Book Review: Beyond History for Historical Consciousness: Students, Narrative, and Memory

Beyond History relates the authors' analysis of 600 students' written responses to a single question: "Please tell us the history of French Canadians in this country as you know it (p.24)."The critical element of the question is the final qualifier, "as you know it."These four words allow Lévesque and Croteau to answer a more meaningful and complex question: how do these 600 students (chosen from different regions of Quebec and Ontario's Franco-Ontarian communities) perceive the same history?Based on their analysis, the authors draw interesting and illuminating conclusions about how students construct a narrative to explain the past.Lévesque and Croteau appreciate the complexities of their subject, beginning with their introduction which provides a concise overview of the history teaching debates, aptly summarized by the phrase, "no one likes the way history is taught" (p.5).History teachers are constantly told they either teach history incorrectly or don't devote enough time to specific events or groups.Known to teachers and academics as the "History Wars," Lévesque and Croteau provide a succinct summary of these battles and review the debates about the relevance of French language education in a multicultural Ontario.Regarding the former, Lévesque and Croteau reveal a vital, missing component: the lack of empirical evidence about what students take away from all the mandatory history courses they sit through (and, one hopes, enjoy).