Historical Literacy: Theory and Research

This paper will attempt to sketch out an initial and very provisional account of a workable notion of historical literacy. It will draw briefly on some philosophical considerations suggested by  among others  the work of Bevir, Collingwood, Lorenz, Oakeshott and Rusen in order to decide what might be usefully included in such a notion. More substantially, it will employ recent empirical research to suggest what an account of historical literacy might need to address. At the very least any useful account ought to pay attention both to students’ ideas about the discipline of history and to their orientation towards the past (the kind of past they can access, and its relationship to the present and future). Research connecting these two components of historical literacy has only recently begun, although Rusen’s theoretical approach to historical consciousness has inspired investigation of the second component for some time in parts of Europe. It will be argued that a major project for history education must be the development of usable historical frameworks of the past that are not ‘party histories’, but allow students to assimilate new events and processes, whether in the past or the future, and are themselves adaptable in the face of recalcitrant new material. Key tools here will be adequately sophisticated ideas about historical accounts, together with closely related concepts such as significance, interpretation and change.