Page 105 - Balancing between the present and the past

History teachers and historical contextualization
5.1 Introduction
An important goal of modern Western history education is the teaching of historical
reasoning competencies, such as examining change and continuity, asking historical
questions, and performing historical contextualization (Counsell, Burn, & Chapman,
2016; Seixas, 2015; Wineburg, 2001). Students not only have to possess historical
content knowledge but also need to reason with this knowledge. In many countries,
historical reasoning competencies therefore comprise a large part of the formal history
curriculum (Erdmann & Hasberg, 2011). To acquire historical reasoning competencies,
students need to be actively engaged in domain-specific learning processes, such as
working with historical sources, determining causes and consequences, and engaging
in historical contextualization (e.g., Lévesque, 2008; Seixas & Morton, 2013; Van Drie
& Van Boxtel, 2008). History teachers therefore play a key role in teaching students
how to examine historical phenomena within the confines of the discipline (Bain &
Mirel, 2006; VanSledright, 2011). 5
In this study, we focus on how historical contextualization is promoted in classrooms. Historical contextualization is considered an essential skill for historians (e.g., Gaddis, 2002; Sewell Jr., 2005), a key component of historical thinking and reasoning (e.g., Seixas & Morton, 2013; Van Drie & Van Boxtel, 2008; Wineburg, 2001), and a possible contributor to instilling democratic citizenship in students (e.g., Barton, 2012; Barton & Levstik, 2004; McCully, 2012). The Dutch formal history curriculum therefore considers the ability to perform historical contextualization important (Board of Tests and Examinations, 2017). Moreover, Nikitina (2006) argues that the ability to perform historical contextualization is also important in other school subjects (e.g., when teaching the scientific development of the atomic bomb in science classrooms or when discussing Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn in English classrooms).
Despite the importance of historical contextualization, different studies indicate that students experience difficulties when asked to perform historical contextualization tasks (Foster, Ashby, & Lee, 2008; Huijgen, Van Boxtel, Van de Grift, & Holthuis, 2014; Wineburg, 2001). Students may be inclined to view the past from a present-oriented perspective, and this is considered one of the main reasons that students fail to achieve historical contextualization, resulting in the misunderstanding of historical phenomena (Lee & Ashby, 2001; Seixas & Peck, 2004). For example, some students cannot explain why someone voted for the Nazi Party of Hitler in the 1930s (Hartmann
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