CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Mfon, Unyime-Young Enobong |
|---|---|
| Title | Historical Consciousness and Pedagogy: Adapting the Junior Schools??? History Education Curriculum to Children???s Digital Culture in Nigeria |
| Summary | This research aimed to address the “crisis of relevance” confronting history education in Nigeria due to schoolchildren’s apathy towards history education by exploring how aligning history pedagogy with children’s digital cultural engagement can inspire pupils’ interest in learning history and promote historical consciousness. It adopted an interdisciplinary research approach comprising a historical research framework and the Global Kids Online (GKL) children-centred research template to explore the three main research questions. The study, using archival documents and interviews with three (3) professors of historical studies, uncovered significant factors that shaped the removal and return of history education in Nigeria, which is the focus of the first research question. The research found that the Berlin Conference of 1884, the Nigerian civil war, and Western complicity were key drivers for the erasure of Nigerian history from schools’ curricula. It further demonstrates that the Historical Society of Nigeria played a pivotal role within the public sphere, facilitating public debates, seminars, advocacy, conferences, and academic publications that led to the reintroduction of the history subject into the lower school system. The second research question analysed the nature of children’s digital cultural engagement to understand the educational opportunities that can be appropriated to enhance historical pedagogy and consciousness. Through an in-depth analysis of this question using a semi-structured survey and virtual Zoom interviews with eight (8) pupils and two (2) history education teachers, the study demonstrates that the children have a robust digital culture and actively engage with historical content online, leveraging Historyville and Nigerian Nostalgia 1960–1980, hosted on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc., to complete their history homework. The third research question, which evaluates the pedagogical implications of children’s digital cultural experience for history education, is the core research objective—the analytical outcome of research Q1 and Q2. This study argues that given the undeniable impacts of digital media and technology on education and the growing children’s digital footprints, a hybrid pedagogical approach that incorporates children’s digital agency and visualises and medialises historical narrative could significantly influence students’ perceptions of history in a positive direction. This approach has the potential to not only encourage them to create and share historical content, but also empower them in their own learning process by making them active participants in their education. Moreover, it could enhance history pedagogy and make history learning interactive, inclusive, engaging, and retentive, thereby revolutionizing history education in Nigeria. |
| Supervisor | Professor Ponte, Maria Cristina |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/mfon_unyime-young.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University