Rival Narratives as an

Enduring Problem for

History Education

Dr Robert Parkes

Senior Lecturer in History Education,

Curriculum Theory, and Media Literacy

What is the problem?

Riv

al N

arr

ati

ves

of

the N

ati

on

(His

tory

Wars

)

German and Japanese textbook

controversies American debates over history

standards

UK’s national curriculum quarrels

Post-Apartheid History in South

Africa

Russian nationalism in History

textbooks

Multiple voices in Canadian, New

Zealand, and Australian history

Taylor & Guyver (2012)

‘New

His

tory

’ of

1990s

Curr

icula

Mandatory Australian

History

Indigenous & Women’s

perspectives (and Whig legacy)

Australia as part of Asia

Revi

sions

and

React

ions

In Australia, the central concern in this

debate centred on representations of the

colonisation of Australia, and its interlocutors included

scholars, media commentators, and Prime Ministers on both sides of the political divide.

Dis

rupti

ng t

he G

reat

Aust

ralia

n S

ilence

Public awareness of a

distinctive Indigenous

perspective on Australian history appears to have arisen

partly as a result of a

series of grass roots protests that culminated

in a ‘day of mourning’

during the Bicentennial

celebrations of 1988.

(Reed, 2004)

Curr

iculu

m S

hift Invasion” as an

alternative to “peaceful settlement”

as a description of the

colonisation process.

(Land, 1994)

The A

ge o

f M

abo

The High Court’s Mabo

decision (and the Wik

decision that followed in

1996) forced the public to

confront the legal right of

Indigenous people to

dominion over their traditional lands (Ritter &

Flanagan, 2003). Resulted in political scaremongering by Howard

Government that suburbanites would have

their backyards re-possesed.

Att

wood (

1996)

Mabo and the new Australian history ends the

historical silence about the

Aboriginal pre-colonial and

colonial past upon which the

conservative invention of

Australia and Australianness

was founded, and since their

Australia was realised

through and rests upon that

conventional historical

narrative, the end of this

history constitutes for them

the end of Australia.” (p.

116)

The P

olit

ics

of

His

tory

Curr

iculiu

m

History curriculum is perceived to

act as an apparatus for the social

re/production of national

identities, through linking “the

development of the individual to

the images and narratives of

nationhood.” (Popkewitz, 2001) History education seen as the

vehicle for social cohesion.

(Howard, 2006) Assumptions of the effectiveness

of History education’s role in

social cohesion largely untested

(Taylor & Collins, 2012)

How have we responded

to the problem?

Speci

al I

ssue o

f

‘Educa

tion S

cience

s’

Edit

ed b

y D

r Robert

Park

es

& P

rofe

ssor

Monik

a V

inte

rek

Disciplinary History in Finland (Jukka Rantala,

University of Helsinki); and the UK (Michael

Fordham, Cambridge University).

Working with pre-service teachers on issues

of ‘purpose’ in the UK (Richard Harris,

University of Reading); and ‘perspectives’

and ‘professional voice and vision’ in Canada

(Paul Zanazanian, McGill University, &

Sabrina Moisan, Universite de Sherbrooke).

Disciplinary rigor for super diversity and

flexible perspective taking in the UK (Kate

Hawkey, University of Bristol).

General questioning of political interference

in the History curriculum from UK (Terry

Haydn, University of East Anglia); and in

Australia (Tony Taylor & Sue Collins, Monash

University)

Conti

nuin

g d

ebate

s ove

r cu

rric

ulu

m

conte

nt

Development of an Australian (national)

Curriculum

Howard’s (Sept 2012) Sir

Paul Hasluck Foundation

Inaugural Lecture call for “a

proper sense of history”. Not ‘black armband’ or

‘white blindfold’. (Gillard,

2010)

Why do we need to think

differently about the problem?

Conflict over rival narratives

reveals ‘representation’ as a

problem

His

tory

as

repre

senta

tion

historical discourse is in its

essence a form of ideological

elaboration” (Barthes,

1967/1997, p. 121) “the straightness of any story is a

rhetoric invention” (Kellner, 1989,

p. x)

historical narratives are artifacts

of an interpretive act constituted

in part by a historian’s aesthetic,

epistemological, and ethical

commitments, and in part by the

underlying tropic forms of

language itself. (H. White, 1973)

Anke

rsm

it (

2001)

Referential Statement vs Explanatory Narrative Histories are narratives that always

exceed the sum of their referential statements.

Revi

sion v

s D

enia

l

If you reject accepted

referential statements

then you are probably

engaging in historical

denial. (See Taylor, 2008 on

Windschuttle or Evans, 2002 on Irving) If you have accept

accepted referential

statements but generate

a different narrative, you

are probably engaging in

historical revision.

What can we draw on that

will help us think

differently?

Pedagogy as a process of

representation and reception

Why

a r

epre

senta

tional t

urn

is n

eeded in

His

tory

educa

tion

(diff

ere

nt

ways

of

unders

tandin

g

th

e ‘re

pre

senta

tion’ pro

ble

m)

Pedagogy as a concept “draws

attention to the process

through which knowledge is

produced.” (Lusted, 1986) Shift from apprenticeship to

schooling created a problem of

representing knowledge and

practice. (Lundgren, 1991) Pedagogical Content

Knowledge is about having 150

ways of representing a

concept. (Wilson, Shulman, &

Richert, 1987).

Post

-colo

nia

l resi

stance

to

his

tori

cal

repre

senta

tion

InterpellationWe are acquiescent in the face of the grand

narrative of the nation.

Rejection / Interjection *

We insert or juxtapose rival narratives of the

past.

InterpolationWe draw attention to the historical narrative we

are teaching as an artifice, a representation

(derived from methodological, ethical and other

choices of the historian), an interpretation built

via a specific set of rhetorical practices.

* Appears to be the dominant response in curricula.

Ashcroft (2001)

Teach

er’

s M

eta

-Know

ledge:

Pedagogy

as

Repre

senta

tion

Collective Memory

(Reconstructionist)

THE official story of the past

Interpellation Disciplinary

(Constructionist)

The BEST story of the past that we

currently can determine from the

available evidence Postmodern

(Deconstructionist)

Multiple perspectives on the past

WHOSE story of the past?

Interjection Metadisciplinary

How is the story being

constructed? Interpolation

(Segall, 2006)

Seixas (1999)after Jenkins & Munslow (2004)

The E

nco

unte

r w

ith A

lteri

ty:

Pedagogy

as

Rece

pti

on

(Fusi

on o

f H

ori

zons

in a

nd b

eyo

nd t

he

class

room

)

Parkes (2004)Simon (2005)

Cri

tica

l his

tory

pedagogy?

Rival narratives necessary

(and exciting) but insufficient.

Need to move beyond the

stalemate of debates over

Whose History? and foreground the pedagogical processes of

representation and reception – How this

History? How to teach the

rival narratives?

Refe

rence

s

Ankersmit, F. R. (2001). Historical representation. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press.

Attwood, B. (Ed.). (1996). In the age of Mabo: History,

Aborigines and Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Ashcroft, B. (2001). Post-Colonial transformation. London:

Routledge.Barthes, R. (1967/1997). The discourse of history. In K. Jenkins

(Ed.), The postmodern history reader (pp. 120-123). London:

Routledge.Evans, R. J. (2002). Telling lies about Hitler: The Holocaust,

history and the David Irving trial. London: Verso.

Gillard, J. (2010). Students to learn 'balanced view of history'.

Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-03-01/students-to-learn-bala

nced-view-of-history/2569490

Howard, J. (2006, 26th January). Unity vital in battle against

terrorism, The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 11.

Kellner, H. (1989). Language and historical representation.

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Jenkins, K., & Munslow, A. (Eds.). (2004). The nature of history

reader. London: Routledge.

Land, R. (1994). Invasion and after: A case study in curriculum

politics. Brisbane: Queensland Studies Centre.

Lundgren, U. P. (1991). Between education and schooling:

Outlines of a diachronic curriculum theory. Geelong, Victoria:

Deakin University.

Lusted, D. (1986). Why pedagogy? Screen, 27(5), 2-14.

Macintyre, S., & Clark, A. (2003). The history wars. Melbourne:

Melbourne University Press.

Parkes, R. J. (2011). Interrupting history: Rethinking history

curriculum after 'the end of history'. New York: Peter Lang.

Parkes, R. J. (2004). The zone of proximal development as a

strategically mediated encounter with alterity. Paper

presented at the annual conference of the Australian

Association of Research in Education (AARE), University of

Melbourne, 28 November - 2 December 2004.

Refe

rence

s (C

ont’

d)

Popkewitz, T. S. (2001). The production of reason and power:

Curriculum history and intellectual traditions. In T. S. Popkewitz,

B. M. Franklin & M. A. Pereyra (Eds.), Cultural history and

education: Critical essays on knowledge and schooling (pp. 151-

183). New York: Routledge Falmer.

Reed, L. (2004). Bigger than Gallipoli: War, history and memory

in Australia. Crawley: University of Western Australia Press.

Ritter, D., & Flanagan, F. N. A. (2003). Stunted growth: The

historiography of native title litigation in the decade since Mabo.

Public History Review, 10, 21-39.

Segall, A. (2006). What's the purpose of teaching a discipline,

anyway? In A. Segall, E. E. Heilman & C. H. Cherryholmes (Eds.),

Social studies - the next generation: Re-searching in the

postmodern (pp. 125-139). New York: Peter Lang.

Seixas, P. (1999). Beyond 'content' and 'pedagogy': In search of

a way to talk about history education. Journal of Curriculum

Studies, 31(3), 317-337.

Simon, R. I. (2005). The touch of the past: Remembrance,

learning, and ethics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Taylor, T. (2008). Denial: History betrayed. Carlton, Victoria:

Melbourne University Press.

Taylor, T., & Guyver, R. (2012). History wars and the classroom:

Global perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

White, H. (1973). Metahistory. Baltimore: John Hopkins

University Press.

Wilson, S. M., Shulman, L. S., & Richert, A. E. (1987). "150

different ways" of knowing: Representations of knowledge in

teaching. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Exploring teachers' thinking (pp.

104-124). London: Cassell.