Éducation à la défense et enseignement de l’histoire des guerres

• Main Author: Sylvain Doussot
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée 2018-06-01
• Series: Éducation et Socialisation
• Subjects: defense education; critique; history; problematization; scales
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/edso/2972

This paper aims to deal with the relation between values and knowledge in history teaching (especially of wars) and defense and security education. This defense education is questioned through the two traditional (and potentially contradictory) aims of history teaching: building a common culture and teaching critical historical thinking. Official instructions show how difficult it may be for teachers to teach both and have students understand present and past issues without staying in an instrumentalized relation to the past widespread in public debates. Mechanisms under process and possible pedagogical actions are here considered through a return to the epistemological issues of critical historical thinking and practices. Scaling between individuals and contexts, and between them (in the past and elsewhere) and us (now and here) which is at the heart of historical problematization could help handle a critical teaching of the past, as well as rational discussion of values involved in current defense and security debates.