Since 1954, following the adoption of the Cultural Convention, the Council of Europe has been working on history in response to Article 2, which stipulates: “Each Contracting Party shall, insofar as may be possible:
a. encourage the study by its own nationals of the languages, history and civilisation of the other Contracting Parties and grant facilities to those Parties to promote such studies in its territory; and
b. to promote the study of its language or languages, history and civilisation in the territory of the other Contracting Parties and grant facilities to the nationals of those Parties to pursue such studies in its territory.”
As part of the intergovernmental programme on history education, the Education Department has launched a series of Forums on key topics concerning history in the first quarter of the 21st century. In November 2022, the first Forum focused on “Sites of Memories: Learning spaces for democracy“ was held in Belgrade. The second Forum, of which this publication is the report, looked at “History Education in the digital age” and took place in Brussels in March 2023.
The third Forum in Bologna in May 2024 will focus on the challenges of history in higher education, before a final Forum in 2025 will take up the conclusions of the three previous Forums in order to draw up recommendations for public authorities.
Thinking about “history education in the digital age” means facing up to the challenges of both research (how to manage all the digitised archives, how do we recognise the true from the false in this avalanche of documents?) and teaching (how to make the best use of video games developed on a historical framework? how can we make the most of learners’ digital knowledge of history?) and in terms of training for teachers and historians, and so forth, and to a host of questions and major challenges facing all European societies. At a time when history is facing distortion, manipulation and exploitation, this publication, whilst it cannot provide all the answers, it can certainly help to clarify some of the elements in the debate.
