Epistemological Entanglements: Preservice Elementary School Teachers' “Apprenticeship of Observation” and the Teaching of History

Abstract

Abstract The following study of two preservice teachers' “apprenticeship of observation” in elementary social studies, describes a dilemma associated with the teacher socialization process. It focuses on one aspect of social studies—history. Borrowing from Novick's (1988) analysis of American historiography, a continuum was constructed to help provide an illustration of how an objectivist philosophy of historical knowledge and an interpretivist philosophy of historical knowledge influenced the two students' thinking about teaching history. This continuum was then used to explore how the preservice teachers encountered their teacher education courses and how the combination of these experiences influenced how each proposed to teach history once they entered the profession. The results indicated that: (1) the two preservice teachers' primary exposure to history was largely influenced by objectivist epistemologies concerning historical knowledge and didactic approaches to teaching the subject; (2) each preservice teacher had tentative ambitions not to teach history from an objectivist epistemology and a didactic approach; and (3) teaching internships and exposure to resources may help forecast preservice teachers' epistemological views of historical knowledge and their approach to teaching history in the elementary school.