LOCAL HISTORY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS: AN HISTORIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

While much has been written advocating the teaching of local history, little has been done to investigate systematically its educational potential. This study explores the educational potential of local history within the secondary school curriculum. The present study begins with a consideration of goals for the secondary school curriculum in which the fields of disciplined inquiry are identified as the source of content for instruction. The development of the discipline of history is analyzed and local history is shown to exemplify important new perspectives, especially cultural history, social history and the interpretation of material culture. A critical review of the literature on the educational uses of local history shows that most studies have emphasized that local history motivates students, and a few studies have emphasized that local history involves students in the methods of inquiry of historical scholarship; but the potential of local history to introduce secondary school students to new perspectives within the discipline of history has not been adequately analyzed in the literature. Sixteen case studies of local history projects involving secondary school students in schools and museums are presented. These case studies demonstrate the ways in which local history can be used to teach students the concepts of cultural history and social history, and to involve students in the methods of historical inquiry, especially the interpretation of material culture. Finally, four conceptual problems concerning the educational uses of local history are identified. The historiographic perspective on the teaching of local history developed in the present study is summarized by two principles: the Principle of Historical Comparison and the Principle of Historical Method. The usefulness of these two principles in resolving the conceptual problems is shown. In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that the educational potential of local history lies in teaching students important new perspectives in the discipline of history