A Planning Framework for Effective Historical Inquiry

For more than a century historians, educators, and teachers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom have advocated for inquiry approaches to history teaching Despite continuous support from history educators, significant empirical research exploring its benefits, and numerous pedagogical models developed to support inquiry, there is little evidence to suggest that historical inquiry approaches are commonly employed in K-12 history classrooms. In this paper, we examine the benefits and challenges of historical inquiry in K-12 teachers’ classrooms in order to better understand why historical inquiry is not being utilized more often. We review the research literature and discuss findings from interviews with eleven (n=11) “expert” Canadian social studies and history teachers to develop a more thorough understanding of the benefits and challenges of doing historical inquiry in K-12 classrooms. We discuss pedagogical, systemic, and student challenges to implementing inquiry approaches in history classrooms, and we define three essential features for doing effective historical inquiry including scaffolding, collaboration, and viability. We then propose a planning framework for historical inquiry that accentuates the benefits of historical inquiry and provides potential solutions for addressing some of the challenges.