What is historically significant? Historical thinking through the narratives of college students ¹

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the historical relevance given by Basic Education students to historical events and in what ways they do it. For that, standards of historical thinking held by those future teachers are analyzed. Focus is on the so called historical significance. Through short account, we analyzed the abilities of the future teacher in relation to this basic concept of the historical thinking, which brings interesting signs about how students understand history and the underlying assumptions to narrate it. For that purpose, we processed 107 short narratives written by 520 individuals, all of them college students of Basic Education working in groups. The texts were collected during three academic courses and were analyzed with qualitative methodology based on the categorization of their contents. The results show that these future teachers have minimum historical knowledge, most of it limited to events that are the landmarks of changes in a historical period. These events of transition between historical periods are, for them, the most significant in the history of humankind to the detriment of others. Some of the implications for their future work as teachers include a great limitation of the contents to be taught or an excessive dependence on the textbook. This leads to the development of a teaching based on memorization and the lack of reflection of the historical narration itself to the detriment of the analysis of the importance of some historical events.

History; History teaching; Basic education; Teacher training