Against citizenship. Defending the teaching of History as a disciplina

Abstract

This article advocates the teaching of History from a disciplinary conception as opposed to the civic and memorialist dimension that is so often defended. To do so, it analyses the defining features of History as an academic discipline in order to defend a realistic and objectivist conception of this discipline. With this characterisation, it is defended a conception of History based on work about the rudiments of the historian’s craft that addresses acquiring historical thinking in line with P. Seixas and others. Finally, the activities that can be included in the discipline are distinguished form those that belong to another domain, although it is outlined that many of the activities proposed from the perspective of historical memory are perfectly acceptable from a disciplinary conception of the subject. It is concluded that axiological contents related to civic education do not correspond mainly to the subject of History, but relate disciplinarily to Political Philosophy and educationally to the education community on the whole.

Keywords: History Education; Historical Memory; Objectivity; Citizenship Education; Politics and Education.