| This dissertation focuses on the epistemological foundations and the vision of high school history teachers regarding history teaching and citizenship education. The work has to be considered within the context of history curriculum reform that now engages teachers in an education for democratic citizenship. This educational project is based on the premise that learning history, its specific manner of thinking and method, allows the formation of individuals capable of critical thinking and self-awareness. This vision of history teaching implies that students practice historical thinking, analyze different sources and construct historical interpretations. In so doing, it is believed that they will develop an understanding of the world based on the use of concepts and complex thinking, which would also contribute to the objective of citizenship education. However, research shows that teachers use more traditional teaching methods than those mentioned above (Charland, 2003; Martineau, 1997). Consequently, the new programs expect that teachers will change their practices. But such a change can't be declared "from above". Teachers' beliefs are slow to change and they greatly determine the historical formation and citizenship education that students receive. These beliefs are the object of this dissertation's study. I observed these beliefs through the angle of the theory of social representations and the models of "central core" (noyau central) (Abric, 1994) and organizing principles (Moliner, 1996) that allow the identification of existing relationships between different representations. I conducted an exploratory qualitative type research. My research consist of semi-structured interviews, lasting an average of 120 minutes, conducted on a sample of eighteen high school history teachers from Montreal, Quebec City and Natives communities of Quebec. The tool for gathering and analyzing data draws from the methodological developments made in research on social representations (hierarchical evocation continued or limited, conceptual designs) (Abric, 1994, 1997). The results identify the epistemological and didactic foundations, the content and the structure, as well as the relationship between the representations of history and citizenship education. They also highlight teachers' ideological and pedagogical beliefs.;Keywords : Social representation, epistemology, didactics, history, citizenship, teaching and learning, teachers... |
