Call for Papers – Dossier: Pasts, Presents, and Futures in History Education

2025-11-24

Call for Papers – Dossier: Pasts, Presents, and Futures in History Education
Coordinators:
Lucía Valencia Castañeda — Universidad de Santiago de Chile
María Celeste Cerdá — Universidad Nacional de Córdoba

Alongside the emergence and consolidation of nation-states in Latin America, history as a school subject was born and developed. In that context, its purposes aimed to strengthen a national identity in territories still in the process of defining themselves, grounded in a patriotic ideal strongly rooted in the deeds of Independence and its protagonists—military and political heroes.

Since its origins, the subject of history has responded to the historical trajectory of Latin American realities, with clearly political objectives that reflect the projects of society and citizenship embedded in each of these processes.

On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Revista de Historia Social y de las Mentalidades, we call for submissions to a dossier that seeks to explore the pasts, presents, and futures of history education in Chile and Latin America. Its purpose is to question how much change and continuity persist in the teaching of history in the classrooms of our continent:
What have been the trends in state influence on the school curriculum?
What is the relationship between new historiographical perspectives and their research fields with the teaching that takes place in schools?
Which actors, visibilities, and agencies are present in classrooms?
What relevance does recent history hold, given its inherently controversial and conflictive nature?
What role does memory play as both subject matter and pedagogical approach?
How is historical thinking positioned as a novelty and as a learning goal?
What role does the future play when the past is taught?

The dossier Pasts, Presents, and Futures in History Education invites recent studies addressing these questions, considering the following lines of analysis:

  1. Social and political contexts and projects in the construction of the history curriculum

  2. Historiography and history education: relationships and tensions between tradition and innovation

  3. Teaching recent history: difficult pasts, controversy, memory, and conflict

  4. Historical thinking and learning in history and social sciences classrooms

  5. Teaching history within the complexities of the 21st century

Call opens: November 20, 2025
Submission deadline: April 1, 2026