Controversial aspects and traumatic pasts in history teaching: Grade 7th to 9th in danish public shools

What is being narrated about controversial aspects in the traumatic past,
teacher and students in between, when dealing with traumatic pasts in
history lessons? And how can this help explain and understand the use and
function of controversial narratives in history teaching? This presentation
explores how the controversial aspects in the traumatic past in history
teaching is represented and produced through emotional and affective
appeals in the historical narratives situated in the classroom. The data
behind this presentation derives from my Ph.D field studies involving
classroom studies of 3 teachers and their 5 classes in lower secondary school
(grade 7 to 9). The thesis is taking a sociocultural perspective. I will argue
that controversial aspect in history teaching play a crucial role and is linked
to a didactical purpose that appeals to student’s moral perception and the
use of contemporary ethical and moral schemes in their judgement of human
actors and actions in the past. This indicates that controversial aspects in
the emotive and affective representation of the traumatic past connects to
students ethical and moral judgement of their present day lives. But this is
not without its complications. I will argue that it leads to a retrospective
starting point of the narratives produced in the classroom and as a
consequence make room for a deterministic evaluation of the past. Moreover,
the understanding of the past in historical representations becomes means
in building students' ethical and moral compass rather than means to
investigate controversial aspects as part of the complexity and temporalities
of historical narratives and thereby making historical sense, based on a
multi-perspective hermeneutical interpretation of human actions committed
in the past.