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Historical significance

Some would say the Ferranti MRT is "just" a clipboard with a built in calculator, but others claim it has historical significance as "the world's first application-specific handheld computer".

Historical significance is a historiographical key concept that explores and seeks to explain the selection of particular social and cultural past events for remembrance by human societies. This element of selection involved in both ascribing and analyzing historical significance is one factor in making the discipline of history distinct from the past.[1] Historians consider knowledge of dates and events within and between specific historical periods the primary content of history, also known as "first-order knowledge" or substantive concepts. In contrast, historical significance is an example of a subject specific secondary key concept or "second-order knowledge" also known as a meta-concept,[2] or disciplinary concept,[3] which is typically used to help organize knowledge within a subject area, frame suitable areas of inquiry, provide the framework upon which substantive knowledge can be built, and map learner progression within a subject discipline.[4] Specifically with regards to historical significance, the way dates and events are chosen and ascribed relative significance is not fixed and can change over time according to which criteria were used to form the judgement of significance as well as how those criteria were chosen themselves in the first place. This aspect to significance has been described as:

“a flexible relationship between us and the past”.[5]

Historical significance is often regarded as involving judging why a particular person or event is remembered and why another is not, it is this aspect of reasoned and evaluative judgement about historical significance that makes history writing differ from being simply a record of past events.[6]

"as soon as we turn to questions of significance—of why something happened versus the mere fact of its happening—history becomes an act of judgment."[7]

This emphasis on exploring what has been deemed significant by certain societies in contrast to what has been left out of the historical record has led to historical significance often being paired with the concept of historical silence, which looks at why and how certain social class, racial, and/or ethnic groups have not featured in the historical record or whose contributions have not been seen as significant at particular times, and in particular contexts.[8][9][10][11] Thus historical significance is not an intrinsic or fixed property of a particular historical event but rather more of an assessment of who, why, and how that event was judged significant enough to be remembered.[12] With this potential fluidity in mind, it therefore follows that any assessment of historical significance should not be seen as fixed or permanent.[13]

"historical significance is not an enduring or unchanging characteristic of any particular event. It is a contingent quality that depends on the perspective from which that event is subsequently viewed."[13]

  1. ^ Bergman, Karin (2020-10-20). "How younger students perceive and identify historical significance". History Education Research Journal. 17 (2). doi:10.14324/HERJ.17.2.03. ISSN 2631-9713. S2CID 228960478.
  2. ^ van Drie, Jannet; van Boxtel, Carla (June 2008). "Historical Reasoning: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Students' Reasoning about the Past" (PDF). Educational Psychology Review. 20 (2): 87–110. doi:10.1007/s10648-007-9056-1. ISSN 1040-726X. S2CID 18301284.
  3. ^ Ofsted. "Developing disciplinary thinking through disciplinary concepts". Research review series: history. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
  4. ^ Cambridge Assessment (18 March 2022). "Getting started with Key Concepts". Cambridge Assessment International Examinations. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  5. ^ Seixas, Peter (2013). The big six : historical thinking concepts. Tom Morton, Jill Colyer, Stefano Fornazzari. Toronto: Nelson Education. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-17-654154-5. OCLC 809317321.
  6. ^ Coffin, C (2006). Historical Discourse: The language of time, cause and evaluation. London: Continuum. pp. 129–130. ISBN 0826487769.
  7. ^ Wineburg, Samuel S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts : charting the future of teaching the past. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 249–250. ISBN 1-56639-855-X. OCLC 45304687.
  8. ^ Levstik, Linda S. (2008). Researching history education : theory, method, and context. Keith C. Barton. New York. pp. 273–291. ISBN 978-1-4106-1676-0. OCLC 1022560730.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. ^ Trouillot, Michel-Rolph (2015). Silencing the past : power and the production of history. Boston: Beacon Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-8070-8053-5. OCLC 924271500.
  10. ^ Miles, James (2019-05-27). "Historical silences and the enduring power of counter storytelling". Curriculum Inquiry. 49 (3): 253–259. doi:10.1080/03626784.2019.1633735. ISSN 0362-6784. S2CID 201328431.
  11. ^ Misco, Thomas (2008-04-01). ""We did also save people": A Study of Holocaust Education in Romania After Decades of Historical Silence". Theory & Research in Social Education. 36 (2): 61–94. doi:10.1080/00933104.2008.10473367. ISSN 0093-3104. S2CID 144534854.
  12. ^ Counsell, C. (2004). "Looking through a Josephine-Butler shaped window: Focusing pupils' thinking on historical significance". Teaching History, 114: 30–36 – via Historical Association.
  13. ^ a b "Significance". Historical Association. Retrieved 17 March 2022.

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