Memory Practices.

Enacting And Contesting The Curriculum in Contemporary Classrooms

Drawing on the practice turn in cultural studies, media theory and curriculum research, this research group for early career scholars developed a novel approach which opens up "memory practices" as a substantive field of inquiry. By exploring how memory is enacted in specific sites, the project promises to make a valuable contribution to ongoing international debates on the shaping of collective memory.

One habilitation was successfully completed in 2016 (Felicitas Macgilchrist, Braunschweig), and three dissertations are in their final stages (Johanna Ahlrichs, Mainz; Patrick Mielke, Göttingen; Roman Richetra, Siegen).

  • Approach

    The research group combined ethnographic, discourse analytical, interview and survey approaches to explore (i) relationships among policy curricula (e.g. federal curricula), programmatic curricula (e.g. textbooks) and enacted curricula (e.g. classroom use), and (ii) interactions among official forms of remembering, other mediations of memory and family memory.


  • Publications
    • Ahlrichs, J., & Macgilchrist, F. (2017/in press). Medialität im Geschichtsunterricht: Die Rolle des Schulbuchs beim Vollzug von 'Geschichte'. Zeitschrift für interpretative Schul- und Unterrichtsforschung (ZISU) 6/2017.
    • Macgilchrist, F., Ahlrichs, J., Mielke, P., & Richtera, R. (2017). Memory practices and colonial discourse: Tracing text trajectories and lines of flight. (available online)
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2017/in press). Zur Medialität des Schulbuchs. In M. Proske & K. Rabenstein (Eds.), Unterricht beobachten – beschreiben – rekonstruieren. Kompendium qualitativ-sinnverstehender Unterrichtsforschung. Bad Heilbrunn Klinkhardt-Verlag.
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2017). History education and memory practices: On curricula, classrooms and media. In: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (Hrsg.): European Commemoration: Conference Proceedings. Berlin.
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2017). Textbooks. In John Flowerdew & John Richardson. Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies. London: Routledge.
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2017). Psychologie. In: Roth, Kersten/Wengeler, Martin/Ziem, Alexander (Hrsg.): Handbuch Sprache in Politik und Gesellschaft. Berlin: de Gruyter, 568-587.
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2016). Fissures in the discourse-scape: Critique, rationality and validity in postfoundational approaches to CDS. Discourse & Society, 27(3), 262-277. doi:10.1177/0957926516630902 (open access). (Abstract)
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2016). Textbook Production: The entangled practices of developing curricular materials for schools. Habilitationsschrift, Technische Universität Braunschweig.
    • Macgilchrist, F., Christophe, B., & Binnenkade, A. (Eds) (2015). Memory Practices and History Education. Special issue of Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 7(2).
    • Macgilchrist, F., Christophe, B., & Binnenkade, A. (2015). Memory practices and history education. An introduction. Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 7(2), 1-9. (Abstract)
    • Ahlrichs, J., Baier, K., Christophe, B., Macgilchrist, F., Mielke, P., & Richtera, R. (2015). Memory practices in the classroom: On reproducing, destabilizing and interrupting majority memories. Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 7(2), 89-109. (Abstract)
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2015). Memory Practices: On What Counts as Worth Remembering in History Education. THEN|HiER. (available online)
    • Macgilchrist, F. (2015, 17 July 2015). Kommentar zu, 1. Tag „erinnern.kontrovers“. erinnern.hypotheses.org. (available online)

Project Team

  • Felicitas Macgilchrist
  • Patrick Mielke
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