Nijmegen Conference A Bridge too Far, Friday, 26 March 2010

In search for commonalityHistory and plurality in multicultural

classes

Maria Grever

Center for Historical Culturehttp://www.fhk.eur.nl/chc

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

National Historical Museum

design Francine Houben

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

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

Key question lecture relates to tension:

How can we acknowledge both commonality and plurality in history education?

Outline lecture

1. Theoretical aspects of commonality

2. Commonality does not necessarily contradict plurality

3. Balance between local, national and global history

Last slide: recent publications Grever

Commonality

HistorianaEUROCLIO and Netherlands

Heritage Institute

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 …?

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?

Explanatory research, book

Maria Grever and Kees Ribbens, National identity and plural pasts (Amsterdam University Press 2007)

Explanatory research, book

Maria Grever and Kees Ribbens, National identity and plural pasts (Amsterdam University Press 2007)

Netherlands, Rotterdam City center; Vreewijk (southern part); district IJsselmonde; Schiebroek (near Rotterdam airport)

5 schools42 nationalities

N=305

United Kingdom, Greater LondonCricklewood (northern part), Fulham (center), Hounslow (direction Heathrow airport) 

3 schools30 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 schools15 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)

Commonality

Rotterdam high schools 42 nationalities from:(Grever & Ribbens 2007)

Europe: Spain, France, Poland, Croatia …Former colonies: Suriname, Aruba, IndonesiaOther continents: Morocco, Turkey, Afghanistan,

Argentina, Australia, China, Zimbabwe, Peru ...

How to create commonality in this multicultural context?

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

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

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

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)

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)

Commonality

Yet, commonality does not necessarily imply harmony

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.

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)

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

Commonality

Importance of historical reasoning

• Anachronism & presentism• Continuity & change• Intended & unintended effects

Peter Seixas (2004)

Carla van Boxtel (2009)

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?

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

Plurality and diversity

Nation-states are creations of the mindErnest 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.'

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

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.

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 interestedDutch data: 44% place Dutch history in the top 5 of most

interesting kinds of history

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

Plurality and diversity

Outcome survey (Grever & Ribbens 2007)

All students declare an interest in world historyNo significant differences between natives and non-

natives in this respect in the three urban areas.

Students hardly show interest in European history Native 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.

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?

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

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

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.'

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

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.'

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

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.

Local, national, European and global history

Aim of history education

preparing students for the renewing of a common globalizing world

Local, national, European and global history

Historiana 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 19141918

Global encoun-ters

1917Chinese came to Europe

5 Work and technology

       

Possible themes

Local, national, European and global history

Flanders Field Museum (April-August 2010)

Exhibition on Chinese workers in World War I

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

Local, national, European and global history

Thank you

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/