RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

This study examines the popular version of national history that students are exposed to in Canadian schools. It addresses two overarching issues: Do students think about history conceptually and spatially and if they do, can this conceptual thinking be harnessed to produce an analytical understanding of historical (re)presentation? The study further seeks to test the applicability of “Historic Space,” a model of history education that aims to reconcile traditional, linear, national history and feminist tools of analysis and deconstruction, within the schools. Historic Space encourages students to challenge representations within historical timelines and ask questions such as: Why are these particular stories important for understanding the nation? According to whom? Who and what are included? What roles do they play? Who and what are left out? Why?

METHODOLOGY:

During February and March of 2007, eleven students in total were interviewed, nine girls and two boys. Posters were placed in Toronto-area local libraries and recruitment letters were distributed to recruit the participants, upper-level high school students who had completed the mandatory class “Canadian History Since World War I.” With the consent of their parents, students completed two, sixty- to ninety-minute interviews with a friend of their choosing. The two interviews were split into five sections and based on Hilda Taba’s Concept Formation strategy. The first section explored the students’ relationship to history: Did they like it? Did they pursue history outside of school or do well in the grade 10 course? The second, third and fourth interview sections were based on instructional learning strategies like primary source investigation that formed a base to evaluate whether students were able to think of history spatially, and how students interpreted ‘alternative’ histories.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:

This study found that students do think of history as a collection of concepts within abstract space. Based on student interviews, this study concludes that the static tools used to teach Canadian history and the lack of questions asked of it render it dull and obsolete in the lives of Canadian youth. The research found that after the introduction of conceptual learning strategies students became progressively active and comfortable in constructing their own understandings of history through strategies such as Taba’s Concept Formation strategy, Tony Buzan’s Mind Map, Joseph Novak’s Concept Map, and primary source investigation. Mind mapping, specifically, was found to be an essential first step in allowing students to become comfortable with mapping history and making connections between concepts (such as gender, race and class) previously seen as unrelated. Thus, Historic Space is identified as a transformative model of history education that allows students to look for, think about, and construct the rules of history.

DISCUSSION:

This study includes a discussion of feminist theory, relevant literature on instructional approaches to history education including historical mapping, and the use of primary sources in history education.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH:

Although this research concluded students responded to conceptual learning strategies in history education, it also recognized that an intersectional discussion of race, class and gender needs to be introduced throughout many levels of curricula before students can be comfortable understanding and using Historical Space. Therefore, future research is needed to explore this multi-layered introduction into the curricula to facilitate a transformative experience in history education.