| dc.description.abstract | The newest Norwegian teaching plan, called LK20, has four central elements to it. The first and seemingly most important one is the one named “Historical consciousness”. This is a term which among historians has been defined in many various ways by equally many different historians. The concept of historical consciousness is generally abstract, and when an abstract concept is as essential as it is in this teaching plan, how do history teachers place themselves when it comes to planning lessons that are supposed to develop the historical consciousness of the students?
In this master’s thesis, I will examine how history teachers view the development of historical consciousness in their lessons, both in planning and execution. By interviewing the teachers and observing their lessons, I will try to find out how their teaching can develop the students’ historical consciousness. Not only will I try to find out how it could be done, but I will also examine with what kind of definition of historical consciousness the history teachers operate. To examine this, I am going to analyze the teaching plan’s definition and figure out what inspired that definition specifically, as well as examining relevant school textbooks to see if they correspond with the teaching plan, or if there are different aspects of historical consciousness weighted in the teaching plan and the textbooks.
What this study has shown is that the operationalization of historical consciousness varies from teacher to teacher. This variation is caused by different definitions of the term, how important they think it is in their teaching, and which kinds of tasks they exercise in their classes to, consciously or unconsciously, develop the students’ historical consciousness. The variation happens primarily because of the wide definition that the teaching plan presents and the importance the teachers place on historical consciousness in the planning of their lessons. | |
