Inclusive Histories

Five years ago the Royal Historical Society's landmark Race, Ethnicity and Equality in UK History report highlighted the damaging consequences of continuing racial and ethnic inequalities in the teaching of history in the UK, and how the taught curriculum for secondary schools often fails to incorporate new, diverse histories, acting as a barrier to Global Majority student engagement. It is imperative, the report argues, that the curriculum be widened "to reflect the full diversity of human histories". AQA's Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in AQA History (Ryan et. al. 2021) report adds to this call appeals from students themselves for better representation of gender, sexuality, disability, neurodiversity, and class; the intersectionality of these identities and lived experiences; and for these histories to be integrated across the curriculum rather than delivered as separate topics. The report also highlights requests from teachers for age-appropriate resources to support the teaching of more diverse histories and to help bring academic scholarship into the classroom. While several organisations have sought to tackle these challenges, and teachers have introduced more diverse and global histories themselves, particularly at Key Stage 3, progress has been slow and fragmentary, with interventions at Key Stage 4, in particular, stymied by the high pressure nature of GCSE teaching and the prescriptive nature of its specifications.

'Inclusive Histories' is a proposed three-year collaborative research and schools engagement project led by Royal Holloway and the AQA exam board, involving seven archive and museum partners. In contrast to earlier interventions, this project focuses on the particular challenges associated with KS4 and adopts a highly collaborative and participatory approach to its underlying research. It aims to: 1) support the more inclusive teaching of UK history through the co-production of 200 high-quality, research-driven teaching resources foregrounding the contributions of diverse historical individuals and movements to the struggle for rights and representation; 2) develop, model, and evaluate innovative collaborative and participatory research and co-production methodology by, for example, embedding Research Associates in museums and archives where they can work alongside archivists and other specialists, and engaging and remunerating community researchers and teacher consultants; and 3) examine the impact the resulting research and resources have in terms of a) student understanding of the nature of historical change, as it shifts the lens from change from above to pressure from below, b) student perceptions of history as a discipline, and c) teacher confidence in teaching what can sometimes be difficult histories.

'Inclusive Histories' has brought together academics, teachers, archivists, curators, heritage sector education officers, and exam board research and curriculum specialists to develop a project which represents a coordinated response to the challenges set out above, underpinned by equitable collaborative and participatory research. It has the potential to not only enhance the teaching of history in schools across England and beyond but also, through the stories it will uncover, inform future GCSE specification reform at AQA and other awarding bodies, and contribute to scholarship in fields as diverse as women's history, LGBTQ+ history, working class history, and Black British history.