About

FPG – Future Pasts Group at University of Stavanger

Research Group for the study of the past in education, culture and society

This new research programme FPG has a clear ambition of proposing a meaningful framework for the study of the past in the 21st century that incorporates complex and critical thinking and that transcends the conventional understanding of essentialist pasts and identities.

Common research questions are:

How is the past mediated, represented and used in different educational, cultural and social settings and with which purpose? (eg by history or language teachers in schools, by politicians in public debates or by writers in novels/diaries)

To what extent the past is or not used in relation to essentialist visions of identities and heritage in different educational, cultural and social settings?

How do people relate to uses of the past in different educational, cultural and social settings? (eg what kind of historical narratives and understandings of the past do the students/pupils produce in schools or how are the 22nd of July Centre in Oslo or the film Utøya discussed/perceived)

How can we improve critical historical thinking or critical historical consciousness in education and other cultural settings?

Conceptually, the research programme will have as objectives the examination of notions like historical consciousness, historical memory, cultural memory, historical thinking or historical culture in relation with representations or uses of the past in public spheres like in education, culture and society.