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Leveraging Intercultural Social Media-Type Platforms to Promote Historical Consciousness and Historical Understanding Among Young People: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges

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History Education in the Digital Age

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Abstract

How might we promote the development of young people’s historical consciousness and historical understanding by taking advantage of contemporary digital tools such as social media-type platforms? This chapter explores some of the opportunities and challenges involved in intercultural digital exchange programs which enable students to learn both with and from one another in ways that draw directly on their individual experiences, observations, and perspectives. While exploratory in nature, it draws specifically on data from the Stories of Human Migration curriculum offered by Out of Eden Learn—a program and design-based research project designed to promote thoughtful intercultural inquiry and exchange among diverse youth. It is argued that besides promoting student engagement, such platforms can help young people to (1) develop more nuanced historical understanding of a topic of enduring and contemporary significance; (2) situate their own lives within a broader context than their immediate lived experience; and (3) develop greater critical awareness, including an awareness of the ways in which their own perspectives are shaped by cultural and historical forces. The case is made that learning opportunities mediated by such platforms open up a host of interesting questions for the field of history education and could usefully supplement other teaching approaches.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by The Abundance Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and Global Cities, Inc., a Program of Bloomberg Philanthropies. The author wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Sarah Sheya and Emi Kane who co-designed the Stories of Human Migration curriculum and the rest of the Out of Eden Learn team, including her co-directors Carrie James and Shari Tishman.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Liz Dawes Duraisingh

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  1. Liz Dawes Duraisingh
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Correspondence to Liz Dawes Duraisingh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO-Argentina), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Mario Carretero

  2. Montevideo, Uruguay

    María Cantabrana

  3. FLACSO-Argentina, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Lomas de Zamora, Argentina

    Cristian Parellada

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Dawes Duraisingh, L. (2022). Leveraging Intercultural Social Media-Type Platforms to Promote Historical Consciousness and Historical Understanding Among Young People: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges. In: Carretero, M., Cantabrana, M., Parellada, C. (eds) History Education in the Digital Age. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10743-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10743-6_5

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