국외 역사교육의 ‘역사의식’ 연구동향과 그 시사점

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide diverse approaches to historical consciousness with the help of studies on the subject in other countries. Especially in Canada and the United States, historical consciousness has emerged as an important subject in history education. Jörn Rüsen, who is one of the leading scholars in this field, has suggested four types of historical consciousness, namely traditional, exemplary, critical and generic. And they basically form an ascending linear progression. His focus is on the connection between the development of historical consciousness and moral judgments. Working on Rüsen’s scheme, Peter Seixas has given a more systematic arrangement to the four types. Seixas can be differentiated from Rüsen in that while the former puts what he calls ‘historical epistemology’ at the center of the development of historical consciousness, the latter categorizes the forms of historical consciousness mainly in terms of substantive knowledge about the past. Peter Lee, without denying the merits of Rüsen’s study, makes a critical point that Rüsen’s typology does not fully take into account students’ metahistorical ideas, that is to say their ideas of the discipline of history. In Lee’s opinion, history education needs to emphasize the development of students’ metahistorical thinking. Jürgen Straub, among many other things, tackles the problem of whether historical consciousness is an anthropological universal or a historical product. Straub gravitates towards its historical aspects and argues that modern historical consciousness is related to being aware of historicity and contingency of our world. Lastly Sam Wineburg, with the help of the study of collective memory by Maurice Halbwachs, shows that several elements such as family, community, mass media, and others are in play in the development of students’ historical consciousness. And he suggests that researchers see school history education in the context of the ‘cultural curriculum’ and realize its importance in the shaping of students’ consciousness.