ERIC Number: EJ824490
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2003-Aug
Pages: 22
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2745
EISSN: N/A
Poor Relation or Honorable Peer? Reflections on American History in French Universities
Bolton, Marie
History Teacher, v36 n4 p443-464 Aug 2003
The author's teaching experience in France began in 1994 when she was offered a two-year position as "maitre de langues" (language instructor) at the University of Saint Etienne Engineering School. She had moved to France from Berkeley, California, the previous year along with a newborn baby and crates of photocopied archival material destined to be transformed into her Ph.D. dissertation in American history. In this article, the author discusses the challenges, limitations, and rewards she experienced in teaching American history and American studies in a French institution of higher education. In addition to her own reflections as an American academic in France, she also discusses the responses generously provided to her by her French and American colleagues from both Anglophone studies and history departments, many of whom raised provocative issues and forced her beyond her habitual thinking about teaching, research, and the recent American thrust to "internationalize" United States history. (Contains 17 notes.)
Descriptors: United States History, American Studies, Foreign Countries, Teaching Experience, Phenomenology, Adjustment (to Environment), History Instruction, Political Attitudes, Reflection, Comparative Education, Ethnocentrism, Foreign Culture
Society for History Education. California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840-1601. Tel: 562-985-2573; Fax: 562-985-5431; Web site: http://www.thehistoryteacher.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: France; United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A