Teaching History at school: An approach from the analysis of the school text

Abstract

This article presents the analysis of the teaching of history in the context of school education. For this, the curricular guidelines proposed by the Ministry of Education and the methodological guidelines present in the study text of 6th year of basic education in Chile are described. Specifically, it investigates the ways to approach the themes related to the history of the 20th century in Chile, pointing out the existence of pedagogical and historiographic perspectives that are transmitted through official educational instruments. The methodology used is qualitative, using the documentary review of texts as the methodology for collecting information. Based on these principles, the main results show a strong emphasis on factual content linked mainly to the memorization of political concepts and historical events. The teaching and learning processes are approached from an interpretive and scarcely analytical conception of the Social Sciences. Mainly oriented to the development of first-rate skills: knowing, understanding, and memorizing. Finally, the conclusions raise the need to critically analyze the role that official study texts assign to teachers and students since both are conceived as passive agents of learning processes. While in a second instance, there is concern about the transmission of a didactic approach focused on the transmission of knowledge and the interpretation of historical processes in a factual way.