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Christine Counsell draws upon her recent work in developing definitions and practice concerning pupils' thinking about historical significance.1 Here she tries out those ideas in relation to the 19th century campaigner against the Contagious Diseases Acts, Josephine Butler. Counsell explains why she developed her own set of criteria for structuring pupils' thinking about historical significance and she encourages other history teachers to do likewise. She focuses chiefly upon one possible criterion that might inform judgements about historical significance - the extent to which an event, person or development is historically 'revealing'.
Amongst the package of concepts, skills and understandings listed in the National Curriculum for History since 1995, we find a reference to historical significance.2 Plenty of teachers, education researchers and textbook authors have addressed this but when these contributions are taken together, the overall picture is confused.3 Some authors write about what different pupils already appear to think; others focus upon where they would like to take them. Some authors talk about significance as a type of historical thinking for pupils to engage in; others appear to be writing about which areas of content they think pupils should be studying, and ways of simply teaching pupils that this content is significant. To complete the confusing picture, as far as teachers in England and Wales are concerned, the National Curriculum Attainment Target ignores significance completely, whilst the National Curriculum 'Programme of Study' states its importance, giving it a Key Element all of its own.4 No wonder explicit work with significance on departmental workschemes is patchy and debate about it muddled. As a professional history education community, this is a conceptual area where we have yet to find some common terms of reference.
It is also an area where we all have opportunity to contribute. Surely anyone with knowledge of the practice of history and experience of teaching can and ought to be able to theorise this for themselves? Surely, as professionals, we should look to the discipline of history, to other, related parts of the history curriculum and to our beliefs and values concerning what pupils might achieve? From these places, we can apply an historian's reason and a teacher's imagination to give the idea some meaning and start to see what activities and...