Knowledge in History Education: History Teachers as Curriculum Makers

Abstract

Knowledge in education matters. In this thesis I argue that the role and importance of knowledge in history education in New Zealand has been marginalised in policy and practice leading to a significant reduction and narrowing of the knowledge taught to senior secondary history students. The discourse about teaching and learning for the 21st century ‘knowledge society’ emphasises the development of transferrable skills and competencies, which place the focus on learning to learn and process, while substantive knowledge has retreated to a position where it is largely accounted for in terms of its functionality in relation to assessment. My research examines a new era in history education in New Zealand with the abandonment of prescribed history topics and the introduction of autonomy for teachers over knowledge selection from 2011. Based upon interviews of teachers who are the leaders of their history departments, my research examined the principles upon which teachers select historical knowledge. Alongside analysis of policy documents and national surveys of history teachers, my findings are conceptualised in relation to social realist theories concerning the low priority given to knowledge in contemporary curricula, the importance of knowledge for equity in education, the objectivity of knowledge despite its social origins, and the emergent nature of knowledge. My explanations of history education are then considered in terms of the potential for history to offer ‘powerful knowledge’ to history students, as theorised by Young and Muller. Bernstein’s theories of recontextualization, the pedagogic device and differentiated epistemological structures, also underpin my analysis of the phenomenological effects observed in practice and voiced by my research participants.