Making narrative connections? Exploring how late teens relate their own lives to the historically significant past

Abstract

This paper reports on a study that invited 187 16–18-year-old students in the United States to draw diagrams showing connections between their own lives and the past. Interviews were subsequently held with 26 study participants. The degree to which students made connections between their own lives and the past, and the various ways in which they integrated personal and historical narratives, are discussed, with three examples explored in detail. The ways in which interviewed students talked about their diagrams point to the significance of individuals' understandings of the nature of historical knowledge for how they use the past to orient their own lives.