Answer to Question #322559 in Sociology for Sweets

Question

The relationship between academic history and school history considering thr recent developments in South Africa by drawing attention to the vision and purpose if history as a school subject.

Answer 1

School History is a very particular brand of History and Academic is another school of thought entirely but both could be considered to be equally valid and flawed. It is believed that they work best in conjunction and that they do greatly enhance each other and that without Academic History there would be no school History; instead, it would all just be fiction and without people like Maurice Druon producing such acclaimed works of Historical Fiction there would be far fewer people engaging with and interested in History enough to pursue or investigate the more academic side of it. Others reject the idea of basing school history on the academic discipline, generally arguing either that such an approach is far too difficult for school-children or that it is too time-consuming when what young people really need is sufficient substantive knowledge to give them a mental map of the past.