PhD thesis proposal: “Learning to Teach History: A Qualitative Study on the Development of Subject-Specific Thinking and Planning Patterns amongst Primary School Teachers within the Framework of a Series of Professional Development Sessions on Historical Learning in General Studies”

At a time of social upheaval, political polarisation and global crises, engagement with history is becoming increasingly relevant – not only in public discourse, but also within the education system. Children, too, encounter historical themes at an early age, whether through media representations, family stories or even through buildings, street names, narratives, radio plays, books and films. This ubiquity of historical references raises the question of how children can be empowered to form reflective historical judgements whilst still at primary school age (Becher/Gläser 2023). In the discussion on subject-specific pedagogy, General Studies is assigned the task of contributing to the development of a reflective historical consciousness (GDSU 2013). Although this objective is enshrined in the ‘Perspektivrahmen General Studies’ (Framework for General Studies) and in the core curricula of the federal states, its concrete implementation by teachers has so far remained largely unexplored. Initial empirical studies indicate that primary school teachers have so far paid only limited attention to the historical perspective when planning lessons (Bade 2024) and, at the same time, possess rather limited professional knowledge of history didactics as well as only moderate levels of self-efficacy (Hartmann 2019). Given the high social relevance of learning about history and the fact that corresponding educational objectives are enshrined in the curriculum, this finding points to a key challenge: as it is reasonable to assume that inadequate professional preparation of teachers hinders practical implementation in the classroom and, consequently, the potential of General Studies to foster reflective historical judgement at primary school age has not yet been fully realised. There is therefore a need for professional development which has not yet been systematically addressed in research on either general studies didactics or history didactics (Krösche 2021; von Reeken 2017).

In light of this, this doctoral project will, for the first time, develop, deliver and evaluate a series of continuing professional development courses in history didactics specifically for general studies teachers, in order to investigate how teachers’ subject-specific planning and interpretation patterns change as a result of participating in history-didactically grounded professional development, and what significance they attribute to this for their own professional development. The professional development programme was designed on the basis of the conditions for the success of effective teacher training as outlined by Lipowsky and Rzejak (2019) and adapted to history-related General Studies. The professional development programme was held from February to May 2025 at the University of Oldenburg with a total of nine general studies teachers from primary and special schools in Lower Saxony. The training comprised a total of three face-to-face modules as well as an online module with accompanying transfer phases, during which the participants tested the content in their own classroom practice.

To collect data, problem-centred interviews using vignettes were conducted with the participating teachers both before and after the training. The data were analysed using content-structuring qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz (2018).

Bibliography

Bade, Gesine: Teachers of General Studies: Between Aspiration and Reality. Underestimated Potential of Political Education in Primary Schools, Frankfurt am Main 2024.

Becher, Andrea/Gläser, Eva: ‘Learning about History’, in: Goll, Eva Maria/Goll, Thomas (eds.): ‘Fundamentals of the Didactics of General Studies’, Frankfurt am Main 2023.

Society for the Didactics of General Studies (eds.): Framework for General Studies. Fully revised and expanded edition. Bad Heilbrunn 2013.

Hartmann, Carina: Teacher Professionalism in History-Related General Studies. Subject-Specific Pedagogical Knowledge, Motivational Orientations and Beliefs in the Context of Institutional Teacher Training (Empirical Research in Early Years and Primary Education 4), Bad Heilbrunn 2019.

Krösche, Heike: Teaching and Fostering Early Historical Thinking Amidst the Tension between Curricular Requirements and Professionalisation Processes in Primary Teacher Training, in: Buchberger, Wolfgang/Kühberger, Christoph (eds.): Historical Learning in Primary Education. Viewpoints – Challenges – Perspectives, Innsbruck 2021, pp. 133–150.

Kuckartz, Udo: Qualitative Content Analysis. Methods, Practice, Computer Support, 4th ed., Weinheim Basel 2018.

Lipowsky, Frank/Rzejak, Daniela: What Makes Teacher Training Successful? An Update, in: Groot-Wilken, Bernd/Koerber, Rolf (eds.): Sustainable Professional Development for Teachers. Ideas, Developments, Concepts, Bielefeld 2019, pp. 15–56.

Reeken, Dietmar von: Teaching and Learning History, in: Hartinger, Andreas/Lange, Kim (eds.): General Studies – Didactics for Primary Schools, 4th ed., Berlin 2017, pp. 105–122.