"Ett snäpp högre" : En studie av historielärares hanterande av tankeredskap

Sammanfattning: Abstract The aim with this study is to examine how practicing history teachers in upper secondary school deal with historical thinking concepts. The three main questions are: which concepts do teachers use in their courses and when do they use them? How can teachers’ use of different historical thinking concepts be described in terms of reconstruction and construction? What factors influence teachers when they work with historical thinking concepts? To answer these questions, the material, for example tests, lesson plans and notes of seven teachers has been analyzed. These analysis were followed by interviews with the teachers. The empirical data have been handled in two steps. The first step is a survey of what historical thinking concepts teachers use and when they use them. The survey was done as a detailed reading of the teachers’ material. In this survey two historical thinking concepts, evidence and cause and consequence, have been selected for further analysis, which is the second step. The results show that when teachers deal with the historical thinking concept of evidence they show their students models and ways to handle evidence. This is not the case when teachers handle the historical thinking concept of cause and consequence. Models are shown here as well but not to the same extent. The result also shows that the teachers’ handling of evidence in a greater extent leads to construction compared with their handling of cause and consequence. The explanations provided in the study also point to the different character between the two concepts and what form of test the teachers’ use and what words are used to communicate for example cause and consequence. Furthermore, the explanations also indicate that the teachers’ view of what historical knowledge contains of, together with what kind of students and what other subject they teach play some part in their dealing with historical thinking concepts.