For this special series of HERJ on History Education in Historical Perspective, we wanted to link the theme of the series with our current research exploring how the British Empire, migration and belonging are taught in English secondary schools (see portraitemb.co.uk). We compared how histories of the British Empire were narrated in English history textbooks from the 1920s and 1930s with how they are portrayed now, and specifically at the influence of two pedagogical traditions in history education, the so-called ‘great tradition’, which was dominant for most of the twentieth century until the early 1970s, and ‘new history’, which emerged during the 1970s.

During the first period, the British Empire was still a thriving political institution, and the ‘great tradition’ of history education in England typically taught a celebratory, patriotic version of British history, primarily focusing on wars, politics and the lives of widely venerated figures like William Wilberforce, Cecil Rhodes and David Livingstone. Looking at the older textbooks, we found that British imperial history did tend to be written as a continuous narrative of ‘progress’, presented as fact by an apparently authoritative author. There was little opportunity for students to consider alternative perspectives, and if historical sources were included these were for illustration purposes rather than for students to consider critically.

After the Second World War, educators increasingly began to question this model of history teaching, and in 1972 the Schools Council History Project published A New Look at History (see schoolshistoryproject.co.uk), which presented a set of principles for teaching history. According to these principles, students should be taught to understand history as a form rather than a body of knowledge, and to approach the subject critically, conducting their own historical enquiries and considering a range of sources and perspectives. These principles formed the basis of what became known as ‘new history’, and although it was not universally accepted by history teachers, this model did become increasingly dominant, and we found many examples of its ongoing influence in contemporary textbooks. For example, almost all contemporary textbooks are structured around enquiry questions, and students are typically asked to ‘think like a historian’, considering a range of historical sources and interpretations and forming their own conclusions based on the evidence provided.

Nevertheless, in the specific context of histories of the British Empire, we found that some traces of the earlier model remain, even if these are less obvious than in the earlier books. For example, all the books except the most recent one in our sample present some form of ‘balance sheet’ framing of the British Empire, where students are asked to compare apparently ‘positive’ impacts of the empire with some of its harms and decide whether it should be considered a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing overall. We found similarities between how the ‘pros’ of empire are presented now and how the empire as a whole was presented in our earlier period, with elements such as increased trade, and aspects of infrastructure such as schools, healthcare and land cultivation, listed as ‘benefits’, with little or no consideration of whether these were in fact universally beneficial, and little or no questioning of the fundamental legitimacy of imperial rule itself. We also found that, although they typically include a range of interpretations rather than simply presenting history as a series of ‘facts’, contemporary authors generally attempt to include a ‘balanced’ range of views, meaning that an equal number of pro-empire and anti-empire accounts are included, and there is usually little information about how representative this might be of the history profession as a whole. The fact that the accounts in these textbooks are presented in this way implies that British Empire produced a neatly balanced range of positive and negative impacts, and that there are a neatly balanced range of reasons to feel positively or negatively about its legacies now.

This type of framing has been widely critiqued and, encouragingly, the newest book in our sample makes a point of explaining some of the problems with balance-sheet framings. Furthermore, the sources included in this book have been chosen to represent as wide a range of voices as possible, with an emphasis on materials produced by Indigenous and colonised peoples. Students are asked to critically consider who created sources, why, and how this might have influenced what was written or portrayed. As well as developments in historiography, with an increasing focus on including previously marginalised voices and perspectives, we think this is likely to reflect a widespread increase in awareness of and interest in how these histories are understood among the British public, and we expect to see new textbooks giving greater consideration to these issues in the next few years.

Writing and publishing this article for HERJ was an excellent opportunity for us to develop some focused conclusions from our extensive textbook research, which involves large numbers of textbooks published over a hundred-year period, considering multiple themes. It was also important to us to publish in an open-access journal, as our project aims to connect with as many teachers and students as possible, and anyone else with an interest in how the British Empire, migration and belonging are taught to young people.

Colleagues on our project are currently conducting surveys for teachers (https://portraitemb.co.uk/) and people working in museums, galleries or other cultural institutions (https://forms.office.com/e/X92sNr9XxQ) – we’d like to encourage anyone who can to visit our website and get involved!

Comparative portrayals of the British Empire in history textbooks, 1920s–2020s: influences, paradigms and historical frameworks by Catriona McDermid (IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society) and Stuart Foster (IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society) is part of the HERJ Special Series on History education in historical perspective and published in History Education Research Journal, volume 21.

history education history textbooks new history Schools History Project imperial histories British Empire