Researchers at UCL and the University of Oxford seek insights from current and past teachers across England, to map how empire and interrelated topics of migration and belonging are approached in English secondary schools.
The history of the British Empire casts a complex and often contested legacy across modern day British politics, culture and public discourse. Recent years have seen a growing interest in and debate about Britain’s imperial past and in response, attention has turned to what children are taught about this history.
In June 2020, for example, 268,772 members of the British public signed a petition to ‘teach Britain’s colonial past as part of the UK’s compulsory curriculum’, which was debated in Parliament the following year. Both teachers and their students have called for greater attention to be paid to how the nation engages this past within its classrooms and curricula and a 2019 report published by the Runnymede Trust identified a real need for targeted professional development support in this area.
A new research project, funded by the Pears Foundation, responds directly to this call. Critically, the project team note that, to date, no large-scale research has ever been conducted to understand the extent to – or manners in which – secondary students are taught about this history, if at all. The project aims to build a robust and nuanced evidence base to better understand the range of teacher’s experience, practice and perspective in this area, to identify the challenges or concerns most commonly encountered, and the most important and appropriate opportunities for future professional development support.
