Conditions for the Transformation of Investigative Language Practices in School History: An Elementary School Case Study

Abstract

The article addresses case studies that show students’ abilities to mobilize practices that have to do with those of scientists. Two types of investigations are thus possible in history classes: following documentary criticism procedures to establish truth, or articulating the search for truth by analyzing traces of the past and searching for meaning. We document the conditions of transition from one type of investigation to the other by analyzing a case of autonomous work by pupils at the end of primary school. This case questions the idea that the development of skills would take place through the mastery of rules describing historical thinking, and it highlights the fact that academic skills can help students to go beyond the habits of school discipline.