‘Walking backwards into tomorrow’ Historical consciousness and understanding history

Abstract This paper, which should be viewed as work in progress rather than as a research report or a finished conceptual argument, examines some elements of Jörn Rüsen’s theory of history and historical consciousness. It makes a preliminary and tentative attempt to tease out the ways in which Rüsen’s theory may be helpful or problematic for thinking about history education’s role in orienting young people in time, and in particular the extent to which his typology of the ontogeny of historical consciousness may be useful for researchers. It is suggested that any theory of historical consciousness and its development in students should pay attention to students ’ metahistorical understanding of the discipline of history as well as their conceptions of the past. A strength of Rüsen’s theory of historical consciousness is that it demands attention to both these two kinds of ideas, and points up the relationships that must exist between them. However, the ontogenetic typology offered by Rüsen needs to be treated with care by researchers. This is because its very attempt to provide an all-encompassing account of the development of historical consciousness, whether or not it is seen as exhaustive, compels it to conflate matters that demand differentiated analysis. Rüsen himself recognizes that the development of historica