This paper undertakes an exploration of issues around history curricula developed since 1945 in order to help history educators assess strengths and weakness of school history. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: in developing histor...
This paper undertakes an exploration of issues around history curricula developed since 1945 in order to help history educators assess strengths and weakness of school history. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: in developing history curricula what have been issues and problems to which history educators give rise? What directions should history education take to solve those problems? This paper points out that since the time the school curriculum was first developed, the social studies, which at first put history, geography, and social sciences in juxtaposition and later required the three subjects to be integrated one course in a way that any integration theories wouldn"t support, a nationalist approach to Korean history, and a weak status of world history in the social studies curriculum have been the main issues and caused problems in history education. These problems remain unsolved. In order to solve those problems, this paper suggests, history educators first develop teaching strategies to link history with other subjects, second develop a history curriculum that includes a history course, into which integrates Korean history and world history, and third pay their great attention to curricular theories.