| This study examines the process by which students do (and don't) use their school history knowledge when reading the news. Academically able history students (n = 10) from two schools that reflected different ideological commitments were asked to think aloud as they read current newspaper articles on school prayer, Starbucks' treatment of its Guatemalan coffee workers, removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina's statehouse dome, and U.S. intervention in the Bosnian war. Analyses focus on how students use their history knowledge to interpret current affairs. Three analyses comprise the study. The first examines the historical events and ideas students mentioned. The second examines the students' interpretive styles. The third looks more closely at the performance of an exemplary student who exhibited generative thinking that extended his initial learning, and presents a close study of his argumentation. Principal findings include: (1) To engage a topic, both groups used common frameworks of historical eras (periodization) and shared value terms and questions (interpreted here as key orienting devices for political talk in the public sphere). (2) However, the two groups used different background narratives (which contrasted how things were at some point "back then" and how things are "now") and interpretive styles, and these frameworks differentiated the two groups' historical outlooks and news story interpretations. (3) The exemplary student examined displayed an argumentation modeling frame, in which he simultaneously elaborated: (a) a representation of the situation (the contemporary event in historical context), by implicitly asking how novel the newspaper claims, and (b) his own policy position, by implicitly asking how valid the newspaper claims. Findings suggest students are socialized into frameworks for using the past that influence the history they apply, with implications for their future learning. Conclusions address the cultural resources students exploited, the relation between the psychological representation of history and the organization of public discourse in American society, and what we might learn from the exemplary student in this study. |
