History teaching for a mobile world
The global population is highly mobile, and the children of migrants may have a complex set of shifting loyalties. Researchers in the TranCit project are investigating how history is taught in four different countries, looking at how teaching can be made more inclusive to reflect the nature of today’s globalised world, as Professor Ellen Vea Rosnes explains.
The global population is highly mobile, and many European nations have experienced a significant influx of migrants over recent years. The children of migrants may have more complex and mixed loyalties than those who have lived in the same place all their lives, an issue central to the work of the TranCit project. “We are looking at the concept of transloyalties, where people have multiple loyalties,” explains Ellen Vea Rosnes, Professor in the Faculty of Theology and Social Sciences at VID specialized university in Norway. The point is well illustrated by a recent classroom exercise conducted by a primary school teacher in Norway, who asked pupils to draw an identity map, stressing that they were allowed to draw more than one flag. “Out of the class of 25 pupils, nine came from families where either one or both parents had emigrated to Norway. Four of these pupils drew two flags, while others did not draw a Norwegian flag at all,” says Professor Vea Rosnes.
Transloyalties
This is an important finding in terms of understanding the wider picture around
Norway (Study : Before and after unions and Nazi occupation)
• Independence from unions with Denmark 1814 and Sweden 1905
• Occupied by Germany during WWII (1940-1945)
• Indegenous populations (Sami population in the North)
• Assimilationist policies fostering national identity
• Maturing multicultural society
• Ranked 2 according to HDI
• Member of UNESCO since 1946
South Africa (study before and after Apartheid)
• British colony, Union of South Africa (1910-1949)
• Apartheid (1948-1994)
• Colonial legacies
• Identity politics historically impacted by race and local and region levels
• «Rainbow Nation»
• Ranked 110 according to HDI
• Member of SADC
• Readmitted as member of UNESCO in 1994
social inclusion and citizenship in modern societies. If teachers are not aware of these transloyalties and fail to reflect them in their teaching, Professor Vea Rosnes says there is a risk that the children of migrants will feel excluded from national discourse and debate. “If you don’t feel included as a citizen then there is a risk that you will distance yourself and feel that there is no room for you in society, that you don’t fit in,” she outlines. History is an important subject in this respect, as it can help shape how people see their nation and themselves, a topic that Professor Vea Rosnes and her team in the project are now exploring. “We will focus on history teaching in four countries, looking at
how it has been taught at different times. We will do this through archival material, looking at textbooks used in the past, and we will also enter modern classrooms,” she explains.
The project team are looking at history teaching in four different countries in this work, namely Norway, Mauritius, South Africa and finally Madagascar, an island nation colonised by France in the late 19 th century. Madagascar gained independence in 1960, but traces of the colonisers’ influence and language still remain in the education system. “For a long time the local language of Malagasy was not used in schools. French is not a language that most people mastered, so this had a huge impact on the educational system,” outlines Professor Vea Rosnes. By reflecting on the way that history has been taught in Madagascar’s schools, Professor Vea Rosnes hopes to encourage debate about the way it should be taught in future. “How can the material in the history curricula be presented in a more inclusive way? How can we reflect the fact that many pupils today have multiple loyalties?” she continues. This research is both historical and contemporary in scope, with the project
Madagascar (study before and after French colonisation)
• French colony (1896-1960)
• Colonial legacies
• Historically impacted by identity politics fostering ethnic and regional identity
• Ranked 177 according to HDI
• Receives considerable bi- and multilateral, technical and financial support in education
• Member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
• Member of UNESCO since independence in 1960
Mauritius (Study Before and after British colonisation)
• French colony (1715-1810)
• British colony (1810-1968)
• Colonial legacies marked by multiculturalism
• Ranked 72 according to HDI
• Member of SADC
• Member of UNESCO since independence in 1968
team looking at how history has been taught in each of the four countries, including at periods of great national upheaval such as following conflict or independence. The dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905 is a major event in Norwegian history for example. “There was an eagerness to ‘create’ the nation at this time, and to build a sense of loyalty to the newly independent nation,” says Professor Vea Rosnes. She explains that the project will also look into the way in which history was taught in Norwegian schools following the Second World War. The process of nation building involved some quite harsh treatment of certain sections of the population, in particular indigenous peoples in the north of Norway. “Some people were put in dormitories as children, and they could not speak their language in school. This failure to value a language in school is a practice which is quite similar to what we have seen, and still see, in Madagascar,” continues Professor Vea Rosnes.
back in order to understand the underlying conceptualisations and experiences,” says Professor Vea Rosnes. In apartheid South Africa great emphasis was placed in history teaching on the role of the settlers, while the story of indigenous populations and their perspectives were neglected.
There are some relatively simple measures that teachers and schools could take to guard against failed citizenship (ref: James. A. Banks), “when you don’t feel included as a citizen in your community or nation,”
Professor Vea Rosnes explains. This could be such as including a wider range of material and perspectives in lessons. The central aim in the project is to make history teaching more inclusive, and researchers plan to develop new tools with this goal firmly in mind. “We are looking to develop tools that teachers can use in their lessons. For instance, we plan to make a toolbox of pedagogical activities about postindependence Madagascar that we will share with teachers,” outlines Professor Vea Rosnes.
“Out of the class of 25 pupils, nine came from families where either one or both parents had emigrated to Norway. Four of these pupils drew two flags, while others did not draw a Norwegian flag at all.”
Mauritius gained its independence in 1968 and became a republic in 1992, which meant that the Queen of England would no longer be the head of state. PhD fellow Marie-Sophie Caroline Lafleur-Yallappa will focus on the interaction between loyalties and practices of citizenship education today. She will focus on how loyalties were constructed at a time when the island was preparing for its independence and the British were reinforcing their values through education in their colonies. Moreover, in order to understand the evolution of the educational system, and the nexus between loyalties and citizenship education in the post-independence period, Lafleur-Yallappa will also conduct action research in different secondary schools and analyse a range of textbooks.
South Africa under Apartheid
The project’s agenda also includes research into how history was taught in South African schools following the end of apartheid in 1994, a social policy under which the indigenous population were denied political and citizenship rights. PhD fellow Cliff Chinyama will focus on the period after 1994 in his work on the project, while researchers will also look back at the way history was taught under apartheid. “We need to look
TranCit
Transloyalties in Citizenship Education
Project Objectives
TranCit aims at analysing how education policies integrate citizenship education into History curricula and texbooks, and how teachers include citizenship education in history teaching through 4 case countries : Norway, Mauritius, Madagascar and South Africa. We aim to explore how historical conceptualizations influence contemporary education policies, urging teachers to engage with transloyalties, using diverse perspectives and pedagogical approaches.
Project Funding
Founded by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) (project number 334 299)
Project Partners
• VID Specialized University (Norway) –project host
• University of Stavanger (UiS, Norway)
• University of Antananarivo, Madagascar
• University of Mauritius, Mauritius
• University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Contact Details
Ellen Vea Rosnes, Professor and Vice Dean for Research Faculty of Theology and Social Sciences VID Campus Stavanger T: +47 411 44 476
E: ellen.rosnes@vid.no Agathe Desort (Assistant) E: agathe.desort@vid.no
Researchers are working on a number of articles related to history teaching in the four countries, while there is also a comparative element to the project’s work. “We would like to compare the different contexts,” continues Professor Vea Rosnes.
The four countries are at very different levels of development, with Norway towards the top of the Human Development Index (HDI), while Madagascar is at a much lower level. This affects the ability of the local population to act as global citizens, another major consideration in the project. “We often think that young people should go on exchange programmes and travel the world to become global citizens, with an awareness of common issues and challenges. Yet we also need to be aware that young people in Norway have the opportunity to do so to a much greater extent than their peers in Mauritius or Madagascar,” acknowledges Professor Vea Rosnes. This will inform the way transloyalties are viewed in the different countries, with Professor Vea Rosnes and the team making plans for the project, which still has two years to run. “We have held workshops to discuss the concepts, theories and methodologies, now we’re focusing on doing the action research, archival work and writing,” she says.
W: https://www.vid.no/en/research/ forskningsprosjekter/tranciteng/ : https://www.linkedin.com/ company/100026270/admin/feed/posts/ : https://www.facebook.com/profile. php?id=61551617080428
Work Package – Madagascar: Dr. Helihanta Rajaonarison Work Package – South Africa: Prof. Kalpana Hiralal Work Package - Mauritius: Lecturer and PhD candidate Sheetal Sheena Sookrajowa Work Package - Norway: Associate Prof. Brit Marie Hovland
Ellen Vea Rosnes leads the project at VID, where she is Professor. The bulk of Rosnes’ research is about literacy, education, mission, colonial and postcolonial history, and teachers’ intercultural competence in diverse educational settings.
