Controversial issues

The legacy of the past and its impact on the present, as well as the process of interpretation by which accounts of the past are constructed, mean that many topics studied in history may carry an emotional charge. Certain events or developments may have a particular relevance – or resonance – for some young people and their communities, but carry different overtones (or none at all) for others. This section contains advice and resources for teachers who are tackling potentially sensitive topics that may generate emotionally charged responses and explores the issues that may arise as topics studied in the classroom intersect with personal, family and community histories. The materials here will help teachers to reflect carefully on the appropriateness of their objectives and to develop effective teaching strategies for promoting sensitive and productive kinds of discussion, especially when both the past and its implications for the present are disputed. They highlight the risks involved and the ways in which they can be mitigated, and include guidance and advice related to the Prevent Strategy.

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  • Moving Year 9 towards more complex causal explanations of Holocaust perpetration

    Article

    Building on research by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, Matthew Duncan was concerned that his students were drawn to simplistic explanations of Holocaust perpetrators’ actions. As well as the UCL Centre’s research, Duncan drew on history education research from Canada and history teachers’ theorisation in England for inspiration in...

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  • My journey to Bosnia: The Balkans Conflict 22 years on

    Multipage Article

    In these pages HA Education Manager Melanie Jones shares her own personal experiences and reflections from a recent educational visit to Bosnia, and looks at ways in which British schools might be able to explore aspects of the 1990s Balkans Conflict.  In September 2017 I was approached by a small charitable organisation Remembering...

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  • Navigating the ‘imperial history wars’

    Article

    Concerned by the growing tendency of politicians and press to revive the moral balance-sheet approach to British imperial history and by some evidence of its resurgence in schools, Alex Benger set about devising a framework which would keep pupils’ analysis rigorously historical, rather than moral and politicised. In this article,...

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  • New, Novice or Nervous? 153: Good Enquiry Questions

    Article

    This page is for those new to the published writings of history teachers. Every problem you wrestle with, other teachers have wrestled with too. Quick fixes don't exist. But if you discover others' writing, you'll soon find - and want to join - something better: an international conversation in which...

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  • New, Novice or Nervous? 166: Controversial issues

    Article

    History thrives on questioning, debate and controversy. What makes something controversial varies, however, and we may fail to notice, unless we think very carefully about it, the particular ways in which our lessons can become controversial for our pupils. When we tackle historical issues that might be seen as controversial, disturbing, shocking or...

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  • Nutshell 127

    Article

    What exactly is TEACH all about? It stands for Teaching Emotive and controversial Issues in History. It was a project funded by the DfES and produced by the Historical Association. The main focus was on how such matters are addressed by those teaching history to those as young as 3...

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  • Podcast Series: Confronting Controversial History

    Multipage Article

    Controversial History formed the focus of the Historical Association’s report, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History 3-19 (TEACH). Published in 2007, it offered teachers invaluable guidance for teaching historical topics that can stir emotion and controversy. However, the authors noted how the nature of the sensitivity can be affected by ‘time, geography and...

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  • Polychronicon 153: Re-interpreting Liberation: the end of the Holocaust?

    Article

    In August 1945, Zalman Grinberg, a doctor from Kovno and spokesman for the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany, addressed 1,700 Jewish survivors. ‘What is the logic of destiny to let these individuals remain alive?!' he asked them: We are free now, but we do not know what...

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  • Putting Catlin in his place?

    Article

    Jess Landy’s desire to introduce her pupils to a more complex narrative of the American West led her to the life story and work of a remarkable individual, George Catlin.  In this article she shows how she used this unusual micro-narrative in order to challenge pupils’ ideas not just about the bigger narrative of which it is a part, but about the...

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  • T.E.A.C.H Online

    Multipage Article

    T.E.A.C.H. Online is a resource that follows on from the Historical Association's T.E.A.C.H. Report published in 2007 with support from DCSF. It offers further expert advice, case studies, materials and classroom resources for teachers of history on teaching emotive and controversial history from Foundation Stage to Key Stage 5. N.B....

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  • TEACH Statement

    4th March 2008

    The TEACH report outlines the sort of good practice in teaching sensitive topics which is available for teachers to share, not least through the Historical Association's programme of subject-specific training. The Historical Association is disturbed to learn that false and misleading claims about the teaching of the Holocaust are being...

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  • Teaching about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and events happening there

    Article

    The events of the last few days appear to have come out of nowhere to many people, especially children. While tensions have existed in the region for some time Russia’s decision to attack Ukraine was without provocation. To have war return in such a way to the edges of Europe...

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  • Teaching the very recent past

    Article

    ‘Miriam's Vision' is an educational project developed by the Miriam Hyman Memorial Trust, an organisation set up in memory of Miriam Hyman, one of the 52 victims of the London bombings of 2005. The project has developed a number of subject-based modules, including history, which are provided free to schools...

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  • Telling difficult stories about the creation of Bangladesh

    Article

    Nathanael Davies recognised that previous efforts to diversify the history taught at his school by weaving new stories into the curriculum had made little impression on his students’ assumptions about what really counted as history. Planning a new enquiry on the creation of Bangladesh was intended both to bridge a...

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  • The History of Afro-Brazilian People

    Article

    International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 15, Number 1 – Autumn/Winter 2017ISSN: 14472-9474 Abstract This work is part of the following research projects: ‘Indians, Quilombolas, and Napalm’ funded by the Ministry of Education (MEC/CAPES-Brazil), and ‘Teaching-learning methodology and evaluation in controversial social issues of humanities and its...

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  • The T.E.A.C.H. Project

    Article

    The report look at approaches that enable teachers to tackle these issues in ordinary lessons through rigorous and engaging teaching while at the same time challenging discrimination and prejudice.

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  • The T.E.A.C.H. Report

    Article

    The TEACH report outlines the sort of good practice in teaching sensitive topics which is available for teachers to share, not least through the Historical Association's programme of subject-specific training.

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  • Transatlantic slavery – shaping the question, lengthening the narrative, broadening the meaning

    Article

    Nathanael Davies explains his radical rethink of how to teach transatlantic slavery. He explains how he came to question his earlier approach of focusing on the causation of ‘abolition’ and ‘emancipation’ and, instead, allowed scholarship, sources and his own students’ meaning-making to guide him to a different, and much more...

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  • Triumphs Show: A head, a hook and international theft: getting year 9 to debate the intricacies of the impact of empire

    Article

    The draft of the revised Key Stage 3 programme of study for history brings a new prominence to the study of the British Empire. Here one department describes their triumph in enabling students to engage with a topic which could seem very distant from their own lives.

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  • Unravelling the complexity of the causes of British abolition with Year 8

    Article

    Elizabeth Marsay wanted to ensure that her students were not hindered in their causal explanations of the abolition of slavery by being exposed to overly categorical, simplistic, and monocausal narratives in the classroom. By drawing on both English and Canadian theorisation about causation, Marsay outlines how her introduction of competing...

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