Linda S. Levstik

“Back When God Was Around and Everything”: Elementary Children’s Understanding of Historical Time

In order to investigate elementary children’s understanding of historical time, we conducted open–ended interviews with 58 children from kindergarten through sixth grade. In order to overcome the limitations of previous research in this area, we asked children to place pictures from various periods of American history in order and to talk about their reasoning. We found that even the youngest children made some basic distinctions in historical time and that those became increasingly differentiated with age. Dates, however, had little meaning for children before third grade, and, although third and fourth graders understood the numerical basis of dates, only by fifth grade did students extensively connect particular dates with specific background knowledge. At all ages, children’s placement of most pictures revealed substantial agreement with one another and with the correct order; this agreement indicates a significant body of understanding of historical chronology. History instruction in the elementary grades, then, might productively focus on helping students refine and extend the knowledge they have gained about history; information which relies on dates, however, is unlikely to activate their temporal understanding.

‘They still use some of their past’: historical salience in elementary children's chronological thinking

Fifty‐eight students at seven grade levels (kindergarten through sixth) from three population groups (urban, suburban and rural) were presented with the task of chronologically ordering a set of nine historical pictures and ‘thinking aloud’ about the task. The results of this study provide increased evidence regarding the kind and sources of childrens historical knowledge, and how they deploy that knowledge. The most accessible historical knowledge for early and middle grade children apparently relates to changes in material culture and the patterns of everyday life. It appears, too, that the intertexts that inform childrens historical understanding, especially prior to fourth grade, provide better information about material culture than about other aspects of change over time. In addition, some children at all grade levels linked history to such sociocultural issues as race and gender. Finally, by fifth grade, children were learning a new reference system that consisted of specific eras (Colonial, Revo...

The Relationship between Historical Response and Narrative in a Sixth-Grade Classroom

Abstract The relationship between narrative and historical understanding in a literature-based, sixth-grade history program was studied using the techniques of naturalistic inquiry—participant observation, structured and unstructured interviews, and daily observation logs. Analysis of the data indicated that response to history was influenced by teacher manipulation of the classroom context, the childrens expressed need to know, their desire to explore the border areas of human experience, and the emotional impact of historical narratives. Children responded to the subjective nature of history as literature, retaining a degree of subjectivity as they investigated historical topics and wrote reports. Children demonstrated strong interest in history that demonstrated the possibilities of human behavior.

New Directions for Studying Historical Understanding

Much of the research on historical understanding has been based on the Piagetian concept of global stage constraints on learning. Such research has led to arguments against teaching history at the elementary level and lent support to the traditional “expanding environments” curriculum. This paper contrasts Piagetian-based research with psychological work in the areas of script knowledge-based and domain-specific knowledge restructuring theories of development. Drawing on ideas from interpretive anthropology and semiotics, the authors then place this primarily psychological work in a cultural framework, and give consideration to the relevance of theories of narrative for studying historical understanding. Using this approach, the authors suggest both new directions for studying the development of historical understanding and implications for history instruction in the elementary years.

Recreating the Past: Historical Fiction in the Social Studies Curriculum.

This article explores the use of historical fiction in the elementary social studies curriculum. We discuss the value of historical fiction for children and the specific social studies goals it supports. Reasons for including historical fiction in the social studies in terms of how it differs from textbooks and stimulates critical thinking are set forth. Suggestions for using historical fiction in primary and intermediate grades are offered and specific books are recommended. The role of the teacher in ensuring that historical fiction is used appropriately and effectively is described. Finally, we note the paucity of historical fiction dealing with the non-Western world.

Research, Instruction, and Public Policy in the History Curriculum: A Symposium

Abstract Editors Note: As educators and policy—makers have attempted to reform or revitalize the school curriculum in the past decade, the history curriculum has been the subject of numerous research efforts and policy initiatives. But, as several of these authors note, policy recommendations are rarely informed by careful attention to either research on historical thinking and learning or to the concerns of classroom teachers. The following essays, which are based on a symposium held at the 1995 annual meeting of the College and University Faculty Assembly of NCSS, analyze the relationships among research, instruction and public policy regarding the history curriculum, and suggest ways of conceptualizing the future of history education. THEORY AND RESEARCH IN SOCIAL EDUCATION encourages reader responses that sustain and extend the dialogue initiated by this set of essays. See the Information for Authors in this issue for reply guidelines.

Outside Over There: My Book House Divides the World, 1919–1954

Abstract The rise of mass-marketed literature specifically targeting child readers is a significant if often overlooked piece of a larger historical pattern in which contending cultural groups attempt to control the words and worlds available to different groups within and between societies. The work of Olive Beaupré Miller, author/editor from 1919–1954 of My Book House for Children, a series of books offering “children’s classic literature graded from infancy to secondary school” (Taylor, 1986, p. 85), encapsulates this struggle in the early 20th century in the United States. Shunned by publishing elites for her mass-marketing techniques, Miller nonetheless shared their desire to preserve and pass on a classic Western literary canon. Her mass-marketing techniques, however, breached class boundaries, placing classic literature, along with evolutionary frameworks regarding human development, race, ethnicity and gender, in the homes of working class and immigrant families. Examining these books illuminates some of the challenges of educating for a tolerant, cosmopolitan world for children in a deeply intolerant society, then and now.