In this paper, I explore how pupils, aged 13-16, experience historical objects during an educational visit to a history museum, and how this experience affects their historical consciousness. Historical consciousness denotes the understanding of coherence between the past, present, and future – how humans are created by and creating history (Jensen, 2017).

As an applicable pedagogical term, historical consciousness has been widely discussed and criticised for its intangibility (Binderup et al., 2014). Historical consciousness is developed through learning processes affected by the culture one lives in, and therefore culture and history are understood as entwined (Jensen, 2017). Historical consciousness is therefore researched in this paper as a broad cultural process that happens ubiquitously, especially at a history museum.

This is why I choose to investigate how historical consciousness as an applicable pedagogical term and a cultural process, can become more tangible when pupils experience historical objects at a history museum. This stems from historical objects being a favourable way to be in bodily and tactile contact with the past, by providing a bodily presence (Dudley, 2012; Gumbrecht, 2004). Furthermore, museum education can be an advantageous pedagogical approach to create such an opportunity for pupils to be in contact with the past through historical objects. The question is how the connection to the past through objects, can encourage pupils to reflect on their cultural understanding concerning the past, present, and future?

To research how a historical object can affect pupils’ historical consciousness; it is essential to further investigate the relation between subject and object. This means that instead of understanding the physical world around us as a resource to fulfil one’s own needs, as many do in our Anthropocene world, I centralize the relation between subject and object (Chakrabarty, 2009). To do this the relation between subject and object needs to be realized as entangled. In other words, an interaction with one another. This entails a shift of focus to the entangled production of the pupil’s subjectivities as affected by and affecting its surroundings/world. Yet the pupil’s subjectivities and life are messy and complex and should be acknowledged and embraced, instead of attending to claims of the authentic pupil (Spyrou, 2018).

Within this study the focus on entangled production of pupil’s subjectivities, are the pupil’s experience with the historical objects and how that affects the pupil’s historical consciousness. Considering the entangled production of historical consciousness, I argue that a more material perspective on historical consciousness would entail that the pupils’ experiences with the historical objects – the material past – would support the development of their historical consciousness. This will lead to a more tangible applicable pedagogical understanding of historical consciousness, which the term has previously been criticized for not being (Haas, 2022). However, using the material past to understand the present and future, is not to establish history as magistrae vitae. Instead, it is an understanding of and openness towards a perspective on bildung with a temporal aspect which takes the relational encounters with the material world into account.

To research historical consciousness as a more tangible applicable pedagogical understanding, I find it essential that it is the pupil’s experience and voice which is the guidelines to this development. Even though I find an ethical obligation to represent the pupil’s voices, I do not consider this study as giving the pupils a voice. Instead, I understand that with the choice of methods in the study, it can give space to the pupils’ voices. I, therefore, acknowledge the limits of pupils’ voices and recognize the importance of the performative character it may hold (Spyrou, 2018).

This paper presents a study with pupils during an educational museum visit, based on qualitative cartographic observations and qualitative photo-elicited surveys. The actual study is part of a larger empirical study (Ph.D.-thesis), but this paper mainly focuses on the two methods to investigate the performative character of pupils’ voices and to give space to the pupils’ voices. Much empirical research is mediated through power, and acknowledging the pupils as experts and co-creators of the data is no exception (Spyrou, 2018). Therefore, it has been vital in my choice of methods and throughout the whole research process to be aware of the power differential. The qualitative cartographic observation form where you draw to see, instead of drawing to represent (Causey, 2017). I.e. the observer draws the pupils’ interaction in space and place on a floor plan of a history museum – Rosenborg Castle. The purpose is to gain spatial insight of how the pupils interact in space and place, and balance between experience and enlightenment during the museum education. The cartographic observations are therefore understood as qualitative insights into the interaction between subject and object, instead of quantitative tracking data of the pupils’ movement. The observation is conducted with 16 different classes who visit Rosenborg Castle for educational purposes. With the same pupils who are observed, I also use qualitative photo-elicited surveys, to get an insight into the pupils’ experience with the historical objects and how that experience affects the pupils’ historical consciousness. My method could arguably be within the continuum between participatory photography and photo-elicited interviews (Banks & Zeitlyn, 2015; Latz & Mulvihill, 2017), because the pupils are asked to take a photo of the object that they think has had the biggest influence on their visit to the museum and explain their experience with the object while standing in front of the object. Videlicet, when the pupils’ take the photo themselves and explain their experiences with the object, their visual narratives are incorporated into the data production and thereby positioned as authors of their own stories. After the pupils’ visit to the museum, the pupils will get a more extended qualitative photo-elicited survey, with open reflective questions about their experience with the specific object. The photo is in other words used as a steppingstone to get insights into the pupils’ experience with the objects.

The expected outcome of this study is broader insights into pupils’ experiences with historical objects at a history museum during an educational visit. Experiences and processes that are much affected by the presence effects of the material objects present at a history museum. These outcomes will be supported by findings of how the pupils’ historical consciousness is affected by their experiences with the historical objects. This will be a vital foundation for developing how museum educators can didactically create the opportunities for the pupils to experience the historical objects and support the development of historical consciousness. Such a development will contribute to the historical consciousness as a bildung and culturally orientated pedagogical term. These findings will also allow the term to be understood as a more material process and acknowledge the term within an entangled understanding. The openness towards the entangled production of historical consciousness will broaden the understandings of pedagogical use of historical objects – the material past – to understand our present, and to help navigate what the future might hold. This pedagogical approach will be further developed in my Ph.D. thesis. It is also expected that that the study will conclude that a more creative methodological approach can support researchers in approaching the pupils’ messy and complex voices. This will lead to broad perspectives of why researchers should acknowledge that the pupils should be narrators of their own story, instead of caricaturing pupils. Most importantly this study will conclude that the pupils should be recognized as a person who has a past and past experiences, who contributes to the present, who is becoming of age, who is shaping the future, and a person who exists in their own right.

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