2026/03/24 by Christopher W Berg · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy #Philosophy, History, and Historiography #Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis
paper · doi:10.14324/herj.23.1.07
openalex publication_date 2026/03/24 · openalex created_date 2026/03/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
In the summer of 1813, John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson, saying, ‘you and I have passed our Lives, in Serious Times’. History has guided past generations and remains a crucial tool for helping students understand the present through the study of the past. In the United States, recent decades have shown a degree of growing indifference towards history in college and university curricula, suggesting that the value of history might be diminishing. This qualitative study explored 103 undergraduate student essays from a state college in the southeastern United States on ‘Why study history?’ using four guiding questions: (1) How does the study of history help us in our everyday lives? (2) How does history help us better understand ourselves and the world around us? (3) What purpose does the study of history have in the college curriculum today, if any? (4) How does history prepare us to be active citizens in our community? The McNeill–Stearns framework guided data analysis and two cycles of coding. A range of themes were generated through the first cycle of coding and refined in the second cycle. The following four themes – prepare for the future, repeating history, lessons of history and historical analogy and comparison – were nested within Chapman et al.’s categorical theme of prudential uses of history. This is arguably the most significant finding of the present study. In addition to prudential uses of history, other key themes include identity and citizenship. The findings are considered in light of the McNeill–Stearns framework and the scholarly literature, specifically historians’ insights and perspectives on the purpose and value of history. Student attitudes and beliefs about the relevance of history today are important variables that can inform curricular decision-making and inspire history and social studies teaching practices.