Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/44685

OpenURL Link
Title
Conceptions of historical and geographical knowledge: assessing the impact of pedagogical reform
Author/Creator
Griffiths, Tom G.;  Parkes, Robert J.;  Gore, Jennifer M.;  Amosa, Wendy Anne;  Ladwig, James G.
Institution
The University of Newcastle. Faculty of Education & Arts, School of Education
Description
In this paper we analyse teachers' understandings of their subject specialisation's content knowledge, and the relationship between these understandings, the subject discipline more broadly, and their pedagogical practice measured using the QT framework. We begin by reporting the measured quality of pedagogy received by student cohorts in History and Geography classes, as part of the HSIE (Human Society in Its Environment) Key Learning Area in NSW public schools, and the conceptions of subject knowledge within these outcomes. In this analysis we find that, compared to other subjects in this study, knowledge in the HSIE subjects tended to be treated in only a mildly problematic way, with moderate outcomes in terms of its connection to students lives and cultural backgrounds, and its authentic application. Comparing primary and secondary contexts, we find that HSIE knowledge is treated more problematically, with more direct significance for students, in primary classes. These findings go against initial expectations in which the dominant conventions of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences emphasise its socially constructed nature in particular historical, political and socio-economic contexts (Wallerstein, 2004; 1996). Analysing qualitative data from researchers' narratives of observed lessons, and interviews with teachers, we then elaborate teachers' understanding of their subject content knowledge, and how this relates to the historical development of the discipline and the measured treatment of knowledge in their pedagogical practice. In this analysis we argue that ongoing tensions in the subject discipline between nomothetic and idiographic approaches, coupled with detailed and prescriptive curricula and teachers' apparent disposition towards covering prescribed content, accounts for their treatment of their subject knowledge. Further, through some detailed analysis of cases at the extremes, we argue that teachers' meaningful engagement with the QT framework, as part of a significant, system-wide pedagogical reform initiative, is contingent on their re-thinking the nature of their subject knowledge and its treatment in their teaching.
Relation
AERA 2008 Annual Meeting. Abstracts of the AERA 2008 Annual Meeting (New York 24-28 March, 2008)
Relation
http://convention3.allacademic.com/one/aera/aera08
Date
2008
Publisher
American Education Research Association (AERA)
Keyword(s)
subject specialisation;  pedagogical practice;  teaching;  Human Society in Its Environment (HSIE)
Resource Type
conference paper
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/44685
50 Visitors 77 Hits 0 Downloads
Save/E-mail Citation
Citation Format
E-mail Address
Subject
"Conceptions of historical and geographical knowledge: assessing the impact of pedagogical reform"
 
OR