‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations

In 2018, the toy manufacturer Playmobil launched a ‘History Class’ as an addition to its ‘Furnished School Building’. The materiality of this toy, and the selection of teaching media represented in coloured plastic (a blackboard with timeline, magnifying glass, parchment roll, stone axe, posters and...

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Main Authors:	Sebastian Barsch, Christian Mathis
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	UCL Press 2020-09-01
Series:	History Education Research Journal
Online Access:	https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/HERJ.17.2.02

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spelling	doaj-cfe811ec427e485bb62c6f3fa402d14d2021-04-02T20:29:28ZengUCL PressHistory Education Research Journal2631-97132020-09-0110.14324/HERJ.17.2.02‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectationsSebastian BarschChristian MathisIn 2018, the toy manufacturer Playmobil launched a ‘History Class’ as an addition to its ‘Furnished School Building’. The materiality of this toy, and the selection of teaching media represented in coloured plastic (a blackboard with timeline, magnifying glass, parchment roll, stone axe, posters and other sources), convey an idea of history education based on hands-on learning, a variety of methods, original encounters and work with historical sources. This paper presents results of an international research project in which 12 children in Germany and Switzerland were interviewed with the help of this toy as a stimulus. The aim was to find out to what extent children are able to deconstruct the toy as a historical-cultural product. In addition, the interviews were intended to grasp the children’s views on the ideal teaching of history. The data are evaluated using grounded theory methodology. The results show that the pupils express clear wishes as to how history teaching should be structured. A critical distance to the toy was not taken.https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/HERJ.17.2.02
collection	DOAJ
language	English
format	Article
sources	DOAJ
author	Sebastian Barsch Christian Mathis
spellingShingle	Sebastian Barsch Christian Mathis ‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations History Education Research Journal
author_facet	Sebastian Barsch Christian Mathis
author_sort	Sebastian Barsch
title	‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations
title_short	‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations
title_full	‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations
title_fullStr	‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations
title_full_unstemmed	‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations
title_sort	‘with these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: playmobil’s history class – representations, reflections and expectations
publisher	UCL Press
series	History Education Research Journal
issn	2631-9713
publishDate	2020-09-01
description	In 2018, the toy manufacturer Playmobil launched a ‘History Class’ as an addition to its ‘Furnished School Building’. The materiality of this toy, and the selection of teaching media represented in coloured plastic (a blackboard with timeline, magnifying glass, parchment roll, stone axe, posters and other sources), convey an idea of history education based on hands-on learning, a variety of methods, original encounters and work with historical sources. This paper presents results of an international research project in which 12 children in Germany and Switzerland were interviewed with the help of this toy as a stimulus. The aim was to find out to what extent children are able to deconstruct the toy as a historical-cultural product. In addition, the interviews were intended to grasp the children’s views on the ideal teaching of history. The data are evaluated using grounded theory methodology. The results show that the pupils express clear wishes as to how history teaching should be structured. A critical distance to the toy was not taken.
url	https://ucl.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14324/HERJ.17.2.02
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‘With these exhibits many interesting things can be learned about past times’: Playmobil’s History Class – representations, reflections and expectations

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