History

Developing Knowledge and Skills

In liberal democracies, individuals are invested with the responsibility to make choices that affect their own welfare and that of others, including actions that directly influence public policy, such as voting, joining political groups, and attempting to persuade others. Citizen actions that may lie outside institutionalized politics - such as efforts within schools, unions, neighborhoods, and the like - also depend on choices made by individuals. A principal assumption of this form of government is that citizens will ground their choices in knowledge and in reasoned consideration of evidence (Audigier, 2000; Dewey, 1910; Engle and Ochoa, 1988). This requires both an understanding of human society and a mastery of certain skills, such as the ability to locate, evaluate, and synthesize information. Formal education is widely believed to play a crucial role in developing the knowledge [Page 356]and skills necessary for this kind of informed and effective citizenry, and history is often credited with four distinct contributions to that effort.

History's most frequently defended contribution to liberal democracy lies in its ability to provide citizens with an understanding of people and society (McNeill, 1989; Stearns, 1998). In this view, citizens use history the way scientists use laboratories: Through learning about historical events, they can better understand relationships among elements of the social world, as well as how changes in those relationships come about and how developments in one area may have consequences for another. Equipped with such knowledge, citizens would be better able to make reasonable decisions about which current policies they wish to support. The complexity and concreteness of historical experience, from this perspective, provides a basis for choices that would be less well-informed if citizens were limited only to their knowledge of the contemporary world. A second aspect of history considered especially important for citizenship involves tracing the origins of current issues (Becker, 1913; Marwick, 1970; McNeill, 1989). Political affairs, ethnic relations, social attitudes, and economic patterns all have evolved over time, and an understanding of their historical development should help citizens clarify how they can preserve or challenge various elements of the world they have inherited.

...