Beliefs and practices of prospective history teachers on the relationship between past and present in history education.

Contemporary Western European societies hold differing and partially conflicting expectations towards history education. History education is considered as an autonomous introduction into culture, as a contribution to the formation of critical and democratic cosmopolitans and as an introduction into the scientific discipline of history. Behind these views there are not only differring expectations towards the education in general, but also different ideas about the relationship between past and present. In this project, the central question is how prospective teachers in Flanders deal with the conflicting expectations considering the position of past and present as formulated in the normative texts (curriculum and attainment targets). This research consists of the development, optimization and scientific valorisation of two assessment tools, a questionnaire and a set of performance tasks. Answers will be sought on questions like: what impact has the present on the ideas of prospective history teachers on good history education? Is there a coherence between their ideas and their (novice) practices? Are there differences between students in a professional education bachelor and students from an academic teacher training?

Keywords:Prospective teachers, Ideas and practices, Assessment rools, History education

Disciplines:History, Instructional sciences, Education curriculum