Clark, Penney. “Introduction.” In New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, edited by Penney Clark, 1-30. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.
The collection of chapters in the book explores and discusses research and practice of history education in Canada. The research into history teaching and practice in Canada is very important due to Canadians’ lack of knowledge of their own history and the history that is being taught in school. The author purports that it is crucial that this scholarly research be completed and that classroom practice be informed by the findings. She begins by discussing recent debates in Canadian history such as the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, depiction of Aboriginal peoples, the killing of history, etc. There are three issues that emerge as points of contention in the study of history: inadequate or inaccurate representations of the past in sanctioned textbooks, the place and importance of history as a school subject, and the purposes and pedagogy of history, which the author discusses each in turn. She then points to a way forward, how history educators and researchers can develop history education research. It was with the publication of Peter Sexias’ work on historical thinking in 1996 that a framework for the field of history education research in Canada was developed. The next event of importance was the “Giving Past a Future” conference in 1999, which was the largest Canadian conference focused on the teaching and learning of history, and also the creation of Historica. According to the author, the first decade of the new millennia was marked by four key publications which began to move history education research forward: Knowing, Teaching and Learning History: National and International Perspectives (2000); Theorizing Historical Consciousness (2004); To the Past: History Education, Public Memory and Citizenship in Canada (2006;) and Thinking Historically: Educating Students for the 21st Century (2008). The author discusses the increase in funding for history education research through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), including The History Education Network (THEN/HiER), Simulating History at Brock University, and Canadians and Their Past (2006-2011). She concludes the chapter with a discussion of the collection and each chapter’s major themes. The book is divided into five sections: a discussion of history education and contested terrain, orientations towards historical thinking, classroom contexts for historical thinking, other contexts for historical thinking, and perspectives on historical thinking. The author concludes with a discussion of the changing terrain of history education and the importance of the continuation of history education research.