Close
How is the British Empire and its legacy being taught in schools?
13 March 2024
Researchers at 皇家华人 and the University of Oxford seek insights from current and past teachers across England, to map how empire and interrelated topics of migration and belonging are approached in English secondary schools.
The history of the British Empire casts a complex and often contested legacy across modern day British politics, culture and public discourse. Recent years have seen a growing interest in and debate about Britain鈥檚 imperial past and in response, attention has turned to what children are taught about this history.听
In June 2020, for example, 268,772 members of the British public signed a to 鈥榯each Britain鈥檚 colonial past as part of the UK鈥檚 compulsory curriculum鈥�, which was debated in Parliament the following year. Both teachers and their students have called for greater attention to be paid to how the nation engages this past within its classrooms and curricula and a 2019 report published by the Runnymede Trust identified a real need for targeted professional development support in this area.
A new research project, funded by the Pears Foundation, responds directly to this call. Critically, the project team note that, to date, no large-scale research has ever been conducted to understand the extent to 鈥� or manners in which 鈥� 听secondary students are taught about this history, if at all. The project aims to build a robust and nuanced evidence base to better understand the range of teacher鈥檚 experience, practice and perspective in this area, to identify the challenges or concerns most commonly encountered, and the most important and appropriate opportunities for future professional development support.
鈥淎 portrait of the teaching of the British Empire, migration and belonging in English secondary schools鈥� is a collaboration between academics at IOE, UCL鈥檚 Faculty of Education and Society, and the University of Oxford鈥檚 Department of Education, led by Co-Lead Investigators Dr Alice Pettigrew and Dr Jason Todd.
The team is conducting a national survey of secondary school teachers, and invite听teachers to share insight, experience and opinion across a range of previously unexamined areas of practice.听
The project team commented: 鈥淲e acknowledge that when we discuss the terms 鈥檈mpire,鈥� 鈥榤igration,鈥� and 鈥榖elonging,鈥� there鈥檚 a lot of complexity, nuance, and potential for disagreement involved. It鈥檚 crucial to grasp the significance of these terms because they are closely connected to the beliefs, values, practices, vision, and historical understanding of a nation鈥檚 citizens, including young people.鈥澨�
The project draws on the success of the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education鈥檚 work transforming teaching and learning about the Holocaust across the country through an extensive programme of professional development support for teachers and learners, all built directly upon a strong foundation of empirical classroom research.
Contact
Contact the research team at portraitemb@ucl.ac.uk.
Related links
Image
Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels.