in Scottish Schools

The progressive development of historical skills forms the basis of the approach to history learning and teaching in Scottish schools, and is the result of almost twenty years of educational change and attempts to justify the place of history in the curriculum.

History has moved from a chronologically-based discipline, 'knowledge' dominated, or simply "one damn thing after another", from "lines of development" which concentrated on

understanding of the Time, Change and Continuity concepts, into "patches" or depth studies where understanding the factual knowledge was more important than the facts themselves. Thereafter there was a questioning of what knowledge was relevant and appropriate for contemporary children, of whether or not the subject was useful for developing particular ways of thinking - especially critically. Taken on board was the 'new history' and the value of evidence - why do we know what we know is just as important as what we know : there was too the implementation of educational objectives and latterly performance criteria and criterion referenced as opposed to norm referenced assessment. Forcing the changes and coincident with them was the analysis of curriculum design & for late 20th century children within a comprehensive school system, and within the curriculum, the place and time allotted to history was reduced. History's survival depended on proving its value beyond the classroom; its utility was in the development of thinking processes; it was imperative to concentrate on historical skills.

Facilitating the shift to a skills driven curriculum has been the fact that Scotland, unlike other parts of the U.K., and also elsewhere in Europe, does not have its school curriculum defined by law. There exists a framework of guidelines and examination arrangements agreed by relevant authorities and implemented by schools and teachers. Thus a considerable amount of 'freedom' exists for teachers to 'tailor' both the knowledge side of history and the acquisition of skills to the various needs of children, and to the particdar locality which a school serves. This is especially relevant for the Guidelines 5-14 which determine the approach to History in that range of years : when history is taught to all children as a part of the core curriculum.

The lack of knowledge prescription in the Guidelines is sometimes criticised, but it

allows teachers to concentrate on skills, without the pressure of having to cover rigid and over-specific knowledge parameters. Teachers decide what should be taught as history within this national framework. The title History itself does not figure and is encompassed within "Environmental Studies" : History has become simply "Understanding People in the Past".

Some 80 hours of teaching time is available in the first two years of the secondary school (age 11+ to 13) and teachers are expected to develop a course which has the following features :

studying people, events and societies in the past in a variety of local, national European and world contexts

e developing an understanding of change and continuity over time and of cause and effect in historical context developing an understanding of time and historical sequence developing an understanding of the nature of historical evidence

e considering the meaning of heritage and the influence of the past upon the present

0 adopting methods of historical enquiry appropriate to the pupil and the context

o providing opportunities for pupils to interpret, identlfy with and respond to situations and events in a variety of ways.

The specific skills to be developed for the age range are also indicated.

e Knowledge and Understanding w Planning

Collecting Evidence r Recorchng and Presenting e Interpreting and Evaluating

let this exemplar for 'Recording and Presenting' suffice :

"record evidence i n a variety of appropria te ways, including making detailed plans and maps, constructing da t a bases, pie charts, l ine and b a r graphs; making annotated sequences of photographstifiustrations : writing appropriately illustrated and organised reports".

While this does much to encourage child- centred activities in the classroom, the approach is demanding of teaching time and results in the historical knowledge being reduced. Also teachers select what they teach within rather loose historical eras but there is the need to have a broad and chmnological sweep across history too :

"pupils should experience a broad range of historical s tudy ... by t h e end of S2 (age 14) t he curriculum should have included :

The Ancient World (pre 5 th century A.D.) The Middle Ages (400 - 1450) Renaissance, Reformation a n d the Age of Discovery (1450 - 1700) The Age of Revolutions (170Q - 1900) and the Twentieth Century"

- an important caveat is introduced also :

"the number of studies, which should be d rawn f rom the five periods specified above (should) include attention t o Scottish contexts and, in addition, at least ONE British context, ONE European context, ONE non-European context"

By this attention is paid to chronology and to study beyond the boundaries of Scotland, lest history become too national. In effect the curriculum is

While this paper leaves little room to quite fragmented; an immense variety of

explore the underlying subset of skills, topics or patches is taught throughout Scotland; there is little uniformity :

some topics are favoured as opposed to others : for instance Ancient Egypt, the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Voyages of Discovery, the Industrial Revolution and the First or Second World Wars are popular. However if there is a deficit from the approach it is more than compensated by more interesting classroom methods and activities which allow pupils to develop skills which can be transferred to any or all time periods.

The drive to a skills-led curriculum is further promoted by the examination arrangements a t age 16 for the "Standard Grade".

Where the skills introduced in 5 to 14 are progressed, for example, as follows :-

"locating and interpreting evidence and assessing its value; using imagination to reconstruct past situations which cannot be experienced directly; seeing events in relationship to each other in time; offering explanations of events and developments; and making judgements about causes and consequences of events".

of study. Selecting and recording information required for the conduct of the investigation, presenting the outcome of the investigation."

The skills direction at Standard Grade has been the result of the need to pursue new learning and teaching methods and activities suited to the comprehensive intake and above all emanating from the demands made by mixed ability classes. But it is the introduction of source handling skills generally and evaluation techniques in particular which have given children and their teachers the greatest challenge, and take much more time in the classroom : in 1993 the authorities were compelled to reduce the Knowledge requirements of the course. Thus confirming that effective source handling requires more time, and less knowledge to be taught. In line with the ethos of choice within the Scottish history curriculum the content knowledge demanded is offered as optional units.

Most students who negotiate Standard Grade successfully go on to study History at Higher grade, an

and more explicitly, skills are grouped : examination recopnised for admission bv the Universities. o ow ever, again, skill;

Knowledge and Understanding

"applying knowledge in a historical context, showing understanding of the causes and consequences and the importance of events, developments, actions and attitudes!'

Evaluating

"evaluating sources with reference to their historical significance, the points of view conveyed in them and to the relevant historical context!'

Investigating

"planning a historical investigation within an agreed, identified area

are the focus both in the methods of learning and teaching and in the assessable elements. The arrangements document which sets out the syllabus and examination detail lists the skills in a slightly wider context, defining them as learning experiences :

0 "engage in wide-ranging, independent reading relevant to the historical studies.

* interpret and evaluate historical source material.

0 record systematically information derived from a variety of sources, e.g. books, lectures, videos, fieldwork.

* take part in formal and informal discussionldebate based on and informed by historical evidence

a n d knowledge; a n d

e develop the skills of extended writ ing for a variety of purposes including descriptive a n d analytical essays of differing lengths.

To achieve these skills and implement teaching methods which encourage students to use and improve the history skills that they have been developing progressively from the primary school the Knowledge aspects of the Higher syllabus have again by necessity been reduced to optional studies.

To sum up if skills are to be effectively introduced into the learning modes in active, progressive and consolidated ways, less knowledge for its own sake has to be learned and taught. Yet paradoxically, currently in Scottish history education circles there is debate about the Knowledge deficits and especially the lack of Scottish history that results from the skills-driven curriculum.

But as far as the crystal ball allows a glimpse into the 21st century, it is more than likely that the skills-led history syllabuses are set to continue.

Ian Mackellar

5. Two Case Studies : The 1848 Revolutions in school syllabuses

5.1. Austria

When in 1989 all Europe remembered the French Revolution, several seminars took place in Austria. In one of them a French participant put forward the provocative thesis that a nation of people which has never rebelled nor revolted against its ruler, such a nation (and he included Austria) has, even today, a

totally different feel for the values of life to the 'grand nation'. The Austrian members reacted with indignation and reminded their French colleagues that the facts are completely Merent . After all Austria did have a revolution, in 1848, although it was not successful!

Allow me to sketch briefly the causes and the consequences of this revolution. There were several M e r e n t settings which all lay far apart from each other, and the events took place on several political levels. The various groups often had rather vague goals, they fought the regime with varying intensity and occasionally even fought each other.

In Vienna there was firstly the bourgeoisie who were materially well off, but whose wish to share in and to influence political life had been ignored or even suppressed. Then, secondly, there were the workers, the proletariat, whose situation was dreadful.

The 'grande bourgeoisie' included the owners of factories and banks, the wholesale merchants and, in a wider sense, the intellectuals (lawyers, university professors, doctors). The well- to-do families (some of them had even been raised to the aristocracy) and the higher civil servants formed the second society of the monarchy. They copied the way of life of the aristocracy (the so- called first society) and distanced themselves from the members of aU lower classes

The 'petits bourgeois' fought in two directions : firstly against the 'grande bourgeois', who, with their factory-made poods were destroving many artisan- - " - made articles, and secondly against the proletariat, whose rapid growth and anti- property ideas were feared. By the term 'worker' we understand both the factory worker and the worker in cottage- industry, also, the agricultural labourer. From 1845 onwards, harvests were poor, food scarce and expensive and unemployment high. Whoever had work

had to reckon with a working day of 12 to 14 hours, which was badly paid as well. Child and female labour were both a matter of course, the places of work and the living areas (really slums) were in a terrible, unhygenic state. Disease, early ageing and alcoholism were everyday occurrences.

In general we can say that the population, especially of course the intellectuals and students, were extremely dissatisfied with the 'Metternich System' which was characterised by censorship, a police state and an absolutist system of government.

On 13 March (the birthday of the greatly revered Emperor Joseph 11) the parliament of the province of Lower Austria was holding a meeting in Vienna in the Parliament Building in Herren Street when this was disrupted by a demonstration of citizens and students in the courtyard of the builhng. The young doctor Adolf Fischhof read out Kossuth's speech and gave a fiery address to the crowd. The students then stormed the Provincial Parliament and demanded the immediate dismissal of Count Metternich. At that point Archduke Albrecht gave the waiting troops the order to attack the 'rabble'. These troops were Italians, who did not understand the plea 'Do not shoot your brothers!' In a few minutes Herren Street was empty, five people remaining behind, dead. They were the first victims of the Revolution.

At the same time as the bourgeois and student revolution in the city, then proletarian rising took place in the suburbs of Vienna. Factories were destroyed, villas set on fire and shops and businesses plundered. The &st night claimed 50 dead. The Court gave in. Metternich was dismissed, freedom of the press declared and the introduction of a democratic constitution promised. The revolution was victorious, and yet, on the second day, divided.

On 25 April the new constitution, nam after the Prime Minister Pillerdorf, w, passed in Vienna. Nearly dl tl revolutionary groups imme&ate, declared i t to be unsatisfactory, claime it was 'manipulated' and demanded tha it be revoked. The students marched 01

the Imperial Palace on 15 May and thu led to the second phase of the revolution Street fighting on 16 May caused the Court to have the Emperor taken to Innsbruck. Pillersdorf remained behind and tried to disband the student organisation, the Academic Legion. Barricades were set up once more in the streets of Vienna and shooting occurred.

On 23 October the armies of the Croation Banus Jellacic and Count Windischgratz with 70,000 men and 200 cannon surrounded the capital. The revolutionaries, roughly 15,000 men and women, put up a desperate defence. Their weapons, in so far as they had any, were old. A former First Lieutenant called Wenzel Messenhauser had declared himself commander but he was a poor poet, a clumsy revolutionary and a miserable strategist. The battle for Vienna ended on 31 October. The town had been heavily bombarded and the Imperial Palace was in flames. The Croation troops - mounted Seressians- behaved appaningly in the conquered city. They plundered shops and houses, murdering and slaughtering whole families. The leaders of the Revolution, if they did not succeed in fleeing to Hungary, were sentenced to death and shot. 1579 people were arrested; after 6-8 weeks 1573 were set free. The number of dead was never satisfactorily established, estimates ranging from 1200 to 2000. A state of siege was proclaimed in the city, 'law and order' returned. The Vienna Revolution had been suffocated in blood.

The Habsburgs continued to rule for the next 60 years. Only historians (in Austria ?) speak of the 1848 Revolution as the birth of democracy. When you walk through Vienna you only find small

plaques commemorating this revolution - there are no grand monuments. The average person in Vienna will have little knowledge of this historical event which is nearly meaningless to them.

t

In the Austrian school curriculum, 1848 is covered in about 3 weeks, which would be 4 to 6 lessons. Apparently this is not in enough depth to have any impact on young Austrians' minds. The revolution seems more like an accident without major significance or influence on the political awareness or the confidence of young Austrians today.

If we cannot blame their ignorance on the lack of teaching time, maybe pupils

'@ think of 1848 as just another year - insignificant in comparison to the many lessons they spend on studying the centuries of Habsburg rule? Two questions then occur : first chronological or thematic ? Secondly : could we dispose of the Vienna revolution in a syllabus altogether when seeing it in the wider context of European history in the C2lst.

Elisabeth Buxbaum

5.2. Belgium

Two preliminary remarks :

a 1) The period 1750-1918 is covered in the fifth year (pupils aged 17). In our syllabuses in Belgium, in principle we always follow a chronological line. But teachers have the freedom to insert themes.

2) The history of Belgium or its communities is not treated as an autonomous entity. It is always set in a European or global context. In the section on the Community, about 25 lessons are allocated to the history of Belgium from 1830 to the present day.

How can one deal with this subject according to the information structure of history education?

1. Chronological information

general chronology

a the period 1815-1914 is characterised by the absence of wars. I t is a period of peace imposed by Great Britain

a the period is characterised by a strong revolutionary movement

chronology specific to Belgium

e 1815-1830 : the United Kingdom of the Netherlands

e 1830 : the Belgian Revolution a 1839 : the Treaty of London

establishes the new Belgian state e 1845-1848 : pre-capitalist crisis

(particularly) in Flanders Marx resides in Brussels The liberal Party is founded

a 1848 : the incident Risquons-Tout the Communist Manifesto

2. The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 i n Europe

One must distinguish :

e the stable liberal states of Western Europe; the two Great Powers Great Britain and France; Belgium as a new state under the protection of the five Great Powers; unrest in Paris and Belgium is mainly political and social.

a Central Europe and Italy : Germany is divided, the Austrian Empire is very extensive and dominates many linguistic groups. Nationalism and liberalism are closely linked. Switzerland experiences a revolution and establishes a constitution.

The Russian Empire is not directly affected, but the Russian intervention in Hungary in 1849 deeply divides Russian society.

3. Social information

According to Hroch (Social reconditions of national revival in Europe, 1985) the formation of the modern state means the transformation (economic, social and

political) of society. He distinguished 3 phases in the evolution of national movements. In the first phase one notes an interest of scholars in language, history and customs.

Indeed people like J.B.Verlooy and J.F.Willems have a particular interest in the Flemish language and set out their ideas in many important publications. At a political level the people of the Austrian Netherlands had been mobilised against the Austrian Emperor. In the Brabant Revolution of 1789 two political groups were formed, the one clerical, the other anti-clerical, an ideological division which remained dominant for the whole of the C19th. In the Principality of Liege the people campaigned in 1789 for a popular government, symbolising national sovereignty. In both cases, however, the Austrian Empire re-established order.

During the period of French domination, 1794-1914, the institutions of the Ancient Regime disappeared. These two elements - national mobilisation and the disappearance of the institutions of the Ancien Regime - were essential for the formation of the modern Belgian state. Consequently the liberal revolution was already over by 1830.

Until 1839 the two political groups, the Liberals and the Catholics, collaborated together because the new young state had not yet signed a definitive treaty with the King of the Netherlands. William of Orange : this is the period of unionism - 'union gives strength' . After the Treaty of London had been signed in 1839 the coalition was not so strong and in 1846 the Liberals founded their own separate political party.

support of the 'petite bourgeoisie' did not have the right to vote. democrats had very direct contact r the workers' movement and democratic groups and German social in Brussels, amongst who were Marx ; Engels. In Nwember 1847 'I Democratic Association was founc which all the democratic subgro~ joined. In 1848 had built up organisation capable of revolutiona action through supporting active grou in Brussels and in many towns in tl provinces.

When revolution broke out in Paris th intellectual democrats and most of th leaders of the workers' movement we> not hsposed to use violence. But the: received help from Belgians exiled i r France. Those, committed republicans, formed a 'Belgian legion' which should liberate Belgium. Democratic forces in Belgium should incite a revolt. With their 'legion' they would invade the country and install a democratic republic.

But the forces of the young Belgian state were much too strong. The small armed 'legion' which entered Belgian through the little village of Risquons-Tout (close to Mouscron) was quickly disarmed. Some small revolts in Brussels, Ghent and Hainaut were suppressed quickly enough.

The failure of the revolutionary movement was due to two main reasons : 1) the movement did not know how to mobilise the working class. 2) The Liberal government proved itself a skdfd tactician. To win over the 'petite bourgeoisie' which was supporting the democratic movement, the government decided :

So what was the political situation? The to lower the qualifications for voting so Catholics were conservative and wished that the number of urban voters doubled above all to strengthen the influence of to end the tax on newspapers the church in education. Among the to end the access to parliament of liberals, we need to distinguish the officials who were very conservative. liberal conservatives, especially in social matters and the democrats who had the After these decisions, the democratic

movement lost most of its supporters within the 'petite bourgeoisie who now felt involved in the functions of the parliamentary state. Under the direction of the Liberal government of Rogier- Frere-Orban, the young state had proved its political maturity to the conservative powers of Europe. Henceforth Belgium could take its place in the circle of established European powers. The consolidation of Belgium as a bourgeois parliamentary and constitutional state had been achieved.

Paul Varzdepitte

6 6. Youth and History

The Korber foundation invites EUROCLIO-members to join the discussion of the results of YOUTH and HlSTORY

What does history mean to young

Europeans?

- Is it anything important for their lives

or is it just something dead and gone?

- Which kinds of history or which periods

of the past are they interested in?

- Do they like the way they learn history 4.)~ and do they trust their teachers and

their schoolbooks?

- What do they associate with the Middle

(Bergen), Bodo von Borries (Hamburg) and Ldszlo K6ri (Budapest). In 1994195, 32.000 students of ninth grade in 27 states all over Europe have been asked identical questions concerning historical consciousness and political attitudes. A smaller questionnaire has also been given to their teachers. With the publication of the data (documentation, description and first analysis) in March 19973, the first phase of the project has been coming to its end . There is a rich material now, which has to be discussed and analysed more deeply on a political and academical level, but also with key persons of history teaching, teachers and students.

The results of YOUTH and NHTQRY will be discussed on different levels

The Korber foundation has been supporting huge parts of this research- project. It is now inviting history teachers and their classes to take part in several follow-up projects. "EUSTORY - The Korber programme on historical

culture and politics in Europe" intends to initiate an international discussion about historical consciousness and political attitudes on the base of YOUTH and HISTORY.

Firstly, the Korber foundation and EUROCLIO are planning a conference for participants of all EUROCLIO member-countries in P6cs (Hungary) in September, 18-21, 1997. (Contact- address, see below.)

Ages, the Industrial Revolution, with The conference will focus on those results

Adolf Hitler or with the changes in of YOUTH and HISTORY directly

Eastern Europe since 1985? concerning history teaching : The

- Does historical knowledge influence

their attitudes towards politics?

Questions like these have been part of the study "YOUTH and HISTORY. The Comparative European Project on Historical Consciousness among Adolescents", which was carried out under the direction of Magne An&

participants will discuss the findings with regard to subjects, methods and international aspects of history teaching. Facing the students' answers, they will also have to think about whether history

'Angvik, M. and von Bomes, B. (eds.) : YOUTH and HISTORY. A comparative European survey on historical consciousness and political atlitudes among adolescents, Vol. A : Description, Vol. B : Documentation (containing CD-ROM), Hamburg 1997.

teachers with all their methodical efforts do really create the effects they intended.

Secondly, EUSTORY invites high-school students of ninth grade and higher classes and their teachers to take part in an international Internet discussion focussed on the results of YOUTH and HISTORY. The students will first reply to selected parts of the questionnaire in their classroom. A second step will be to compare their own answers to those given in the survey by students in their own and in foreign countries. Then, they will discuss the differences they found out with other classes all over Europe via the Internet. A moderator will facilitate the project in suggesting appropriate topics and defining a precise schedule. The teachers wU also have the possibility to exchange their views of history teaching with their colleagues from other European countries. The discussion will start in autumn 1997. All interested classes which have Internet-access, are invited to take part.

For further information, lease contact :

Signe Barschdorff (Coordinator of the follow-up projects)

YOUTH and HISTORY University of Hamburg, Dept. of Education Von-Melle-Park 8 D-20146 Hamburg Tel. : +49 (0) 40 4123-3185; Fax : -2112 Barschdorff@erzicip.ermiss.uni- hamburg.de

or have a look a t our actualised home- - You find us a t : http :/lwww.ernviss.uni-Hamburg.de/ ProjekteNouth-and-History/homepage.h tm To order the book. lease contact :

edition KorberStiftung Kampchaussee 10

D-21033 Hamburg Tel. : +49 (0) 7250-2827; Fax : -3798 edition@stiftung.koerber.de

7. The Workshops

7.1. A summary of the discussions

Participants a t the conference divided into four workshops, one French- speaking, one bi-lingual and two English-speaking to discuss the following questions.

1) How important is the European dimension a) for the understanding of liberalism and the revolutions of the ClSth? b) in the teaching of the subject?

All members stressed the European/international dimension in their approach to the teaching of the 1848 revolutions though the emphasis varied considerably. On the whole the countries of Western and Northern Europe stressed economic liberalism while liberalism as a political philosophy had a higher profile in Central and Southern Europe. Interestingly the Italians make a semantic distinction between 'liberismo' (economic liberalism) and 'liberalismo' (political liberalism). It was considered important to compare the experiences of those countries not directly affected by revolution, e.g. Britain, Russia, Bulgaria with those like France, Austria and Hungary where revolution did explode.

Pupils need to be made aware of the diversity of the European experiences of revolution in the C19th. The topic is a complex one, most appropriate for elder pupils, and 1848 needs to be seen in a broader context of revolution going back to the Enlightenment. Consequently, while all good teachers will treat 1848 in both a European and a national dimension, the balance of emphasis between European and national should vary from country to

country depending on its experiences of revolution.

It was noted that while C19th nationalism was generally forward looking, closely linked to democratic progress, C20th nationalism has been much more negative and destructive. Any consideration of nationalism in the ClQth should include reflections on its effects in recent times. Liberalism received the same critical approach. In the C19th it was linked to national and democratic progress and to the defence of minorities; while in the late C20th it has become is synonymous with the destruction of the major elements

43 established to safeguard the welfare of human communities.

2) How can one justify a national or European approach to this subject? 3) In the teaching of history, should our preference be for thematic or chronological approaches, or for breadth rather than breadth, or for knowledge rather than slrills?

Participants found that their responses to these two questions merged together, also that the eitherlor distinction in the questions was not particularly productive since good teaching would integrate nationaVEuropean, chronologylthemes, depthhreadth, knowledge/skills as appropriate.

A distinction should be made between teaching national and nationalistic history. On this issue there is an excellent paper from a recent Council of Europe conference at York which deserves a wide circulation. Nor should national history should not be confused, as it often is, with the history of the growth of the national state.

While more thematic and skills-based approaches were advocated, many participants were worried lest too rapid change was more than most teachers and teacher-trainers could cope with and could prove counter-productive. In some

Eastern European countries, which remain very short of up-to-date teaching materials, the history textbook is still

s een as the Truth.

Teachers should never forget their essential task which is to help their pupils distinguish the true from the false and to get rid of their prejudices.

7.2. Recommendations

Introduction

The fourth question the workshops considered was "What are our recommendations for the principles of syllabus design for school history in the C2lst?"

Each of the workshops were given copies of a list of possible topics for the teaching of history, drawn up at Council of Europe conferences.

Many participants were suspicious of an agreed 'canon' of topics. While politicians and the general public might like such lists, history teachers should lead any debate so that such lists &d not lead to topic overload or a curriculum which was too Euro-, male- and politically slanted.

Rather than a list of agreed topics, perhaps a list of key issues in history teaching to promote discussion across Europe.

Specific recommendations

I) In the context of the above discussion, the Euroclio Board should pursue the idea of a Charter for History Teachers, as proposed by the Council of Europe. 2) Future curricula should have at their foundation tolerance and multi- perspectivity, a global perspective, an ecological perspective; also the contribution to a sense of identity, individual and collective. They should also be built on the concept of historical consciousness, the basic human condition

of mentality. 3) History curricula should encourage the development of democratic awareness; giving pupils choice within syllabuses might help in this process. 4) If there were to be a list of topics, then changes in Europe since 1989 must be included. 5) All pupils should have seven or eight years of teaching before the baccalaureate or its equivalent, this includes pupils in technical and vocational schools. 6) Textbooks should be free from ideological slants and indicate different viewpoints. 7) History should be made as lively and as relevant as possible to each individual pupil. 8) One group strongly recommended a depth study of the medieval period since it provided a remarkable &amework for analysing the factors which led to unity. 9) Electronic materials like tv, video, cd- roms, internet must be included and pupils given the knowledge and skills to dstinguish between trivial, unreliable information and real wisdom. 10) Teachers need to accept that governments have a role in the designing of school history syllabuses, particular in achieving a nationally co-ordinated and a coherent approach and in monitoring standards but hold strongly to their responsibility to counter propaganda, bias and narrow-mindedness. 11) High quality teacher-training is of critical importance for the achievement of sustained quality in history teaching across for the coming generation.

Martin Roberts