There is a broad consensus among history educators that the use of history (Swedish historiebruk) is linked to historical consciousness and historical culture. (Nordgren, 2016; Olofsson, 2011, 2019) However, there is a lack of classroom studies on what such a relationship might look like in history teaching.  (Eliasson et al., 2012; Thorp, 2018) This paper presents parts of my dissertation that aims to investigate how high school students learn and understand the phenomenon of uses of the history. Rüsen’s (1989)  narrative competence and historical culture are part of the theoretical framework for the thesis. The thesis is methodologically framed as an instrumental case study and, it is inspired by Educational Design Research.

One history class enrolled in a theory-oriented and one history class enrolled in practice-oriented program in Upper secondary school participated in the study. The intervention study consisted of six lessons revolving around the concept of uses of history and Black Lives Matter. The empirical data was collected in Autumn 2021 to Spring 2022, in form of students’ group interviews, individual teachers’ interviews and classroom observations. The overall data consists of five interviews, fifty assignments, audio recordings of the group discussions and teacher’s lectures, and five to six weeks fieldwork with each class. Moreover, the analysis is conducted abductively. Preliminary results from observations and interviews suggest that when studying uses of history through inquiry-learning, some conditions emerge helping students understand that history is both a social phenomenon and a discipline. The empirical analysis from the practice-oriented program suggests that students' understanding of uses of history has a spectrum of variation for example, boys and girls diverge in understanding both aspects of history. In addition, most of the boys were more inclined to understand perspectives that were closer to their European identity, but struggled to grasp the Afro-American’s perspectives. 

Keywords: uses of history, classroom study, narrative competence

References

Eliasson, P., Alvén, F., Rudnert, J., Zander, U., & Rosenlund, D. (2012). Det är smart att använda historia i nya händelser...: Historiebruk i skola och samhälle. In Historiedidaktik i Norden 9: Del 1: Historiemedvetande-Historiebruk. Malmö högskola. 

Nordgren, K. (2016). How to Do Things With History: Use of History as a Link Between Historical Consciousness and Historical Culture [Article]. Theory and Research in Social Education, 44(4), 479-504. https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2016.1211046 

Olofsson, H. (2011). Fatta historia. [Elektronisk resurs]: En explorativ fallstudie om historieundervisning och historiebruk i en högstadieklass [Theses

Non-fiction, Lic., Karlstad University]. cat01070a. https://login.bibproxy.kau.se:8443/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat01070a&AN=karl.b1303864&lang=sv&site=eds-live

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-7359

Olofsson, H. (2019). Historia på högstadiet: historiekulturella yttringar i och utanför ett klassrum i Sverige hösten 2009 [Theses

Non-fiction, Diss., Karlstad University]. Karlstad University Library Catalog. https://login.bibproxy.kau.se:8443/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat01070a&AN=karl.b1718127&lang=sv&site=eds-live

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-74739

Rüsen, J. (1989). The Development of Narrative Competence in Historical Learning — An Ontogenetic Hypothesis concerning Moral Consciousness. History and Memory(2), 35-59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25618580 

Thorp, R. (2018). Perspektiv på historiebruk - undervisa om hur historia används [article]. SO-didaktik(5), 56-60. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-156899