The impact of social representations in history teaching and its purposes on the practices of teaching staff in Quebec
This multicase study focuses on the observed practices of five history teachers and their representations of the teaching of their discipline and its goals. First, it suggests an enriched picture of the goals attributed by history teachers in Quebec by highlighting three profiles: multi-purpose goals, intellectual and practical. Second, it invites us to question the generally accepted observation about the predominance of “magistrocentric” practices in Quebec. According to our observations, three out of five teachers develop practices related to research or inquiry learning. This study also shows the existence of gaps between the reference paradigms that mark teachers’ representations of the teaching of history and the observed practices. If these representations are therefore not very predictive of teaching practices, our study suggests that the goals assigned to history teaching are better predictors of practices.