Historical maps as a neglected issue in history education. Students and textbooks representations of territorial changes of Spain and Argentina

Abstract

In the last years, history education has become a highly developed field, whichis receiving considerable attention not only from educators but also fromhistorians, philosophers of history, and social scientists in general. In this vein,seminal empirical and theoretical papers have focused on how history is taughtto students and what are the different abilities that should be developed withthe end to critically understand historical processes. These abilities are relatedto key concepts in the field such as historical thinking, historical consciousness,and historical culture. The aim of this paper is to focus on a matter not muchconsidered in any of these approaches. This is to say, “where” the historicalprocesses occurred. Usually the “where” implies a specific territory that is underdispute. In this vein, territories and their transformation through different timeperiods are represented by historical maps reproduced in atlas and textbooks.But these representations could have several bias and also tend to provide anumber of incomplete ideas among the students and citizens in general. Inrelation to this, it is necessary study not only the features of historical maps but,also, how students appropriate them. This appropriation could be influencedby an essentialist view of the nation through historical master narratives. Thisis what we have found in our initial empirical studies in Spain and Argentina.Additional empirical studies are needed to improve history education studiesfrom the point of view of the development of historical thinking and historicalconsciousness taking into account how historical maps and territorial changesare represented by both students and textbooks.