Seixas, Peter

Professor and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia

Peter Seixas is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness (www.cshc.ubc.ca). He taught high school social studies in Vancouver for 15 years and earned a Ph.D in history from the University of California at Los Angeles. He is author of numerous articles in Canadian and international journals, editor of Theorizing Historical Consciousness (University of Toronto Press 2004), and co-editor with Peter Stearns and Sam Wineburg of Knowing, Teaching and Learning History: National and International Perspectives (New York University Press 2000). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada), and holds the Canada Research Chair in Historical Consciousness at the University of British Columbia. Among his many awards for research, he is the recipient of the American Historical Association’s William Gilbert Award recognizing outstanding contributions to the teaching of history through the publication of journal articles, the National Council for Social Studies Exemplary Research Award, and the American Studies Association’s Constance Rourke Prize. His contributions to history teaching have been recognized with the British Columbia Social Studies Teachers’ Association Innovation Award (2007), and the Ontario History and Social Science Teachers’ Association National Leadership Award (2007). He was the director of The Historical Thinking Project, which worked successfully to infuse historical thinking into provincial curricula, professional development, classroom materials and assessments.  He retired from UBC in June 2016, but continues to write.

Publications Since 2007

“Translation and Its Discontents: Key Concepts in English and German History Education. Journal of Curriculum Studies (Oct. 2015).

“A Model of Historical Thinking.” Educational Philosophy and Theory (special issue on Philosophy of History Education, Oct. 2015).

With Kadriye Ercikan. “Issues in Designing Assessments of Historical Thinking.” Theory Into Practice (special issue on Assessment of Complex Thinking, May 2015).

Seixas, Peter. “Looking for History.” In Joined-up History: New Directions in History Education Research, edited by Arthur Chapman and Arie Wilschut, 255-76. A volume in the series International Review of History Education. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2015.

With Heinrich Ammerer. "Historical Consciousness in Austrian (Salzburg) and Canadian (Vancouver) Youth." In Subjektorientierte Geschichtsdidaktik, edited by Heinrich Ammerer, Thomas Hellmuth, and Christoph Kühberger, 273-318. Schwalbach/Ts: Wochenschau Verlag, 2015.

Review of Regimes of Historicity: Presentism and Experiences of Time by François Hartog. Trans. Saskia Brown. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.  International Network of History and Theory, 2015.

New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking, edited by Kadriye Ercikan and Peter Seixas. New York and London: Routledge, 2015.

With Kadriye Ercikan. “Introduction: The New Shape of History Assessments.” In New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking, edited by Peter Seixas and Kadriye Ercikan, 1-15. New York: Routledge, 2015.

With Lindsay Gibson and Kadriye Ercikan. "A Design Process for Assessing Historical Thinking: The Case of a One-Hour Test." In New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking, edited by Kadriye Ercikan and Peter Seixas, 102-16. New York and London: Routledge, 2015.

With Kadriye Ercikan, Juliette Lyons-Thomas, and Lindsay Gibson. "Cognitive Validity Evidence for Validating Assessments of Historical Thinking." In New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking, edited by Kadriye Ercikan and Peter Seixas, 206-20. New York and London: Routledge, 2015. 

“Historical Thinking Project, 2006-2014.” Featured article, Bulletin of the Canadian Historical Association 40, no. 1 (March, 2014): 31-2.

With Jill Colyer. From the Curriculum to the Classroom: More Teachers, More Students, More Thinking. A Report on the Annual Meeting of the Historical Thinking Project, January 23-25, 2014. Vancouver: CSHC, May 2014.

“History and Heritage: What’s the Difference?” Canadian Issues/Thèmes canadiens (Fall 2014): 12-16.

With Margaret Hoogeveen. “Prologue.” In Creating Canada: A History – 1914 to the Present, 2nd edition, 5-17. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2014.

With Graeme Webber. "Troubling Compromises: Historical Thinking in a One-Year Secondary Teacher Education Program." In Becoming a History Teacher: Sustaining Practices in Historical Thinking and Knowing, edited by Ruth Sandwell and Amy von Heyking, 158-74. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.

Review of “What Kind of History, For What Kind of Citizen?” Workshop paper for the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability, Columbia University, December, 2013.

With Jill Colyer. “Linking Historical Thinking Concepts, Content and Competencies: A Report on the Annual Meeting of the Historical Thinking Project,” January 15-17, 2013.” Vancouver: CSHC, May 2013, 18 pp. plus appendices.

With Tom Morton. The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts. Toronto: Nelson, 2013.

With Tom Morton. Les six cconcepts de la pensée historique. Montréal: Modulo, 2013.

With Margaret Conrad, Kadriye Ercikan, Gerald Friesen, Jocelyn Létourneau, Delphin Muise, and David Northrup. Canadians and Their Pasts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.

“The Book of Negroes and Teaching the Ethical Dimension of History.” Rapport: Journal of the Ontario History and Social Science Teachers’ Association 35(1) (2013).

« Attention, les enfants pourraient entendre! Ou l’histoire post-moderne a-t-elle sa place a l’ecole? » Le cartable de Clio: Revue Suisse sur les didactiques de l’histoire 12 (2012): 126-40. (Translation from Knowing, Teaching and Learning History).

“Progress, Presence and Historical Consciousness: Confronting Past, Present and Future in Postmodern Time.” Paedagogica Historica 48(6) (2012): 859-72.

With Jill Colyer. “Assessment of Historical Thinking: A Report on the Annual Meeting of the Historical Thinking Project, January 18-20, 2012.” Vancouver: CSHC, May 2012.

With Kadriye Ercikan. “Historical thinking in Canadian schools.” Canadian Journal of Social Research 4(1) (2011): 31-41.

With Carla Peck and Stuart Poyntz. “’But we didn’t live in those times’: Canadian Students Negotiate Past and Present in a Time of War.” Education as Change 15(1) (2011): 47-62.

With Carla Peck and Stuart Poyntz.. “‘Agency’ in Students’ Narratives of Canadian History.” In Lukas Perikleous and Denis Shemilt, eds. The Future of the Past: Why History Education Matters, pp. 253-82. Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, 2011.

With Kadriye Ercikan. “Assessment of Higher Order Thinking: The Case of Historical Thinking.” In Gregory Schraw, ed., Assessment of Higher Order Thinking Skills, pp. 245-261. Scottsdale AZ: Information Age Publishing, 2011.

“Assessment of historical thinking.” In P. Clark, ed. New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, pp. 139-53. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2011.
French version:
« Évaluation de la réflexion historique ». In Histoire, musées et éducation à la citoyenneté, edited by Jean-François Cardin, Marc-André Éthier, and Anik Meunier, 247-63. Collection cahiers de l’Institut du patrimoine de l’UQAM. Montréal: Éditions MultiMondes, 2010.

With Penney Clark. “Obsolete Icons and the Teaching of History.” In P. Clark, ed. New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada, pp. 282-301. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2011. (This is a revised and abbreviated version of “Murals as Monuments,” published in the American Journal of Education, 2004.)

With Kadriye Ercikan, “Towards Measure of Historical Thinking in Canadian Classrooms.” Rapport: Journal of the Ontario History and Social Science Teachers’ Association 34(1) (2011): 8-10, 2011.

With Jill Colyer. “Continuing the Momentum: Historical Thinking in Provincial Curricula, Assessments and Professional Development. A Report on the Toronto Meeting, February 8-10, 2011.” Vancouver: CSHC, May 2011, 13 pp. plus appendices.

Seixas, Peter. Foreword to Tony Taylor, ed. History Wars in the Classroom. Greenwich CT: Information Age Publishing, 2011.

“Learning to Think Historically.” In Linda Connor, Brian Hull and Connie Wyatt-Anderson, eds. Shaping Canada, pp. 7-13. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2011 (TEXTBOOK).

With Kadriye Ercikan. “Historical Thinking in Schools in Canada.” Education Letter (Queen’s University) (Fall-Winter 2010): 11-14.

“University-Based Research on History Didactics: A Canadian Story.” In J. Hodel & B. Ziegler (Hg.) Forschungswerkstatt empirisch 09. Beiträge zur Tagung "geschichtsdidaktik empirisch 07" (Geschichtsdidaktik heute, Band 3). Bern: hep, 2010.

"A Modest Proposal for Change in Canadian History Education.” International Review of History Education 6 (2010): 11-26. (Revised and expanded version of the non-refereed Teaching History article below).

With Kadriye Ercikan and Viviane Gosselin. “Cuestionar el pasado: los canadienses ante las polemicas historiograficas.” Ciudadania: Didactica de las Ciencias Sociales, Geografia e Historia 64 (2010): 58-66.

"A Modest Proposal for Change in Canadian History Education." Teaching History 137 (2009): 26-30.

"Pondering the Past: Six Great Tips to Get Your Students Thinking Historically." Teaching Canada's History: A Special Publication of Canada's History Society (September 2009): 16-23.

“Prologue” to Creating Canada: A History – 1914 to the Present by Jill Colyer, pp. 5-11. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2009.

With Kadriye Ercikan and Viviane Gosselin. "Canadians Confront the History Wars." Canadian Diversity/Diversité canadienne 7(1) (2009): 50-54.

"Imperial America." Review of The Perils of Empire: America and Its Imperial Predecessors by James Laxer, and What is America?: A Short History of the New World Order by Ronald Wright. Literary Review of Canada 16(9) (2008): 23-4.  Revised and reprinted online as "America: Bad to the Bone?" The Tyee (Jan. 16, 2009) http://www.thetyee.ca/Books/2009/01/16/USHistory/

“National History and Beyond: An Introduction.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 41(6) (2009): 719-22.

"'People’s History' in North America: Agency, Ideology, Epistemology." In Narrating the Nation: Representations in History, Media and the Arts, edited by S. Berger, L. Eriksonas and A. Mycock, 269-89. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008.

"Collective Memory, History Education and Historical Consciousness." In Recent Trends in Historical Thinking, edited by D. A. Yerxa, 28-34. Columbia SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2008.

Review of The River of History: Trans-national and Trans-disciplinary Perspectives on the Immanence of the Past by Peter Farrugia (ed.). University of Toronto Quarterly 77(1) (2008): 197-8.

"Benchmarks of Historical Thinking: A Brief Overview." Canadians and Their Pasts Newsletter 3 (2008): 1-2.

Preface to Thinking Historically: Educating Students for the Twenty-First Century by Stéphane Lévesque. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.

"'Historical Consciousness' and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning History." History: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Newsletter 1(3) (2007).

"Popular Film and Young People's Understanding of the History of Native American-White Relations." In Celluloid Blackboard: Teaching History with Film, edited by Alan S. Marcus, 99-120. Greenwich CT: Information Age Publishing, 2007.

"Who Needs a Canon?" In Beyond the Canon: History for the 21st Century, edited by Maria Grever and Siep Stuurman, 19-30. London: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007.