History teaching and the making of national history standards in the United States

The thesis is about history teaching and the making of national history standards in the United States. After a brief introduction to the problem in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 cites arguments about the importance of history education in general as well as an historical background to problems and issues in writing history. This historical introduction briefly reviews ?history writing in the Nineteenth Century,? ?history writing in the Twentieth Century,? and ?issues in history writing in the United States.? An historical review of history writing in the United States intoduces us to the contentious issues that will be studied in detail in the following chapters of the thesis. The example of the United States is chosen to reflect upon the issues and arguments in developing and making history standards in a highly developed nation-state.Chapter 3 of the thesis gives a detailed account of the reform movement to develop history education in the United States. The stages of developing the history standards, better known as the National History Standards Project, are analyzed in detailed. Academics and history teachers who have contributed to developing these standards, the difficulties encountered during the development process, and the affects of these standards on history teaching are studied in this third chapter.Chapter 4 covers the whole reform process during which the history curriculum in the United States was discussed from every angle of the problem. The formulation of a new vision in developing secondary and high school education in the United States is analyzed in depth in this chapter. The detailed history of the National History Standards Project and academics working on this project are the main subject of this chapter.The whole process at the end of which the concerned parties finally reached a consensus on the parameters of the National History Standards Project is the main body of Chapter 6 of the thesis. Here the viewpoints of various institutions who were concerned with the project are introduced and elaborated with a view to make clear on which issues opposing arguments were focused and how they were resolved.In Chapter 7 the main elements of the National History Standards Project are enumerated and explained in full. This chapter of the thesis is crucial, since these established standards set an example for future studies and reform movements, not only in the United States alone, but in other countries as well.The reshaping of the curriculum for American history courses and principal elements of this new curriculum are discussed in Chapter 8. Here I have tried to show how the new standards that have been developed through years of discussion have changed and reshaped the new curriculum in the United States.Chapter 9 uses extensive research in the United States concerning the the positive and negative criticisms levelled against the new curriculum and the contents of the school textbooks written according to these standards.Building upon the issues discussed in previous chapters of the thesis, Chapter 10 elaborates on the effects of the National History Standards, and of the textbooks written acoording to these standards on learning history among American high school students. Extensive research results are cited with their accompanying statistical data in this chapter of the thesis.Finally, in the Conclusion of the thesis, I have tried to point out the importance of the development and reshaping of history standards, and effects of these standards on the high school students. Long discussions among American academics and the public in creating the new history standards have shown that this is a highly sensitive issue. I have also tried to make comparisons with Turkey, concerning discussions in reshaping history curriculum in Turkey.