History Education and Public History – Introduction

Abstract

The articles in this section of International Public History prove that the issues arising from a dialogue between public history and history education[1] need to go far beyond the cooperation between school teachers and museum educators, are much more complicated and multifaceted, and that both dialogue and critical reflection remain a postulate rather than reality. The examples from three countries: the United States, Greece, and Poland (with Germany), leave no doubt that the interactions between public history and history education do happen whether we want it or not, but they do not necessarily take the forms that we as academics involved in international exchange would desire. My hope would be not to associate public history in history education with politician’s dictating what should be taught in school history lessons and how it should be taught. In the ideal world, history education could use the methods and strategies of public history in gaining the public’s attention and engagement in order to better educate more open, critical and understanding publics for future public history projects. Still there is a long way to go. Sometimes there are steps forward (see the academic literature in history didactics or the Polish-German textbooks) but sometimes backward (see the populist demands of the protectors of traditional national narratives).