Abstract
This study examined the consistency of historical learning in primary and secondary school education in Germany through the analysis of textbooks that focused on historical consciousness.
The study first clarified the characteristic pattern of historical consciousness as to how hit was developed at each educational stage through an analysis of the textbooks and then examined the sequential progress in the building of such consciousness. It revealed that historical consciousness is developed continually in a way that children’s narratives on history were progressively elaborated through interrelating both historical and social dimensions in the consciousness.
The study indicated that the following could be applied to historical learning in Japan: (1) the goal of historical learning, i.e., fostering historical consciousness, would make it possible to ensure consistency in the study content; (2) historical consciousness as a learning goal had to be a pedagogical theory; and (3) the aim unique to historical learning was an effective means of enabling a consistency across primary and secondary school education.
