The problem of teleological history education and the possibilities of a multispecies, multiscalar, and non-continuous history

ABSTRACT

In its concern with orienting students in relation to past, present and future, history education is crucially placed to pioneer generative approaches for making sense of change over time and to equip students to critically scrutinise meanings of history. Impending climate catastrophe, the still unfolding global pandemic and rising xenophobic populism are interconnected crises that demand an expansive view of historical understanding that might equip students to recognise the myriad, powerful ways that meanings of history are imagined and mobilised in human societies. Yet, in the history curricula of Western nation-states, that task remains remarkably narrow, focused on the kinds of knowledge and understanding that modern historical thinking can produce. Our focus in this article is two-fold. First, we show how history curriculum in Australia, Canada, and the United States already implicitly conveys meanings of history – which we label ‘teleological’—and provides only limited opportunities to engage critically with alternate meanings of historical change. Second, we canvass some expanded and enlarged forms of historical thinking that embrace discontinuity, rupture and more-than-humanness that might help students and teachers imagine radically different futures.

KEYWORDS:

• Progress
• historical thinking
• Teleology
• history education
• history curriculum
• Narrative

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

James Miles

Dr. James Miles is a visiting assistant professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. His research explores the relationship between history education, historical injustice and memory in settler colonial contexts.

Mati Keynes

Dr Mati Keynes is a settler scholar living and working on unceded and sovereign Wurundjeri land. Mati is currently a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. Their research in history and education explores the nexus between transitional justice, governance, and education, particularly in settler colonial and Nordic welfare state contexts.