‘What did it achieve?’ – Students’ conceptions about the significance of the French Revolution

Abstract

This study presents students’ conceptions about the consequences and significance of the French Revolution. The data were collected from Swiss ninth graders (15 to 16 years old; N=22) by means of group discussions and problem-centred interviews. The data were evaluated using a reconstructive qualitative method. The students’ historical thinking is dominated by a belief in progress and paramount presentism. The adolescents feel entangled in the history of the French Revolution, it has a symbolic and present-future significance (Cercadillo). Thus, they construct historical significance in an exemplary way (Rüsen). These explanatory patterns are anchored in the everyday conceptions of the students and not in an academic understanding of history. Therefore, teachers should cognitively model learners’ thinking by showing how historians narrate and construct the historical significance of the French Revolution, by making this second-order concept explicit and by giving them the opportunity to explore different types of narrative (Rüsen).