Kontroversielle aspekter i historieundervisningen 7.-9. klassetrin: Et etnografisk inspireret klasserumsstudie

This dissertation examines aspects of historical narratives that areperceived and presented as controversial by teachers and students inhistory class. The purpose is empirically to illuminate the content andfunction of controversial aspects in history teaching when they take theform of teachers' and students' narratives about concrete historicalevents. Furthermore, I want to shed light on the relationship thatstudents form with history when they perceive historical actions andpeople in history as controversial and retrospectively judge andcondemn from a contemporary perspective. This research involves anethnographic classroom study and a narrative interaction analysis of theempirical data. Specifically, it consists of a field study of historyteaching with three teachers and their five classes in lower secondaryschools (7th to 9th grade) from autumn 2019 to autumn 2020.The study is based on an understanding of narratives as sociocultural resources. From a socio-cultural perspective, narratives areunderstood as culturally mediated. They are dynamic and formedthrough linguistic actions and cognitions. Therefore, teachers andstudents draw on the culturally accessible and culturally legitimizedresources available to them in the moment to make sense of historicalcontent (Haste & Bermudez, 2017, p. 434). I have explored this bystudying interactions and dialogues in the classroom as situationnarratives that are remediated in the interplay between the academiccontent, teaching ambitions and people involved in the interaction.Regarding this remediation process, the teacher may present the contentof entire narratives or aspects of them as controversial or students mayinadvertently perceive this as controversial and then interpret thenarratives as such.
Controversial is understood as perceptions and experiences of aspects in history "which in crucial points differ from the norm or the generally accepted, and which can therefore seem provocative" (ordnet.dk, 2022) and "inappropriate" (Begrebsordbog, 2015, p. 917). The controversial thus touches on aspects of actual and perceived injustices in history
(HistoricalAssociation, 2007). From this starting point, I investigate how what is perceived as controversial communicatively is made relevant through the narratives that teachers and students produce. The social practice of teaching affects what is felt, experienced and perceived as controversial by teachers and students in the classroom. It shapes the
relationship between the content (the historical representations presented in the teaching), form (narratives produced in the
communicative interaction) and function (the purpose and intentions of the teaching). The research questions are as follows:

- What are produced as controversial aspects in teachers' and students' narratives in history lessons? - What form do these narratives take when the content is actualised as controversial and what didactic implications does this have for the students'
meaning-making in the history lesson? - How can these narratives help to explain the didactic and pedagogical functions of controversial aspects of history teaching?

To answer the questions above, I have structured the dissertation into three articles, each of which can be read as an independent product but is also a sub-study of the dissertation. The teaching processes between content, form and function are dealt with separately in the three articles, but there are also examples of overlap. The last research question is discussed in more detail in the last chapter of the dissertation. Article 1 has been peer reviewed and has been published, while Article 2 is under peer review and Article 3 has been peer reviewed and accepted. Articles 2 and 3 may, therefore, appear in edited editions and thus be slightly different from those that appear in the dissertation. The purpose of the three articles is to describe different characteristics derived from the empirical data. The characteristics form the individual themes of the articles, but all three articles highlight elements in the process between the content, form and function of the teaching, through which controversial aspects develop in the narratives produced in the classroom. Below is a brief introduction to the articles.

Article 1: Johannesen, H. J. (2021). Controversial aspects in history lessons. The practice of narratives and teaching materials in lower secondary schools (7 th to 9 th grade). Learning Tech - Journal of Learning Materials, Didactics and Technology, (5), 151-178. doi: 10.7146/lt.v6i9.124780 

The article examines how controversial aspects are produced as narratives between teaching materials and teachers and students in their interpretations of history and relationships to history. The article shows that controversial aspects are bound in time and place and develop through the narratives produced in the classroom when teachers and students relate morally to the past as it is represented in the teaching materials, among other things. Controversial aspects appear as assembly and disassembly processes in discussions regarding the teaching materials. The interaction can be seen as part of a communicative negotiation process that contains didactic appeals from the teachers to the students' moral stance and the students' own moral distinctions and argumentation.

Article 2: Johannesen, H. J. (2022). "It is evil, that's how it was. It was just all evil”. Controversial aspects in history lessons in lower secondary school (7 th to 9 th grade). Submitted to Acta Didactica Norden (ADNO)

In this article, I argue that teachers' and students' narratives about controversial aspects of history are important for understanding the students' interpretations of the subject and the significance of teachers' didactic choices. The article shows that controversial aspects in teachers' and students' narratives stem from a contemporary perspective on the past. What the teachers and students perceive as controversial is based on contemporary moral schemas and values. The article shows that history, in several cases, became less important as current issues in society today filled classroom discussions. Interpretations of the past were used to explain or justify acts committed in the past to a greater or lesser extent. In general, the analysis reveals that the moral dimension played a significant role in teachers' didactic appeal to students and in the students' use of moral values, which may affect the students' historical consciousness.

Article 3: Johannesen, H. J. (2022). "Difficult knowledge and genocide in history teaching from a student perspective". Accepted and submitted to Nordidactica - Journal of Humanities and Social Science Education

The article focuses on teaching genocide through two case studies from the overall empirical data of the dissertation. The article argues that when students encounter crimes against humanity, such as genocide, they can perceive this knowledge as difficult and controversial because it is emotionally and cognitively difficult to process and because it contrasts with their moral schemas and values. I further argue that difficult knowledge contains controversial knowledge because it provokes and seems inappropriate in relation to students' norms and values. Controversial knowledge plays an important role in students' meaning-making processes. 

The analyses in this dissertation stem from an ethnographically inspired study in which I examined the micro-situations of teaching but also the impact of the socio-cultural contextual framework on the microsituations. Historical narratives, understood as socio-cultural tools in social practice, became an important cornerstone in this research in the way of examining the emergence of controversial aspects. In addition to the ethnographic approach, I was inspired by the focus in the case studies on context and the uniqueness of situations. Another source of inspiration was analysing narratives in interactions. My analytical work has focused on constructing key narratives that represent thematic overlaps in the empirical data. An important result of the analyses is that controversial aspects in teachers' and students' narratives are primarily related to the moral and existential use of history. The use of history in this respect must be regarded as communicative acts where controversial aspects manifest as the attachment to and dismantling of what is considered controversial in history in the teachers' and students' ongoing negotiations in the narrative processes. The analyses show that perceptions of the controversial aspects of history were closely linked to teachers' and students' norms and values. Actions committed in the past were judged and condemned retrospectively from a contemporary perspective and past interpretations were primarily used to supplement a contemporary perspective based on a desire to understand and justify historical actions and historical others. What could be perceived as controversial in a different time and context was rarely addressed. That students were touched and provoked by violent and traumatic aspects in the history lessons influenced their encounter with historical others and necessarily also their historical consciousness. Faced with the often meaningless and brutal acts committed in the narratives, the students used their moral schemas to give the content existential meaning, but significant academic insights also emerged. Empathy and antipathy played significant roles in the empirical work, which Deldén (2017) also highlights in her PhD on the use of feature films in history teaching. It confronts teachers with a range of dilemmas and didactic questions about how students can and perhaps should learn from and through history as well as about history.