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Nijmegen Conference A Bridge too Far , Friday, 26 March 2010 In search for commonality

Nijmegen Conference A Bridge too Far , Friday, 26 March 2010 In search for commonality History and plurality in multicultural classes Maria Grever Center for Historical Culture http://www.fhk.eur.nl/chc. Social need for a common past and a sense of belonging

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Nijmegen Conference A Bridge too Far , Friday, 26 March 2010 In search for commonality

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  1. Nijmegen Conference A Bridge too Far, Friday, 26 March 2010 In search for commonality History and plurality in multicultural classes Maria Grever Center for Historical Culture http://www.fhk.eur.nl/chc

  2. Social need for a common past and a sense of belonging • Globalization and global interactions • Multimedia world • Mobility • Migration Recently: focus on content-constructed approach

  3. National Historical Museum design Francine Houben

  4. Research Center for Historical Culture • How people make sense of the past in various cultural forms • Construction, transmission and circulation of historical knowledge in: • Youth movements and popular culture • Organizations of concentration camp survivors • Autobiographies • Historical museums and art exhibitions • History classes

  5. Research Center for Historical Culture Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (2009-2014) Heritage Education, Plurality of Narratives and Shared Historical Knowledge Research leaders (EUR): Maria Grever en Carla van Boxtel

  6. Key question lecture relates to tension: How can we acknowledge both commonality and plurality in history education?

  7. Outline lecture • Theoretical aspects of commonality • Commonality does not necessarily contradict plurality • Balance between local, national and global history • Last slide: recent publications Grever

  8. Commonality Historiana EUROCLIO and Netherlands Heritage Institute

  9. Commonality Historiana The aim is to develop: 'an online, interactive multimedia tool that will provide a framework for constructing common historical knowledge about Europe without losing a plurality of perspectives and inter- and intrastate diversity for educational purposes in classrooms, museums and heritage settings' Aim too ambitious …?

  10. Commonality Historiana Most nations in Europe count large numbers of students whose immigrant or minority families do not share a common historical experience Is the link between shared historical experience and common historical knowledge valid?

  11. Explanatory research, book Maria Grever and Kees Ribbens, National identity and plural pasts (Amsterdam University Press 2007)

  12. Netherlands, Rotterdam City center; Vreewijk (southern part); district IJsselmonde; Schiebroek (near Rotterdam airport) 5 schools 42 nationalities N=305 United Kingdom, Greater London Cricklewood (northern part), Fulham (center), Hounslow (direction Heathrow airport) 3 schools 30 nationalities N=174 France, Nord-Pas-de-Calais (Lille) Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing and Maubeuge in departement Nord; Hénin-Beaumont in departement Pas-de-Calais 4 schools 15 nationalities N=199 Total 12 schools N=678 Number of high schools, nationalities and respondents per country (age students 14/15 - 17/18 years) (Grever & Ribbens 2007)

  13. Commonality Rotterdam high schools 42 nationalities from: (Grever & Ribbens 2007) Europe: Spain, France, Poland, Croatia … Former colonies: Suriname, Aruba, Indonesia Other continents: Morocco, Turkey, Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, China, Zimbabwe, Peru ... How to create commonality in this multicultural context?

  14. Commonality • We live together in that globalizing world • Commonality refers to the very fact that we share the same world that makes it possible to value and exchange interpretations about human beings and behavior

  15. Traces of human actions in the past: mask of a Roman equestrian, found in Nijmegen

  16. Narrative about human actions in the past such as the Batavian revolt against the Romans near Nijmegen, leaded by Julius Civilis in 69 ACE (painting Rembrandt van Rijn, 1661)

  17. Commonality • Yet, commonality does not necessarily imply harmony

  18. Commonality • Exchanging interpretations, agreeing and disagreeing, assumes some understanding about what is interpreted. • We all participate in the stream of meanings and texts (Gadamer's Wirkungsgeschichte) This is the start of commonality.

  19. Commonality Chris Blanken, Jan Dirk Tuinier and Geu Visser, (small scale research) Antisemitism at school? Research report amongst students with an islamic background in confrontation with the history of the Holocaust (Utrecht 2003)

  20. Commonality Frank Ankersmit, Sublime historical experience (2005) emphasis on experience Students do not experience the meaning of a text or a teacher's lesson They translate the meaning in language that will be driven by (transmitted) experience The translation of experiences to the level of language generates the possibility of conflicts

  21. Commonality • Importance of historical reasoning • Anachronism & presentism • Continuity & change • Intended & unintended effects • Peter Seixas (2004) • Carla van Boxtel (2009)

  22. Commonality • But what about incomprehensible experiences? • Are there limits to historical reasoning? • Yes, there are. • Mass atrocity and trauma: the Holocaust, Cambodia, Srebrenica, Ruwhanda … • too terrible to re-enact in the mind? • too traumatic to put into language? • too foreign to be understood?

  23. Plurality and diversity • The world we all live in consists of several (partly overlapping) communities to which we commit ourselves and with which we identify • Overlapping (memory) communities: • Family, class, gender, family, religion • Neigborhood, city, nation, Europe, virtual communities

  24. Plurality and diversity Nation-states are creations of the mind Ernest Renan (1882): 'More valuable by far than common customs posts and frontiers conforming to strategic ideas, is the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and of having, in the future, a shared program to put into effect, or the fact of having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together. These are the kinds of things that can be understood in spite of differences of race and language.'

  25. Plurality and diversity 1820-1970: professionalization historiography based on the emergence of the nation-state 1970-1990: the nation-state was no longer a self-evident frame of identity in many countries School history was criticized for its antiquarian, nationalistic character 1990s: start of re-nationalization process; identification with the nation and its history became popular again, presented as our history

  26. Plurality and diversity Rotterdam interviews (Grever & Ribbens 2007) What kind of history do you consider as your own history? Necad (Turkish Dutch boy):History of my religion and the history of my country of origin, Turkey. Nadia (Moroccan Dutch girl):In the first place my religion. Also the history of my parents' country. But I think it is important to know what has happened in the Netherlands, because we live here.

  27. Plurality and diversity Outcome survey questionnaire 450 students (Grever & Ribbens 2007) Native students in the three urban areas appreciate 'national history of the country of residence' Dutch data: 87% place Dutch history in the top-5; nobody put that kind of history on the first place Non-native students are less interested Dutch data: 44% place Dutch history in the top 5 of most interesting kinds of history

  28. Plurality and diversity Outcome survey (Grever & Ribbens 2007) Differences are greatest for the 'history of religion'. This history scores high among all migrant groups Dutch data: students of Turkish and Moroccan origin put that kind of history on the first place Native youth demonstrates much less identification. This history did not belong to their top-5 of most mentioned kinds of history Dutch data: of all three urban areas Dutch native students value history of religion most

  29. Plurality and diversity Outcome survey (Grever & Ribbens 2007) All students declare an interest in world history No significant differences between natives and non- natives in this respect in the three urban areas. Students hardly show interest in European historyNative students appreciate it a bit, significantly more in the Netherlands and France than UK. None of the migrant students put it in their top-5.

  30. Plurality and diversity It is imperative that young people acquire historical knowledge about the country of residence Also important that migrant students experience a sense of belonging and commonality How can we reconcile both requirements?

  31. Plurality and diversity Active Citizenship and Social Integration Act (2005) requires that primary and secondary schools educate all students about Dutch culture -commonality Key-concepts underlying the history curriculum of Dutch secondary schools include the application of plurality of perspectives

  32. Plurality and diversity • Diversity of student population: • different social and cultural backgrounds • Plurality of perspectives, formal distinction: • different positions historical actors • differences historical actors and readers • different historiographical perspectives

  33. Plurality and diversity Quebec's History and Citizenship Education curriculum (2007) Benchmark 'perspective of identity formation' 'All students must develop a sense of who they are relative to other individuals characterized by numerous differences (…). Taking otherness into account is thus an essential element in identity development. This process enables students to observe that the diversity of identities is not incompatible with the sharing of values, such as those related to democracy.'

  34. Plurality and diversity Jörn Rüsen agrees that different points of view makes sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system intercultural communication

  35. Plurality and diversity Hannah Arendt (1961) 'Greeks learned to understand - not to understand one another as individual persons, but to look upon the same world from one another's standpoint, to see the same in very different and frequently opposing aspects.'

  36. Plurality and diversity The awareness of a plurality of perspectives provides the common ground This involves a hermeneutic understanding that we should learn all students The plurality of perspectives enlarges historical understanding, because it opens up reasoned discussion about the interpretation of (contingent) historical facts

  37. Local, national, European and global history What about the contents of the school-subject? Because historical facts will be discussed from several viewpoints it will generate a deeper sense of historical reality, be it local, national, European or global history.

  38. Local, national, European and global history Aim of history education preparing students for the renewing of a common globalizing world

  39. Commonly taught events Turning dates Long term develop-ments Case studies 1 People on the move   2 Human rights 3 Life and leisure 4 War & Peace WW I 1914 1918 Global encoun-ters 1917 Chinesecame to Europe 5 Work and technology Local, national, European and global history Historiana Possible themes

  40. Local, national, European and global history Flanders Field Museum (April-August 2010) Exhibition on Chinese workers in World War I

  41. Local, national, European and global history From 1917 140.000 Chinese workers were brought to the First World War in Europe; 2000 Chinese died Exhibition is organized in cooperation with the municipal archives of Weihai (China), brings a forgotten chapter back to life. Heritage: tombs of Chinese, songs, anecdotes

  42. Local, national, European and global history Thank you

  43. Publications Maria Grever and Siep Stuurman ed., Beyond the Canon. History for the Twenty-First Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) Maria Grever en Kees Ribbens, National identiteit en meervoudig verleden (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2007). Maria Grever, Terry Haydn and Kees Ribbens, ‘Identity and School History: the Perspective of Young People from the Netherlands and England’, British Journal of Educational Studies vol. 56 (2008) nr. 1, 76-94. Maria Grever, 'National pride and prejudice. Teaching history in societies with many nationalities', Canadian Issues (Fall 2008) 44-51. Maria Grever, 'Fear of plurality. Historical culture and historiographical canonization in Western Europe', in Angelika Epple and Angelika Schaser eds., Gendering historiography: beyond national canons (The University of Chicago Press 2009) 45-62. See also: http://www.fhk.eur.nl/english/chc/publications/g/

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