CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Parsons, Evva |
|---|---|
| Title | Teaching German Colonialism (1884-1919) in Second-Language Classes: Inter-Imperial History and Student Identity Formation |
| Summary | As German colonial history has increasingly received public and media attention over the past two decades, research investigating its history and legacies has proliferated. However, that research has not yet reached German language classrooms outside of Germany. This project begins to fill that gap by investigating possible ways of translating academic work on German colonial history to high school German language classes in the United States. The curricula developed in this project rely on careful pedagogical and theoretical selections and align with U.S. national learning standards for foreign language instruction, making them relevant to high school German classes across the United States. In doing this work, the project contributes to the field of public history by bringing history research to a broader public. Based on archival research, contemporary sources related to legacies of the German colonial past, and a thorough reading of relevant historiography, this capstone designs and explicates two thematic classroom units for teaching about German colonial history in language classes. The first investigates the historical context, repatriation debates, and material heritage of the Benin Bronzes, which German museums acquired through British colonial plundering. The second engages with the life and written works of Hendrik Witbooi, an Indigenous leader in German South-West Africa who resisted German colonial control. Using topical discussions with varied lesson materials, the units can be scaffolded for student language level to engage students with questions of the German colonial past, its legacies, and its representation today. In doing so, the units teach students about German political and historical contexts and support them in developing and articulating their own values and worldviews. |
| Supervisor | Ninhos, Cláudia; Odawara, Rin |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/parsons_evva.pdf |
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