The nature and place of

narrative in History

education

Dr Robert Parkes

Senior Lecturer in History Education,

Curriculum Theory, and Media Literacy

The contemporary call for

narrative in History

education

Dr Robert Parkes

Senior Lecturer in History Education,

Curriculum Theory, and Media Literacy

What’s the story?

What I will argue

in this presentation

Thesi

s Sta

tem

ent/

s(a

work

in p

rogre

ss)

Calls for ‘narrative’ history in the

classroom generally adopt a uni-

dimensional understanding of narrative

(and responses to these calls are also

often guilty of the same). A narrative pedagogy needs to be more

than the rehearsal of a singular

national story, and instead needs to

focus on how we can engage ethically

and effectively with (rival) narratives.

If we draw on understandings of

narrative from Narrative Theory and

the Philosophy of History, the

hermeneutic aspects of history

education becomes evident; and

exploring ‘reception’ becomes a critical

pedagogical mission that requires

utilizing the connection between

history and hermeneutics.

Who’s telling this story?

About the Presenter

Robert

J. Pa

rkes

Working within an historical, philosophical, and

literary tradition of Curriculum Studies (rather

than within an empiricist social science

tradition); PhD explored history curriculum after ‘the end of

history’ (published as “Interrupting History” a

book that explores history education after

postmodernism); Recently guest co-edited with Professor Monika

Vinterek (Darlana University) a special issue of

the journal “Education Sciences” that examined

the issue of how history educators are

responding to narrative diversity in different

regional jurisdictions; Once told my arguments were ‘redolent of

Gadamer’ (who I hadn’t read at the time, but in

retrospect can see why – I take as a starting point

that we are thoroughly ‘historical beings’ with an

historically constituted ‘historical consciousness’

– There is no outside history).

A shared story?

The Australian History

Curriculum Experience and its

Recent British Resonances

The S

truggle

for

His

tory

/His

tori

es

Regularly an area of

public debate, government disquiet, and

a site of struggle over

cultural literacy, collective memory, and

the national narrative. This happens irrespective

of, and often without any

evidence of, what actually

happens in classrooms, as

Barton (2012) has noted.

‘New

His

tory

’ of

1990s

Curr

icula

Mandatory Australian

History

Indigenous & Women’s

perspectives (and Whig legacy)

Australia as part of Asia

Revi

sions

and

React

ions

In Australia, the central concern in this

debate centred on representations of the

colonisation of Australia, and its interlocutors included

scholars, media commentators, and Prime Ministers on both sides of the political divide.

Curr

iculu

m S

hift Invasion” as an

alternative to “peaceful settlement”

as a description of the

colonisation process.

(Land, 1994)

Conti

nuin

g d

ebate

s ove

r cu

rric

ulu

m

conte

nt

Development of an Australian (national)

Curriculum

Howard’s (Sept 2012) Sir

Paul Hasluck Foundation

Inaugural Lecture call for “a

proper sense of history”. Not ‘black armband’ or

‘white blindfold’. (Gillard,

2010)

Conti

nuit

ies

of

Conce

rn

Displacement of the ‘great tradition’ by

the ‘New History’ (of the 1980s) with a

strong focus on skills Despite reforms that have provided a

more balanced curriculum, continual

concerns that students learn ‘bits and

pieces’ of history but leave without a

“coherent mental framework of the past”

(Davies, 2011); reinforced by surveys

that ‘show’ how students and the public

don’t know (what someone considers)

‘the basics’. The challenges of rival narratives (in a

multicultural society)… and a depiction of

alternative perspectives on the national

past as partisan and political; while

triumphant narratives are presented as

‘unbiased’ or ‘balanced’ accounts.

Who wants to hear a

story?

The conservative construction

of history as (grand) narrative

Gro

ve’s

Pro

posa

lfo

r U

K’s

Nati

onal

Curr

iculu

m

Long list of important and

heroic individuals (Names

and dates)

An intense focus on ‘the

island story’ of Britain:

“know and understand

British history as a coherent,

chronological narrative, from

the story of the first settlers

in these islands to the

development of the institutions which govern our

lives today”

Need f

or

students

to

pla

ce p

eople

and

eve

nts

wit

hin

a

cohere

nt

narr

ati

veBBC News (March 2013)

Melleuish (August 2006)

Rest

ori

ng

Mis

sing C

onte

nt

Telegraph (2013)

News.com.au (22 April 2013)

The Australian (14 October

2008)

Melle

uis

h (

2007)

Mult

iple

narr

ati

ves

are

too

diffi

cult

for

students

to c

ope

wit

h

However, care should be

exercised in dealing with

this issue of multiple

narratives and interpretations. Many

students may struggle with

simply understanding facts,

people and events (this can

be true of university

students!) and seek the

‘approved’ version, something that any teacher

of history finds exasperating. (p.3)

Why w

e n

eed

narr

ati

ve:

Conse

rvati

ve P

ers

pect

ives

Social cohesion Seeing progress

towards the present (liberal democratic capitalism as ‘the end

of history’)

Providing context (but

often limited)?

Melle

uis

h (

2007)

On t

he f

unct

ion o

f narr

ati

ve Placing events into a

sequence enhances our knowledge and understanding of history.

His

tori

cal A

ssoci

ati

on

(2005)

What

is n

arr

ati

ve?

Narrative as “the construction and presentation of a version

of historical events which

inevitably reflects the

author’s own understanding and interpretation of those

events” (p. 28). Note the absence of ‘grand narrative’ or ‘meta-

narrative’ (Hawkey, 2007)

Yest

erd

ay’

s H

eadlin

e

Riv

al N

arr

ati

ves

of

the N

ati

on

(His

tory

Wars

)

German and Japanese textbook

controversies UK’s national curriculum quarrels

Post-Apartheid History in South Africa

Russian nationalism in History

textbooks

Multiple voices in Canadian, New

Zealand, and Australian history American debates over history

standards (Nash, Crabtree, & Dunn,

1998)

Taylor & Guyver (2012)

A v

ehic

le f

or

soci

al c

ohesi

on?

History curriculum is perceived

to act as an apparatus for the

social re/production of national

identities, through linking “the

development of the individual

to the images and narratives of

nationhood.” (Popkewitz, 2001) Little evidence exists that

history curriculum shapes

students’ historical consciousness (contrary to all

the political attention it gets)

(Taylor & Collins, 2012)

Did

the li

nguis

tic

turn

eve

r ta

ke p

lace

?

historical discourse is in its essence a

form of ideological elaboration”

(Barthes, 1967/1997, p. 121) “the straightness of any story is a

rhetoric invention” (Kellner, 1989, p. x)

historical narratives are artifacts of an

interpretive act constituted in part by

a historian’s aesthetic,

epistemological, and ethical

commitments, and in part by the

underlying tropic forms of language

itself. (H. White, 1973) History operates as a narrative form

that exceeds the sum of its referential

statements (Ankersmit, 2001)

Aust

ralia

has

arr

ived! If exposed to hostile

and dualistic perspectives long enough, educators may begin to think of

these as the only viable alternatives. (Barton, 2012, p. 189)

Is there a counter story?

Narrative: problems and

possibilities

Pere

nnia

l D

ebate

s

Narrative history proposed as an antidote

for skills-based and issue-focused disciplinary approaches. Reflects Ankersmit’s

distinction between historical writing and

historical research

(the two key activities of

historians)

What

mig

ht

Narr

ati

ve

Learn

ing lo

ok

like?

Children storify and sequence information

into a narrative as their initial way of grasping meaning. (Hawkey, 2004) Mythic, Romantic, and

Philosophic story phases. (Egan, 1998)

Ideolo

gie

s of

his

tory

te

ach

ing (

Eva

ns,

1994)

Storytellers Scientists

Reformers

PhilosophersFrom a certain perspective they are each providing different narratives about what history is!

Teach

er’

s M

eta

-Know

ledge:

Pedagogy

as

Repre

senta

tion

Collective Memory

(Reconstructionist)

THE story of the past

Interpellation Disciplinary

(Constructionist)

The BEST story of the past

that we currently can determine

from the available evidence Postmodern

(Deconstructionist)

Multiple perspectives on the

past WHOSE

story of the past?

Interjection

Seixas (1999)after Jenkins & Munslow (2004)

Dis

ciplin

ary

His

tory

in

the C

lass

room

I don’t teach history, I

develop historians” Invokes the representation

problem identified by Ulf P.

Lundgren

Argument for discipline is

often ‘critical thinking’ (but

why History then? Why not

Law? etc. If this is an

argument for learning

adductive reasoning)

Post

-colo

nia

l resi

stance

to

his

tori

cal

repre

senta

tion

InterpellationWe are acquiescent in the face of the grand

narrative of the nation.

Rejection / Interjection *

We insert or juxtapose rival narratives of the

past.

InterpolationWe draw attention to the historical narrative

we are teaching as an artifice, a representation

(derived from methodological, ethical and

other choices of the historian), a rhetorical

practice.

* Appears to be the dominant response in curricula.

Ashcroft (2001)

Am I Missing the Story?

Rethinking the possibilities

of ‘narrative’ history

Goodso

n (

2013) Narrative learning is

not solely learning from the narrative, it is

also learning what goes on in the act of

narration and in the ongoing construction

of the life story. (p. 72)

Reth

inki

ng n

arr

ati

ve

as

his

tory

pedagogy

Narrative templates (Werstch, 2002) Forms of narrativity and the

possibilities of narrative

learning (Goodson, 2013)

Scripted Describers Armchair Elaborators Multiple Describers Focused Elaborators Narrative pedagogy and the

fusion of horizons

Win

eburg

’s

Rese

arc

h

Historical thinking as

an unnatural act Differences in how novices and experts read historical sources Cognitive switching of

(Religious) Historians

A Brief History of ‘Interpretation’

Biblical

Exegesis

Schleiermache

r

1768-1834

Dilthey

1833-1911

Heidegger

1889-1976Gadamer

1900-2002

Nietzsche

1844-1900

Ricoeur

1913-2005

Derrida

1930-2004

Understand

any

passage of

text only in

context of

whole.

Understand any

text by placing it

in its historical

context.

We can never step

outside of our

tradition, which

provides the horizon of

our understanding

(prejudices). Thus self-

understanding is

critical.

There is no outside text.

Texts repeat other texts.

We cannot exhaust meaning.

Original meaning cannot be

recovered with any confidence.

Von Ranke

1795-1886

Droysen

1808-1884

Sources must

be verified.Understanding comes

through empathy.

Greek

Historians

Recl

aim

ing

Herm

eneuti

cs

Understanding is to be

thought of less as a subjective act than as

participating in an event

of tradition. (Gadamer,

290)

Our historical consciousness is always

filled with a variety of

voices in which the echo

of the past is heard. (Gadamer, 282)

The E

nco

unte

r w

ith A

lteri

ty:

Pedagogy

as

Rece

pti

on

(Fusi

on o

f H

ori

zons

in a

nd b

eyo

nd t

he

class

room

)

Simon (2005)Parkes (2004)

The e

nd o

f th

e

story

?Rese

arc

h P

oss

ibili

ties

Rival narratives necessary

(and exciting) but insufficient. We need to

explore the pedagogical

processes of reception. What do we remember and

why? To what extent is it

our lived history that we

remember in surveys? What

makes memorable history

teaching (and what part

might narrative play in

that)?

Refe

rence

s

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Stanford University Press.

Attwood, B. (Ed.). (1996). In the age of Mabo: History,

Aborigines and Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Ashcroft, B. (2001). Post-Colonial transformation. London:

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Howard, J. (2006, 26th January). Unity vital in battle against

terrorism, The Sydney Morning Herald, p. 11.

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Refe

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ont’

d)

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