Globalisation and Education Futures: Teaching Historical Causation in a Global Culture

The chapter draws on ancient and modern historiography to examine historical causation. It discusses challenges for learning and teaching. It argues for strategies that highlight the interpretative nature of historical inquiry. The chapter argues that the concept of causation is indispensable to historical explanation. This concept transcends the boundaries of nation states and offers common ground for reflection on history education. Research on historical thinking challenges teachers to provide opportunities for students to engage in causal reasoning. This is a pivotal aspect of historical thinking. Students use the concept of historical causation to construct explanations of the past. Furthermore, it is important for students to analyse the use of causes by historians. This approach presents history as an interpretative discipline in which representations of the past are underpinned by causal reasoning.