Canadian Social Studies - Special Issue - New Approaches to Teaching History - Teaching Second Order Concepts in Canadian History

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS

The article examines the second order concept of “historical significance” and explains the criteria used in history and school history to decide what counts as significant. It analyzes how Francophone and Anglophone students assign significance to selected Canadian historical events, and evaluates implications for students, educators, and how officials make decisions within school systems. It also contrasts tensions between official school narratives and students’ home and community memories, showing why classroom contradictions matter.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Historical significance as a second order concept

Criteria and contestation in school history

Official curricula vs students’ frames of understanding

CANADIAN SOCIAL STUDIES VOLUME 39 NUMBER 2, WINTER 2005 [www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css](www.quasar.ualberta.ca/css) Special Issue: New Approaches to Teaching History Teaching second order concepts in Canadian history: The importance of "historical significance". Stéphane Lévesque University of Western Ontario Return to Articles Abstract This article addresses the second order concept of "historical significance" and attempts to answer the question of what criteria are used to make decisions about it in history and school history. Specifically, it explores the way Francophone and Anglophone students ascribe significance to selected historical events in Canada and discusses the implications of this study for history students and educators. The necessity of (re)considering how officials make decisions about historical significance in the school system is also examined. What makes a Canadian event or character historically significant to study? How do historians, teachers, and students make their selections between the "significant" and the"trivial"? What prompts individuals and groups to identify with certain events and figures and not with others? Traditionally, English Canadian historical monographs and school textbooks have carried the implicit message that historical significance should be ascribed to white middle and upper class British males in positions of power or authority. Understandably, French Canadians have had, for their part, a high suspicion of such a hegemonic definition of Canadian historical significance, for obvious political and cultural reasons. Historian John Dickinson (1996, 148) has summed it up as this, "Canadian historiography has never been unified, and the two linguistic traditions are as different from one another as from foreign historiographies." Nowadays, with greater recognition of the "French fact," the empowerment of previously marginalized groups, and a redefinition and enlargement of the field of history, answering the question of Canadian historical significance remains highly problematic. Recent studies (Barton 2001; Barton & Levstik 1998; Epstein 1998; Seixas, 1994; Yeager, Foster & Greer 2002) indicate that the concept of "historical significance" appears to be shifting and politically contested. "Standards of significance," Seixas (1997, 22) contends, "apparently inhere not only in the past itself, but in the interpretative frames and values of those who study it ourselves." Teachers, students, and people in general, no less than historians, confront the study of the past with their own mental framework of historical significance shaped by their particular cultural and linguistic heritage, family practices, popular culture influence, and last, but not least, school history experience. The school community is an official site where some forms of common history are explicitly introduced to students. In Canada, as in other jurisdictions, the selection of historical events and characters to study as well as the design of curricula and textbooks rely on the notion of historical significance. In one way or another, Ministries of Education do (voluntarily or not) make distinctions between what they perceive as historically significant and trivial, and between what is "approved" and "ignored." In the same way, students do not passively absorb what is mandated by the Ministry or presented by their teachers and textbooks. Rather, they filter and sift, remember and forget, add to, modify, or reconstruct their own framework of historical understanding (Wineburg 2001) . Clearly, the result of this complexity has serious implications for school history. Because of the potential disparity between the official versions presented in class, what professional historians may think, and the vernacular stories of the collective past commemorated at home or in their community, students are faced with contradictory and puzzling accounts of their past. And if not well addressed

FAQs

What is the second order concept of “historical significance” discussed in the article?

It focuses on how decisions are made about what historical events are considered significant, rather than treating significance as fixed facts in the past.

How does the article relate students’ views to cultural and linguistic background?

It examines how Francophone and Anglophone students ascribe significance to historical events in Canada, shaped by cultural and linguistic heritage and school history experience.

Why can contradictions between official versions and vernacular stories affect school history learning?

Students may face puzzling, contradictory accounts; if these collisions are not addressed, they can become highly suspicious of historical study.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by SANS