Crossing voices: History seen by Portuguese teachers

Abstract

Abstract: This paper discusses findings of two different studies, made within a 5 years interval, on Portuguese history teachers’ conceptions. Some similarities emerged: to the teachers in the first study, History is a science, open to renewal and based on evidence confrontation (new sources) and are mainly concerned with their students’ skills in the class. In the second study, different conceptions of historical accounts appeared: several teachers appealed to consensus, to truth in a logic of absolute neutrality; others think that is necessary to surpass the divergence to achieve cohesion; some teachers accept as legitimate and natural the existence of different perspectives in History, but impartiality is desirable as an ideal, in a perspective of absolute neutrality. However, looking into students’ historical competence, the question present on the quantitative study – that history teachers had not adhered to work proposals with a traditional perspective because they considered them educationally undesirable - is confirmed in the qualitative study. The second study was made under the scope of the HiCon Project I and this paper aims to confront the results of these two Portuguese studies on history teachers’ conceptions.