The enormous quantitative increase in historical-cultural phenomena in German society represents a major challenge for history lessons in all types and levels of school: On the one hand, experiences in extracurricular historical culture also shape pupils' historical awareness and thus represent an important condition for the constitution of learning processes at school. On the other hand, most pupils are likely to encounter representations of history in their current and later lives that are not science-based, but rather history-cultural - hence the need to enable them to deal appropriately with such phenomena, which in recent research is often referred to as "historical-cultural competence".

This research focus is about two things: on the one hand, it aims to develop the basic lines of a didactics of historical culture that is pragmatic in terms of teaching, and on the other hand, it aims to develop content, methodological and media implementation perspectives. A series of university courses on historical culture - closely linking research and teaching - also serve both purposes. This has resulted in two issues of the journal "Geschichte lernen" on the topics of "Denkmäler" and "Mittelalter in der Geschichtskultur"; a systematic monograph is in preparation.

• Dietmar von Reeken: History culture in history lessons as a contribution to cultural education? In: Max Fuchs, Tom Braun (ed.): Kulturelle Unterrichtsentwicklung. Basics - Concepts - Examples, Weinheim 2018, pp. 199-206
• Dietmar von Reeken: The Middle Ages in historical culture. Phenomena, causes and didactic perspectives, in: Geschichte lernen 170, 2016, pp. 2-7
• Dietmar von Reeken: "The most striking thing is that you don't notice them. Monuments as representational sources for history lessons, in: Geschichte lernen 121, 2008, pp. 2-11
• Dietmar von Reeken: Historical culture in history lessons. Justifications and perspectives, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 55, 2004, pp. 233-240
• Dietmar von Reeken: Medieval market and Wehrmacht exhibition. On the significance of historical culture for schools, in: Göttinger Fachdidaktische Beiträge Heft 5/2002, pp. 19-33