History in Schools

Abstract

Schools have been a key site for state-sponsored histories since 1945, particularly in view of their universal compulsory impact on children and youth. But the nature of history in schools changed over time, varying in relation to political, cultural, and geographic contexts. In order to make sense of these variations, this chapter proposes a theoretical framework, a “history/memory matrix.” The matrix enables a broad periodization of the post-1945 period: the first where school history was foremost a vehicle for a common collective memory; a second from around 1970, where disciplinary historical thinking achieved a new prominence; and a third, from the final decade of the twentieth century, when the Holocaust, identity politics, and the concept of “experience” brought a resurgence of memory into history education.