Introduction

The articles in this special issue discuss the Greek dimensions of a large-scale international research endeavor entitled Youth and History: The Comparative European Project on Historical Consciousness among Teenagers. This project is based on a detailed questionnaire survey that investigated what adolescents in 27 European countries knew about history, how they interpreted and understood historical information, and how these understandings influenced their political attitudes and their expectations for the future (Angvik and von Borries 1997).

The Youth and History project was initiated by Magne Angvik (Bergen College of Higher Education, Norway) and Bodo von Borries (University of Hamburg, Germany) both of whom are well-known for their research on the teaching of history and their involvement in teacher education. As the study moved forward, Angvik and von Borries developed an international network of colleagues with similar interests, inviting them to serve as coordinators for their particular countries. The guest editors of this special volume (Thalia Dragonas and Anna Frangoudaki) were the national coordinators who carried out the survey in Greece. ¹

Research concerning history education in the European context has been rather limited and has focused, in the main, on theoretical and methodological questions. The bulk of existing work has addressed educational history and policies, the development of curricula, and various means of instruction. Empirical research on how students, who constitute a central element in the teaching and learning process, make sense of history has been relatively rare. This was, however, precisely the scope of the Youth and History study, which aimed at eliciting information about how students themselves evaluate history and history teaching, at determining the basic elements and logic of adolescent historical consciousness, and at drawing a kind of map of the historical interpretations and political attitudes of youths across Europe (Angvik and von Borries 1997:A21-A23; von Borries 1998:16-17). More particularly, the study investigated historical consciousness as a complex combination of the historical and political socialization undergone by students, their interpretations of the past, their perceptions of the present, their expectations for the future, and the linkages they make among different periods of time. The designers of the Youth and History study saw historical consciousness as a form of self-positioning and a central part of individual and collective identity, having a bearing on values and interests, influencing attitudes and actions. They also had a strong comparative interest in seeking to answer whether variations in historical socialization in different countries are as deep as sometimes assumed or merely superficial, and whether there is a measurable trend towards a united European historical consciousness or a counter-trend in which the idiosyncrasies of national and social traditions work against such a course of integration.

The ultimate applied goals of the study have been pedagogical improvement in the teaching of history based on diagnosis of the situation in different European countries, development of a framework for further theoretical and empirical work in the area of historical consciousness, assessment of prospects for both European integration and intra-European conflicts, and, finally the creation of an international and interdisciplinary network of researchers and practitioners in the fields of history and education (Angvik and von Borries 1997:A21).

During the academic year 1994-95, some 31,611 students from 27 countries ² responded to a precoded questionnaire consisting of 48 general topics, each subdivided into several specific questions for a total of 280 items. These questions attempted to operationalize the concept of historical consciousness and were divided into four general categories (Angvik and von Borries 1997:A37-A41). (1) Some questions explored how students have been socialized to think of history by probing their understandings of the essence and methods of history, their motivation for learning history, their trust in and fun with historical media, and their perceptions of how they have been taught history. (2) Other questions examined the students' chronological knowledge, the ways they interpret selected events in the past, and how these interpretations affect their understanding...