The educational power of heritage sites

The role of heritage sites in history education in primary school

Visits to heritage sites are a regular feature of history education, not least in primary school. This is the case in Sweden, as well as in many other countries (Dawson and De Pennington, 2000; Wilson and Hollis, 2007). In Sweden, the tradition of visiting heritage sites in history education goes back to at least the early twentieth century (Rantatalo, 2002). Why do teachers bring their classes to visit tombs, runestones, castles and folklore museums? What role do these visits play, and, according to teachers, what learning do the visits enable? This article addresses these questions.

Empirical research on the role of heritage sites in history education in primary school has mainly dealt with the perspective of the pupils, and the positive impact that visits seem to have on pupils’ attitudes towards history as a school subject (Harris and Bilton, 2019). A number of studies have discussed teaching modules of which heritage sites have been a part, and how those site visits have influenced pupils’ learning in history (Levstik et al., 2014; Marcus and Levine, 2011; McKernan, 2018; Rohlf, 2015).

Other studies have investigated teachers’ use of museums, often from a generic point of view (for example, Kiesel, 2005), but also in connection to history education. On the basis of these studies, it can be said that teachers recognise economic aspects and other practical barriers as challenging, but also that teachers perceive visits as something positive, in that the pupils get to meet history ‘first hand’, which might influence their historical thinking (Marcus et al., 2012; Noel and Colopy, 2006).

Teachers and pupils do not only visit formally institutionalised heritage sites such as museums. In previous research, the role of local history in primary education has also been addressed (Cooper, 1995; Hales, 2018). According to Cooper (1995) and others, the opportunities that come from linking history education to the local context can be related to teachers’ perceptions of what is desirable history education in primary school. Primary teachers see great potential in local history, and express the idea of an expanded classroom, where visits to historic sites in the area are fully integrated and form a natural part of history education (Persson, 2017). Research has also been conducted on professional development projects to support teachers’ use of more complex historical sources. One dimension of such work points to the value of strengthening teachers’ experience of interacting with representatives of heritage sites and museums (Baron, 2013; Baron et al., 2019; Gómez-Hurtado et al., 2020; Jiménez Pérez et al., 2010). In this research, the notion of the expanded classroom emerges as an underlying idea.

Sites, places and affective practices

What unites the examples of the different kinds of site discussed above is that they are regarded as places defined by material and intangible traces of the past. A broad field of researchers have problematised heritage sites from a common overall standpoint; namely that heritage sites are open to interpretation, and that, as such, they are continuously being made. Two focal points steer the research about the dialectic between visitors and heritage sites. First, due to the differentiality in interpretations and meaning making, historic sites are contentious. Sites appear as processes, open to interpretation and reinterpretation, and the importance of heritage sites cannot be easily separated from the individual or group that experiences the place. Second, historic sites can be interpreted in different ways, but not in any way; the visitor is steered by expectations and common values, as well as by the fashion in which the heritage site is displayed and presented. Visual studies, tourist studies and media studies have paved the way for wider reception studies of heritage sites, including the reception of institutionalised heritage sites such as museums and theme parks, as well as landscapes in terms of memoryscapes or historyscapes (for example, Dicks, 2004; Erll, 2011; Erll and Rigney, 2009; Tolia-Kelly et al., 2017). Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) has suggested the term ‘agency of display’ to capture the processes of arranging and displaying sites. In the present study, teachers are defined as visitors with an agency of display – due to their pedagogical positions – who define and steer the excursions and their uses of heritage sites in education. Aligning with De Nardi (2020: 20), who studies visualisation of places by drawing on affective theories by Wetherell, Stoller and Bender, we argue that places are never abstract because ‘social knowledge [is] always situated somewhere’. In other words, heritage sites are valued in terms of being places loaded with educational power by the teachers.

An examination of how teachers perceive heritage sites and their function in history education relates to discussion of how pupils learn history. In this sense, it is possible to link the role of heritage sites to the aspects of different forms of historical knowledge.

Jörn Rüsen’s disciplinary matrix, available in several different versions, could be seen as a model for the process of historical learning (Körber, 2015). In the matrix, the experience of the past appears as the substance of history education. It is this experience that is interpreted, becoming the foundation for a functional narrative that helps the pupils to orient themselves in the present and the future (Rüsen, 2017). The past can be experienced in different ways. In the classroom, pupils learn historical narratives by reading, watching movies or listening to the teacher. But pupils might also be given the opportunity to experience the past more directly: as knowledge by acquaintance (Winch, 2013). When touching historical artefacts, such as axes from the Stone Age and letters from the nineteenth century, or visiting heritage sites and experiencing the ruins of a medieval castle, historical learning is no longer an exclusively cognitive practice (Curtis, 2015; McKernan, 2018; Trofanenko, 2014; Witcomb, 2013). The concept of knowledge by acquaintance points to a learning process in which a broad spectrum of senses might be put in play. Here the feelings and emotions, products from sensory experiences, are integrated into the process of historical meaning making. In this regard, knowledge by acquaintance opens up the idea of material perspectives and an embodied understanding of history (see Curtis, 2015; Witcomb, 2013; Zachrich et al., 2020). In this article, the concept of affective practices is used to address these aspects of historical learning and meaning making.

In recent decades, affections and the explanatory power of emotions have been highlighted in social science research. In this regard, researchers have spoken of a turn to affect (Wetherell, 2012; Trofanenko, 2014). The concept of affective practices has been suggested by Margaret Wetherell; it places an emphasis on the sensual, and on the affections and emotions that are stimulated by it. The concept points towards a non-dualistic position, where the sensual and bodily material dimensions are intertwined with the discursive cognitive aspects of understanding (Smith et al., 2018; Wetherell, 2012). Thus, one may engage in affective practices, but that engagement is not always conscious; it is a process of embodied meaning making that might be called pre-reflexive. A link could be made to Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht (2004) and his discussion of the concept of presence, which points to the need for transcending a reflexive approach (Bjerre, 2019). Whether the teachers taking part in this study express the notions of affective practices and a pre-reflexive approach is something that has to be addressed empirically.

Aim and research questions

The aim of this article, based on teachers’ accounts of their teaching, is to problematise the use of visits to heritage sites in history education in primary school. Two research questions were formulated to guide the empirical work and analysis:

1. What heritage sites do teachers visit, and what educational (didactical) motives do teachers express regarding visits to heritage sites?

2. How do teachers perceive the role of sites in a process of historical learning? Are heritage sites used similarly to other teaching resources, or do the sites represent a separate path to historical knowledge?

The research questions should be understood as relating to history education in Swedish primary schools. In lower primary school, the pupils are between 7 and 9 years old, and the focus is traditionally on prehistoric times and the history of the local area. The perspective is somewhat different in upper primary school (for children between 10 and 12 years old), where the emphasis is on Swedish history, focusing on the origins and development of Swedish society from the Viking Age to the societal transformations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Eliasson and Nordgren, 2016; Stolare, 2014).

Methodology

The study combines data from an online questionnaire, 2 group interviews and 11 qualitative interviews with teachers (Drew et al., 2008). The questionnaire included 17 questions, organised in two thematic blocks. The first block covered background factors, including questions about the teachers’ gender and teaching experience. The second block looked into aspects of how excursions to historic sites are used in teaching. To capture this aspect, questions were asked about which heritage sites were visited and why. Teachers were also asked to give examples of excursions to heritage sites that they thought had been particularly successful, and which sites they would like to use for visits if they had the means. The questionnaire combined open-ended questions and multiple-choice questions with predefined answers. For multiple-choice questions, an optional space was provided to elaborate on the answer. Email was used to contact 635 principals of local schools, inviting them to distribute the link to the questionnaire to teachers in their schools. About 260 respondents completed the questionnaire, but only some of the principals confirmed that they had distributed the link to their staff. Thus, it is uncertain how many teachers were reached, and the exact number of non-responses cannot be estimated.

Since the proportion of invited teachers who answered the questionnaire cannot be established, the questionnaire has not been used for quantitative analyses or generalisations (Edmonds and Kennedy, 2017). Making generalisations is not the purpose of this qualitative study; the focus is on the teachers’ expressed motives and reasoning about visits to heritage sites. The open-ended questions were used to note potential patterns of visits to heritage sites. A thematic analysis was made of responses to the open-ended questions (Guest et al., 2012). As the result of a first close reading, provisional categories were created that related to the study’s research questions. After this first phase, during which the research group jointly read, compared and discussed the categories, two more close readings were carried out to determine reasonable boundaries for the different categories.

Interviews were conducted with 10 teachers (2017–19). Interviewees were chosen (using criterion sampling) on the basis that they had planned to bring their class to a heritage site – and that visit was accompanied by a researcher (Ludvigsson). The researcher then interviewed the teacher at his or her school, shortly after the field trip. Interviews dealt both with what had happened during the specific excursion and with the teacher’s general ideas about using visits to heritage sites in education. Each interview took about thirty or forty minutes. In this article, the teachers have been given pseudonyms referring to the sites they visited with their pupils: ‘Alvastra’, ‘Bjäsäter’, ‘Cathedral’, ‘Löfstad palace’, ‘Motala industrial area’, ‘Old Linköping’, ‘Vist’ and ‘Vadstena castle’. Pseudonyms have also been assigned based on the theme behind the visit: ‘The Witch Forest’ and ‘Medieval times in the cathedral’. In addition to the individual interviews, two group interviews were held (in spring 2019) with 11 teachers at two public schools, located in different regions. One school (Group Interview 1) was located in Östergötland, a region in eastern Sweden with both urban and rural areas. This is a central region, as defined in terms of Swedish political history, with a broad selection of historic sites from the Middle Ages to the present day. The teachers at the other school (Group Interview 2) worked in Värmland, a region in western Sweden bordering Norway, with relatively few traces of older history. Värmland can be characterised as predominantly rural. The purpose of the group interviews was to obtain a more in-depth picture of how teachers perceive visits to heritage sites in the context of their teaching assignment. Each interview took roughly one hour. Two researchers (Stolare, Ludvigsson) held one group interview each.

The interviews with the teachers, both individually and in groups, provided opportunities to reach a nuanced idea of the teachers’ perceptions, which has been achieved through thematic analysis (Guest et al., 2012). The unit of analysis here is the teachers’ statements about the role played by visits to heritage sites in their teaching. The analysis focuses on linguistic aspects, such as which concepts and terms are used by the teachers. In the analysis of the group interviews, the linguistic interaction between the participant teachers was an essential dimension; a common pattern was sought through a thematic analysis. However, the two group interviews were organised in places that differ from each other in relevant aspects, making it possible to discuss the impact of the broad school context on teachers’ perceptions.

Findings

Teacher: Sometimes you don’t have to go there with a whole class either. We have sometimes … taken it into the classroom instead. The history that you’ve been talking about. You know that war! Everyone knows all these places … I refer to something they know. For example, those in the class who are farmers – how did the farmers have it with houses and allotments then? … and compare it with things they already know. … So, we talk a lot about the local area, but in the classroom.

Interviewer: You don’t necessarily have to be there.

Teacher: No, we don’t have to go there. Most pupils have been to each other’s homes and know what places we’re talking about. (Group Interview 2, 22.27)

Teacher 1: We have many centuries of war history …

Teacher 2: Yes, there is [much] …

Teacher 1: … to work with. Although that’s what I think is fun, because it’s a bit like what happened in Lützen [a canonised battle in 1632] also happened here. (Group Interview 2, 15.15)

Conclusions

According to this study, Swedish primary school teachers visit institutionalised heritage sites as part of their teaching, be they museums, historic buildings or other heritage sites. That such sites dominate can be related to the fact that many of the teachers in the survey state that they do not do the guiding themselves. In terms of agency to display (Kirschenbladdt-Gimlett, 1998), the teachers hand the interpretive prerogative to the guide, stepping into the background themselves. Only a minority of teachers declare that they choose not to contact local representatives, and consequently to take full organisational and substantive responsibility for the visit to heritage sites. The empirical basis for this study makes it difficult to unequivocally determine why teachers choose to adopt this more passive role. One possible explanation could be that the teachers feel insecure, and lack the tools to make the visits an integral part of their teaching. Research by Baron (2013), Baron et al. (2019) and Jiménez Pérez et al. (2010) on professional development in relation to the use of historic buildings and heritage in teaching provides some support for such a conclusion.

When the teachers in the study are asked to explain the reasons for their visits, they claim that the places chosen align well with what they have been teaching. Another important motive is that the visits offer opportunities for the pupils to study the history of their home area, which may be interpreted as an ambition to stimulate formation (Bildung). Third, the teachers express the notion that visits to heritage sites can contribute to historical learning in a manner that cannot be achieved in the classroom, making history more concrete. The teachers point out that it is not enough for the pupils to know the narrative by reading textbooks or watching films, but in order to really understand, the pupils must encounter actual traces of the past. This motive was especially prominent in the individual interviews and the two group interviews. These results align well with those from previous research (Cooper, 1995; Hales, 2018; Levstik et al., 2014; Marcus et al., 2012). However, some of the teachers suggested that visits to heritage sites offer additional value, such as giving pupils the opportunity to use their senses and to discover the site through playing, that is, to learn in a different way than is possible in the context of ordinary teaching. To these teachers, pupils’ material, physical and sensory experiences, and the feelings and emotions stimulated by their encounter with the site, appear as essential resources in the process of historical learning. For the teachers, there is no contradiction between cognitive and affective dimensions of history education; instead, these dimensions strengthen each other. In their teaching, the teachers taking part in this study use and enrich the affective practices associated with the site (Smith et al., 2018; Wetherwell, 2012). These findings indicate that it could be fruitful to use the concept of affective practices to frame teachers’ decisions to visit heritage sites with their classes.

By relating affective practices to the educational ideas of the teachers, this study has, therefore, contributed to the field of research (McKernan, 2018; Trofanenko, 2014; Witcomb, 2013). Based on their proven experience, the teachers in the survey and in the interviews signal that there are several complementary paths to historical knowledge; cognitive approaches must be combined with affective approaches. This would suggest the value of further research, to systematically, critically and empirically examine teachers’ experiences, using the idea of affective practices as a possible approach. However, as Zachrich et al. (2020) have outlined, there may be analytical reasons to distinguish the physical from the affective. The material aspect of complex sources (which heritage sites present) clearly reprsents a distinctive dimension in teaching and learning in history.

It is tentatively possible to recognise two ideal approaches regarding agency in displaying heritage places in primary school (Kirschenbladdt-Gimlett, 1998). The two group interviews illustrate, in a simplified way, these two approaches. In Group Interview 1, the teachers declare the need to visit certain heritage sites in order to encourage pupils to establish a necessary historical frame of reference. Central to the conversation in Group Interview 1 seems to be a perceived subject content tradition, and a focus on the national narrative presented in the textbook. The visits then become a way to encounter the places that pupils have studied in class. This approach is possible if the school is located in what could be characterised as a historical centre, visible in the national narrative. By extension, this might have an impact on the history subject represented. The question of path dependence is relevant: a certain (taken-for-granted) narrative may follow from a site, and with it a particular historical representation. The teacher can choose to challenge the taken-for-granted interpretation of the site. However, that requires conscious action on the part of the teacher, developing a reinterpretation of the site. In the end, what history the site may represent is decided by the teacher in interplay with pupils and the general educational setting.

The perspective is very different in Group Interview 2. The notion of being in a historical periphery permeates the conversation. The teachers in this group say that they would like to have ready-made school programmes, but that there are none available to them. Their local conditions are invisible in textbooks, and in the national narrative expressed in primary school. It is not possible to visit the places mentioned in the national narrative, as they are too far away. While teachers could try to find sites in the local area that may represent this narrative, this group of teachers point instead to the importance of visiting sites that have significance and relevance as a part of a local historical narrative. These visits are presented as teacher-initiated and teacher-led, and are well integrated in history education. Thus, the local history that it is possible to discover outside the school classroom becomes the starting point for them: a kind of history from below. In this way, it is rooted in a local history culture and linked to the notion of a collective historical consciousness. The teachers in Group Interview 2 express a view that history has an emancipating potential, and here the visits to heritage sites have a unique function, namely to forge a connection with the place where the pupils (and teachers) live their lives. This is not to claim that a local narrative, by definition, is to be characterised as more open to different interpretations than a national one, but the stronger focus on the local does at least mean that more than one perspective on the past is available. Grever (2007) has identified the lack of different perspectives as one of the significant problems with a history education defined by a distinct canon. Visits to heritage sites with relevance to local history appear to be one way to open up such a canon.

To conclude, the educational setting has a considerable impact on which sites are visited and how the visits are executed. Reach (economic and geographical) and school tradition are crucial factors here. Thus, the school’s location shapes the opportunities for teachers’ actions. Visits also have to be understood in relation to the educational ideas that underpin them. That is to say, it is not the site in itself that fully determines what history the pupils get to experience. Heritage sites remain dynamic and open for interpretations.

Funding

The project on which this article is based, School Children Relate to Historical Sites, is funded by Riksantikvarieämbetet (Swedish National Heritage Board) (3.2.2-5128-2016). The authors are responsible for stated opinions and factual information.

Research ethics statement

The authors declare that research ethics approval for this article was provided by the Regional Ethics Board, Linköping University.

Consent for publication statement

The authors declare that research participants’ informed consent to publication of findings – including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information – was secured prior to publication.

Conflicts of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest with this work

Notes on the contributors

Martin Stolare is a professor of history and history education at Karlstad University, Sweden. He has a wide range of research interests, with a particular focus on history education in primary and especially upper primary school. He explores the interplay between history as a scientific discipline and history as a school subject, and he is currently developing models for teaching on social issues in the social sciences classes with students in Grades 4 to 6.

David Ludvigsson is a senior lecturer in history at Linköping University, Sweden. He deals with several fields of historical research. He has analysed the genre of historical documentary film, political uses of the Holocaust, the teaching and learning of history, and how humour interacts with history in historical comedy film. He has also investigated the role(s) of guides in the cultural heritage sector.

Cecilia Trenter is a senior lecturer in history at Malmö University, Sweden. She works within the research field of memory studies and public history, including historiography, and epistemological and ethical approaches to knowledge production. She is researching heritage adaptations and remediation in fiction, for instance epic films and computer games, and she is studying heritage sites with educational approaches. She also writes fantasy and teaches classes in creative writing.