History Curriculum, Geschichtsdidaktik, and the Problem of the Nation

I am currently co-guest editing with Professor Monika Vinterek (Darlana University, Sweden) a special issue of the journal ‘Education Sciences’. International dialogue has begun to take shape between the European bildung-influenced tradition of Didaktiks and the Anglo-American Curriculum Studies tradition. As it stands, the dialogue has concentrated on a comparative analysis of the traditions at the level of general curriculum theory or Allgemeine Didaktik (see for example, Gundem & Hopmann, 2002), and has rarely, if ever, drilled down into an area of subject-specific pedagogy or fachdidaktiks. This special issue seeks to address this directly, by encouraging a dialogue between various regional and national traditions of history education or Geschichtsdidaktik.

Contributors are invited to submit papers that explore how history education or Geschichtsdidaktik should respond, is responding, or has responded, to the problem of narrative diversity and the nation-building project. Studies that explore insights from a specific tradition of history education, and those that engage in comparative work across traditions are both welcome. While dialogue between historically and culturally distinctive traditions may be difficult, we believe it holds promise for the possibility of new insights, and presents opportunities for exciting transformations. Further details can be found by clicking on the “call for papers” image above.

Further details can be found by clicking on the “call for papers” image above. Deadline for manuscript submissions is: 1 September 2012.