New Approaches to Teaching the History of the British Empire

大英帝国历史教学的新方法

• 批准号: ES/Y007948/1
• 负责人: Abigail Branford
• 金额: $ 15.4万
• 依托单位: University of Oxford
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FY007948%2F1
• 关键词: New; Approaches; Teaching; History; British

How colonial history should be taught in schools has been the subject of significant public debate in England, a debate which has intensified since the 2020 summer of Black Lives Matter. Traditionally this topic has been taught by listing the 'pros and cons' of the British Empire, a method called 'the balance sheet'. During a period of intense public discussion about the legacy of the British Empire and the polarised opinions this generated, continuing in this tradition was seen as a way of fairly reflecting divided public opinion on an emotive topic. My doctoral research investigated the consequences of this teaching method through surveys and focus groups with students and observing months of history lessons. Splitting colonialism into 'pros' and 'cons' encouraged students to see different aspects of a complex process as entirely separate from each other. For example, students described 'education' as a 'pro' and 'suppressing indigenous cultures' as a 'con'. However, beliefs about which cultures were superior and which cultures should be supressed drove the growth of Western education systems in the British Empire, justified the racial segregation of schools and shaped the content of what students learnt in these schools. A framing of 'pros and cons' prevents students from seeing these interconnections between 'pros' and 'cons'. The balance sheet approach also puts the question of what effects did the British have on other people at the centre of lessons. The only people with agency in that framework are British, while Africans, Asians, Irish and Indigenous peoples of Oceania and the Americas can only appear as victims or beneficiaries of British actions. Lastly, these activities of sorting events into 'pros' and 'cons' also - as one teacher expressing her discomfort put it - "do not compare like with like." For example, worksheets which put 'spread cricket and rugby' as a 'pro' alongside 'the transatlantic slave trade' as a 'con' trivialises a very painful history.I developed a set of recommendations for productive alternatives to balance sheet approaches, e.g. a stronger regional focus would enable greater detail of specific pre- and post-colonial histories, allowing for a wider range of groups to be recognised as shaping the history of these regions. I also describe ways in which using the stories of 'ordinary' individuals can show the interconnections made invisible in balance sheet approaches. An ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship would enable me to publish my research and recommendations in scholarly journals as well as to present my work to teachers (online and offline) with the aim of stimulating change in teaching practice.England has certainly not been alone in wrestling with questions about how to teach difficult histories of a complex colonial past. An ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship would enable me to submit well-developed applications to fund a multi-year project which investigates these themes in three further contexts. Different political pressures in Kenya, South Africa and the US have led to policymakers taking action to restructure history curricula and are set to implement these changes within the next two years. However, teachers' voices have not been prioritised in public discussions of these changes and many teachers fear speaking publicly about them, particularly in the US. These forthcoming applications would propose to investigate the origins of these policy changes and their effects as understood by (anonymised) history teachers. I will also draw out their relevance for debates in the English context. Policymakers in England have resisted calls for compulsory changes to history curricula and emphasised the importance of teachers having relative autonomy in how they interpret the national curriculum. A nuanced understanding of how policy interventions in this space have been received by teachers elsewhere can helpfully inform both the DfE and civil society organisations engaged in these debates.

学校应如何教授殖民历史一直是英国公众争论的焦点，自 2020 年夏季“黑人生命也是命”运动以来，这一争论愈演愈烈。传统上，这个主题是通过列出大英帝国的“利弊”来教授的，这种方法称为“资产负债表”。在公众对大英帝国的遗产和由此产生的两极分化意见进行激烈讨论的时期，继续这一传统被视为公平反映公众对一个情感话题的分歧意见的一种方式。我的博士研究通过调查和学生焦点小组以及观察数月的历史课来调查这种教学方法的后果。将殖民主义分为“赞成”和“反对”，鼓励学生将复杂过程的不同方面视为完全独立的。例如，学生们将“教育”描述为“赞成”，将“压制土著文化”描述为“反对”。然而，关于哪些文化优越、哪些文化应该受到压制的信念推动了大英帝国西方教育体系的发展，证明了学校种族隔离的合理性，并塑造了学生在这些学校所学到的内容。 “优点和缺点”的框架使学生无法看到“优点”和“缺点”之间的相互联系。资产负债表方法还将英国对其他人产生了哪些影响的问题置于课程的中心。在该框架中唯一具有代理权的人是英国人，而非洲人、亚洲人、爱尔兰人和大洋洲和美洲的土著人民只能作为英国行动的受害者或受益者出现。最后，正如一位表达她的不适的老师所说，这些将事件分为“优点”和“缺点”的活动“不要进行同类比较”。例如，工作表将“传播板球和橄榄球”作为“赞成”，而“跨大西洋奴隶贸易”作为“反对”，淡化了一段非常痛苦的历史。我为资产负债表方法提出了一系列富有成效的替代方案的建议，例如加强对区域的关注将使我们能够更详细地了解殖民前和后殖民历史，从而使更广泛的群体被认为塑造了这些区域的历史。我还描述了如何利用“普通”个人的故事来展示资产负债表方法中看不见的相互联系。 ESRC 博士后奖学金将使我能够在学术期刊上发表我的研究和建议，并向教师（在线和离线）展示我的工作，以促进教学实践的变革。英格兰当然不是唯一一个面临问题的国家关于如何教授复杂的殖民历史的艰难历史。 ESRC 博士后奖学金将使我能够提交完善的申请来资助一个多年期项目，该项目在三个进一步的背景下研究这些主题。肯尼亚、南非和美国的不同政治压力促使政策制定者采取行动重组历史课程，并将在未来两年内实施这些变革。然而，在对这些变化的公开讨论中，教师的声音并未得到优先考虑，许多教师害怕公开谈论这些变化，尤其是在美国。这些即将提出的申请将建议调查这些政策变化的起源及其影响（匿名）历史教师的理解。我还将指出它们与英语背景下的辩论的相关性。英国的政策制定者拒绝了强制改变历史课程的呼吁，并强调教师在解释国家课程方面拥有相对自主权的重要性。细致入微地了解其他地方的教师如何接受这一领域的政策干预措施，有助于为参与这些辩论的教育部和民间社会组织提供信息。