Using textbook resources to constructing ideas in history: a study with portuguese students about ideas on slavery and the slavery traffic from Africa to Brazil

Artigo está a ser submetido à revista IJHLTR- INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL LEARNING TEACHING AND RESEARCHThis exploratory study is part of a post doctoral Project on how Brazilian and Portuguese textbooks present slavery and the slavery trade, and how students make sense of this issue namely when dealing with their textbook resources. A group of students attending an year-8 class of a northern school in Portugal were asked about the meaning of slavery and their possible consequences for Brazil and Portugal in the light of evidence on the slave traffic and slave work during the sixteenth century, displayed by their textbooks. The students’ data were inductively analysed. They will be discussed taking into account, (a) the specific process of that analysis, and (b) some results about how textbook conceptions and students’ ideas possibly relate within a situated learning principle, where previous knowledge, experience, and the specific task itself might influence the students’ ideas and/or outcomes.This work is funded by CIEd – Research Centre on Education, projects UID/CED/1661/2013 and UID/CED/1661/2016, Institute of Education, University of Minho, through national funds of FCT/MCTES-PT. This work is funded by CIEd- Research Centre on Education, Intituto de Educação, UMinho, through national funds, of FCT/MCTES-PT.