Chapter 10: Addressing Teacher Epistemology and Ideology in History Pedagogy: Teaching Historical Thinking and Media

Within the field of history education, one of the primary foci for researchers and teacher educators over the past three decades has been teacher and student epistemic beliefs about the nature of history and the role of epistemic cognition in teaching and learning history —also known as “historical thinking” or “historical understanding” (Maggioni & Parkinson, 2008). Although there have been great research and theoretical advances in understanding teacher and student epistemology and its relation to teaching and learning about the past, there have also been great challenges in implementing these ideas on a large scale through teacher education and in schools (VanSledright, 2010). Barriers to this implementation are present in the form of outdated teacher education, state standards and the accountability movement, and in the fact that it is extremely difficult to shift pedagogy in any area—let alone a field such as history that is also a major site of the “culture wars” (Thornton & Barton, 2010; VanSledright, 2010).