Historical Consciousness and Interest in History Among Colombian and Spanish Secondary School Students

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a comparative study that seeks to identify conceptions of the importance of four types of formal content in history teaching (periods of history, cross-cutting themes in history, history of places, and national historical processes) among a group of Colombian (M = 764) and Spanish (N = 648) students in the last year of compulsory education in the cities of Bogotá and Murcia, respectively. A descriptive approach was followed based on a closed-ended questionnaire relating to historical consciousness, with item responses measured on a Likert scale. The results support the idea that the interest shown by students in the formal content proposed is an indicator that calls for a critical review of the structure and organization of history curricula in the two contexts studied.