Tensions in history curricula between collective identity building, disciplinary skills development, and postmodern knowledge

Opetussuunnitelmat historianopetuksen orientaatioiden ristipaineessa

Authors

• Aleksi Marti Helsingin yliopisto
• Johanna Norppa Helsingin yliopisto
• Tanja Taivalantti Helsingin yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33350/ka.87835

Keywords:

curricula, historical narratives, identities, politics of history, posmodern history teaching

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyse the objectives and core contents of the subject of history in the Finnish National Core Curricula for Basic Education, Basic Education for Adults and General Upper Secondary Education, based on Peter Seixas' theory of historical teaching orientations. According to Seixas, history teaching has three different approaches: enhancing collective memory and identity, developing disciplinary skills, and the postmodern approach. All of the core curricula that this article deals with are based on the discipline-oriented teaching tradition and thus emphasize the ideal of critical citizenship. The disciplinary skills approach is most visible in the Core Curriculum for Basic Education and the least in the Core Curriculum for Basic Education for Adults. All three curricula show, to differing degrees, elements that serve to strengthen Western, European and national identities. These aspirations are most strongly reflected in the curricula for Basic Education for Adults and General Upper Secondary Education. The Core Curriculum for Basic Education, however, offers teachers broader options for teaching history in a way that takes into consideration the individual identities of the students. The elements connected to the postmodern orientation of historical teaching can be discerned in the Core Curricula for Basic Education and the Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Education, which deal with the use of history. In the future, the postmodern approach could offer opportunities worth further exploration. This approach could enable the historical narratives that exist in a culturally diverse society to be treated on the basis of equality but at the same time also as fundamentally political and future orientated. Today’s world, with its mutual dependencies and environmental challenges across many borders, has reasons to shape historical teaching more closely around global topics.