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17-18 year-old Greek-Cypriot students’ understandings of differing historical accounts: an exploratory study of how students engage with history in the Republic of Cyprus

Georgiou, Maria K.; (2020) 17-18 year-old Greek-Cypriot students’ understandings of differing historical accounts: an exploratory study of how students engage with history in the Republic of Cyprus. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

This study is an explorative study of 17-18 year-old Greek-Cypriot students' understanding about differing historical accounts. This study was envisioned in light of having a New History Curriculum implemented in the Republic of Cyprus, marking a shift from previous curricula. This study is (a) a continuation of history education research tradition (such as SHP and CHATA) concerns with disciplinary historical thinking and (b) an exploration of how students attribute value to historical accounts in personal terms. Purpose of this study is firstly to inform existing understandings on students’ ideas about differing historical accounts, and secondly to raise wider implications. This study reports on 96 students from 9 schools across the Republic of Cyprus. This study took a qualitative approach, that of exploration, although the scale of the sample also allowed some quantitative analysis. Students had to answer a series of questions on two pairs of differing accounts on the same historical event. Following, about one third of students participated in group interviews which aimed in triangulating data and yield more data. Data were analysed through inductive coding. This Thesis concludes that students’ ideas are multifaceted and complex, often in ways that do not allow them nuanced thinking such as everyday misconceptions, incomplete notions, every-day life ideas and ideas shaped by their context, which might not be relevant to the discipline of history. I therefore make the argument that policy-makers and educators need to be informed so as to enhance students’ learning. At the same time, I take the stance that learning and understanding is a social practice, and hence that purist disciplinary approaches might be restrictive. I thereby propose re-thinking current history education paradigms in terms of theory, research and teaching practice.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: 17-18 year-old Greek-Cypriot students’ understandings of differing historical accounts: an exploratory study of how students engage with history in the Republic of Cyprus
Event: UCL (University College London)
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10105008
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