Educating Citizens Through History Education

Doctoral Candidate: Phillipa Parsons
Supervisors: Dr Robert Parkes [Principal] and Dr Debra Donnelly

Project Description:
Phillipa’s PhD is an investigation into the intersection of history and citizenship education. The study examines what history teachers are formally and informally teaching about citizenship and what students are learning, both formally and informally, about citizenship in the history classroom. The political debates surrounding the history curriculum, concepts of citizenship, historical consciousness and agency frame this study. It is based on the presuppositions that: (1) the ‘state’ has a central role in constructing its citizenry in a particular image and that school is the main apparatus of that process; and (2) it is in the history classroom where particular national narratives are transmitted and reinforced to create a collective historical memory that serves to construct a particular national identity.