10th September 2002

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The difficulties of teaching history in countries where there is no shared vision of the past come under the microscope at a week-long seminar held at the University of Ulster at Coleraine this week.

More than 20 people from seven countries including curriculum developers, teacher educators and history teachers are taking part in the conference organised by the UNESCO Centre in the School of Education at Coleraine.

Entitled “Teaching History in Societies Emerging from Conflict”, the seminar will explore the problems and opportunities associated with teaching history in contested societies.

At the conclusion the UNESCO Centre will draw up a report taking account of the collective experiences of the contributors and developing a set of principles which, when applied, might allow history teaching to contribute to greater social cohesion in such societies.

Among the experiences being recounted during the week will be those of teachers from Russia, Estonia, Latvia, South Africa, Cyprus, Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland.

The conference was organised by Alan McCully and Brendan Hartop of the School of Education and contributors include Professor Alan Smith, Professor Peter Roebuck, Professor Keith Jeffrey, Dr Roger Austin and Dr Elizabeth Crooke from the University of Ulster and Dr Keith Barton of the University of Cincinnati and Professor Wolfgang Hopken of the Georg-Echert Institut for Text Book Research, Germany.

Delegates to the conference also visited the history department of a local school and a number of museums in Londonderry.

For further information, please contact:

Press Office Department of Communication and Development
Telephone: 028 9036 6178
Email: pressoffice@ulster.ac.uk