Quebec national history programs (1982-2007) and historical thinking and learning : toward identifying a conceptualization problem
This article addresses the association of historical thinking in the two recently published Quebec programs : the new national history program and the previous one. A critical reading is based on the six criteria presented by Martineau (1997) – the researcher first describing this association – to illustrate a lack of convergence between both of these documents. Three of those criteria suggest different meaning concerning the signification of the learning process, metacognition process and frequency. This lack of convergence suggests two problems, closely related, both of interpretation of those history programs and of conceptualization of historical thinking. These problems highlight the relevance of an analysis of these programs and a revision of the theoretical premises on which historical thinking is built.