This article explores the use of turning points in history teaching. Historians describe instances of pivotal change as turning points. Identification of a turning point is a judgment of historical significance. The research demonstrates this by analysing an example from classical historiography. Inclusion of a turning point at the start of…

The international situation of history didactics as an academic discipline is characterized by the fact that many basic disciplinary concepts often differ considerably: The same or similar terms denote different concepts or vice versa comparable concepts not only have various names but also hold different positions in the respective disciplinary…

The development of critical sociohistorical knowledge is needed to assist teachers in negotiating and deconstructing the relevance of race, racism, and black history in global-themed social studies courses. Drawing from Diaspora Literacy as theory and Critical Studyin' as method, I situate Afro-Latin humanity within educational research relevant…

World history curriculum in the United States is Eurocentric. By downplaying contributions from non-Western societies, state standards of world history in the modern era create a narrative of the West as a driver of progress and Europe as the primary protagonist of global events. Research further shows social studies teachers rely on such state…

In his article in this journal just over a year ago, Steven Driver set out his vision for a less myopic range of topics in A-level coursework. In this edition, Driver demonstrates how he has built student enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, a topic which he had previously identified as neglected -- Nicaragua's place within late 19th- and early…

Frustrated by her students' glib use of catch-all terms such as 'militarism' in addressing causation, Alexia Michalaki wanted her Year 9 students to produce mature causal explanations of World War I. To encourage this to happen she went back into decades of pedagogical writing and research, teasing out the ways in which others have sought to…

The purpose of this paper is to add to the existing body of research on the American world history curriculum, paying particular attention to the challenges of teaching about a historical era for which new knowledge emerges regularly and old paradigms are being questioned constantly. It does so in four sections. The first section examines research…

While a clear rationale for the need to decolonise school geography curricula has been proposed, there are few examples of what this looks like in practice. Drawing on our professional practice in both a secondary school and a university setting, we outline two case studies of decolonising the curriculum that centre on promoting student agency.…

In this article, Jacob Olivey describes his department's efforts to both diversify their Key Stage 3 curriculum and secure greater curricular coherence. Building on a large body of research and practice, Olivey sought new forms of curricular coherence through the selection and sequencing of substantive content across the curriculum. He reflects on…

Determined to do justice to the complexity of the seventeenth century, as a messy but crucial period in British history, and to develop their pupils' disciplinary understanding of how and why interpretations of the past are constructed, Dan Keates and his department set out to exploit the rich seam of interpretations of Cromwell. The quest to…

Many history teachers will already be familiar with 'meanwhile, elsewhere...', a website offering freely downloadable homework resources on individuals, events and developments in world history. In this article the website's creators, Richard Kennett and Will Bailey-Watson, set out a curricular rationale for the project. They argue that using…

This article provides a critical, historical analysis of religious education and the pandemic through the perspective of postcolonial theory. Showing through an interdisciplinary lens how colonialism and contagion have conjointly configured cultural and civilisational change, it shows how sources from religious and literary history can illuminate…

It is almost 20 years since Michael Riley first invited Key Stage 3 history teachers to 'choose and plant' their enquiry questions. Many members of the history education community have taken up that invitation, making use of overarching enquiry questions to structure students' learning. But what is meant by enquiry in this context is sometimes…

Background: South Africa's institutions of higher learning are currently experiencing a dispensation in which calls for curricula transformation and decolonisation reverberate. While the need for curricula evolution is generally accepted, there appears to be a lack of awareness of methodologies which are applicable to changing curricula. To this…

COVID-19 offers a unique opportunity to transform the K-12 social studies curriculum, but history suggests that changes to the formal curriculum will not come easily or automatically. This book was conceived in the space between the dismantling of our old way of life and the anticipation of what comes next. The authors in this volume--leading…