From knowing the national past to doing history: History (teacher) education in flanders since 1918

Abstract

This contribution addresses a double educational reform introduced in 2019 in Flanders (the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). New standards were implemented in secondary school education for each school subject, including history. This reform coincided and co-evolved with each other, which made teacher education a Master’s level degree for those aiming to teach in the upper years of secondary. Based on the analysis of primary and secondary sources, both reforms are analyzed in a long-term perspective, focusing on history (teacher) education. It is examined how secondary school history education and academic history teacher education evolved throughout the past century, and how both interacted. The analysis focuses on the main aims attributed to history (teacher) education, on the accompanying pedagogical and didactical methods, and on the (educational and political) agents and stakeholders involved in the decision making process.