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Using Historical Knowledge to Reason

About Contemporary Political Issues: An
ExpertNovice Study
Tamara L. Shreiner
University of Michigan
Published online: 30 Sep 2014.
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To cite this article: Tamara L. Shreiner (2014) Using Historical Knowledge to Reason About
Contemporary Political Issues: An ExpertNovice Study, Cognition and Instruction, 32:4, 313-352, DOI:
10.1080/07370008.2014.948680
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COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION, 32(4), 313352, 2014

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ISSN: 0737-0008 print / 1532-690X online
DOI: 10.1080/07370008.2014.948680
Using Historical Knowledge to Reason About

Contemporary Political Issues: An ExpertNovice Study
Tamara L. Shreiner
University of Michigan
People often justify historys place in the curriculum by its relationship to citizenship, yet there is
little research to help educators picture how people use historical knowledge for civic purposes.
This expertnovice study used the think-aloud method to examine how eight political scientists and
eight high school students employed historical knowledge to reason about a political issue. Findings
indicated that detailed historical narrative played an important role for experts reasoning, and the
experts used narrative to frame the issue, support their positions, and evaluate historical claims.
Participating students used narrative as well, but their narratives were lacking in detail. They never
used history to frame the problem, contextualize documents, or to support their positions, and they
rarely used narrative to evaluate claims. These differences in how experts and novices use history to
make sense of the present have implications for history instruction and research in history and civic
education.
INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of public education in the United States, scholars, educators, and policymakers
have argued that historical knowledge is central to civic competence, and have often justified
historys place in the curriculum in relationship to citizenship (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Gould,
Jamieson, Levine, McConnell, & Smith, 2012). In 1898, an American Historical Association
committee charged with defining history within the school curriculum reported that historical
studies could provide students with the mental equipment for a comprehension of the political
and social problems that will confront [them] in everyday life, as well as practical preparation
for social adaptation and for forceful participation in civic activities (p. 18). And over a century
later, in 2000, federal legislators set out to establish the role of history in Americans education
with a Sense of the Senate Resolution calling for more and better history instruction in the
schools in order to improve civic memory (U.S. Senate, 2000). More recently, the Common
Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of
Chief State School Officers, 2010) have raised questions about how historical literacy practices,
in conjunction with reading and writing skills developed through other disciplines, might help
Correspondence should be addressed to Tamara L. Shreiner, Department of History and Social Science, Greenhills
School, 850 Greenhills Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. E-mail: tshreiner@greenhillsschool.org
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SHREINER
students reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence that is essential to
both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic (p. 3). Indeed,
The College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (National
Council for Social Studies, 2013) recommends that upon graduating high school students are able
to use multiple disciplines to understand and reason about local, regional, and global problems,
and then make decisions and take action in multiple contexts.
Implicit in arguments about historys importance for citizenship is that citizens must not only
know history, but also must be able to effectively use history to reason about issues within the
civic domain. Democratic citizens should be able to apply knowledge of the history of American
democracy when considering laws and acts of government (Campaign for the Civic Mission of
the Schools, 2012), evaluate the historically grounded justifications used by policymakers and
government officials (Barton & Levstik, 2004), and use historical precedents and analogies to
inform their own positions and actions (Barton & Levstik, 2004). Further, citizens should be able
to use historical knowledge to reason about complex civic and political issues, and in democratic
practices ranging from group problem solving to protesting to voting (Carnegie Corporation of
New York & CIRCLE, 2003; Lupia & McCubbins, 1998). Schools, as the assumed guardians of
democracy and the institutions best equipped to foster these necessary competencies (Campaign
for the Civic Mission of the Schools, 2012), are expected to help students not only learn history,
but also learn how to use historical knowledge in their civic roles.
If educators hope to prepare students to use historical knowledge to reason for civic purposes,
they need a picture of what such reasoning should like in practice, as well as an understanding of
the challenges students might face in choosing and applying relevant historical knowledge to the
kinds of issues and problems they will face as citizens. This study aims to provide such a picture.
It focuses on how people with differing levels of expertise in the political domain use historical
knowledge to reason about contemporary political issues. Unlike other expertnovice studies that
have intended to better understand historical knowledge and its uses for understandings about
the past (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2009; Rouet, Favart, Britt, & Perfetti, 1997;
Wineburg, 1991), I aim to understand how people use history to make sense of issues they face in
the present. To that end, I asked eight civically engaged political scientists and eight high school
students to think aloud while reasoning about a prevalent and contentious political issue at the
timebipartisanship in U.S. politicsand reading across a variety of primary and secondary
texts relevant to the issue. I chose to use political scientists rather than historians as the experts
in this study because analysis of contemporary public policies and processes, as well as issues
like bipartisanship (American Political Science Association, 2013), are focal points of political
scientists work, and because political scientists often employ a historical perspective to make
sense of current issues (e.g., Aldrich, 2011; Rosenblum, 2010). Design and analysis for this study
focused on the following questions:
How do people with expertise in the political domain use historical knowledge to reason about
contemporary civic issues? What are the similarities and differences in the knowledge that
experts employ and those that high school students employ?
What is the nature of the historical knowledge participants of differing expertise use when
reasoning about civic issues? That is, what makes their knowledge usable?
USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON
315
Based on my findings, I argue that history does indeed play a valuable role in students civic
education, but that we cannot assume that simply learning history will provide students with the
tools they need to apply it to contemporary issues. Like several scholars of history education
(e.g., Foster, Ashby, & Lee, 2008; Lee, 2005; Shemilt, 2009), I argue that students must acquire a
usable knowledge of history, but I also offer a picture of what constitutes usable knowledge in the
political domain and how it is that people use such knowledge as they reason about contemporary
issues.
BACKGROUND
ExpertNovice Studies on Historical Understanding

Expertnovice studies attempt to understand the thinking underlying the skilled performances
of experts, contrasting it with the thinking of novices who do not perform at a sophisticated
level. Such studies play a valuable part in educational research because they help to explicate
the range of thinking in a given domain from naive to sophisticated so educators can design
instruction that will help students achieve the understanding needed to move from school performance to performance in the world (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Fiske, Kinder, &
Larter, 1983). Over several decades, researchers in math, science, and history have described the
cognitive aspects in their respective disciplines by studying the thinking of experts, those who
truly understand, and contrasting it with the thinking of novices, those who are relatively inexperienced in the particular discipline under investigation. Such scholarship reveals that experts
have domain-specific knowledge and discipline-specific heuristics that characterize sophisticated
historical, mathematical, and scientific thinking (Bransford et al., 2000; Gardner, 1991). Experts
appropriately apply their knowledge and habits of mind in new situations, whereas novice learners
tend to master the literacies, concepts, and disciplinary forms of schools, but often fall back on
immature, misconceived ideas when removed from the context of the classroom (Gardner, 1991,
pp. 67).
Expert studies in the domain of history, for example, reveal that historians possess usable
knowledge (Donovan & Bransford, 2005, p. 9) organized around substantive historical concepts
like the Industrial Revolution and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as second-order historical
concepts like evidence and significance that lie behind the production of the actual content
or substance of history (Lee, 2005, p. 32). By comparing such sophisticated thinking with
the thinking of children and adolescents, scholars interested in picturing a range of historical
thinking have begun to illuminate expertnovice differences in understanding of both substantive
and second-order historical concepts (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009;
Wineburg, 1991). Over the past three decades, there has been a wealth of studies that help us
to better understand what children and adolescents know about substantive historical concepts
like the state, government, and war (e.g., Berti, 1994; Brophy & Alleman, 2006; Lee, 2005);
and to compare experts and novices understanding of second-order concepts like causes and
consequences (e.g., Carretero, Jacott, Limon, Lopez-Manjon, & Leon, 1994; Lee & Shemilt,
2009), change over time (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005), evidence (e.g., Lee, 2005; Shemilt,
1987), accounts (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2004), significance (Seixas, 1994,
1997), and historical empathy (e.g., Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2011). Research in these areas
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has been abundant enough that scholars are able to provide detailed models for progressions
in understanding from novice to sophisticated, revealing important turning points in students
understanding, as well as the misconceptions or incomplete understandings they may have at
different levels (e.g., Lee & Ashby, 2000; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009).
Some research has also provided insight into how historians and students use historical
knowledge for historical purposesthat is, how people with differing levels of historical expertise approach and reason with historical texts (e.g., Rouet et al., 1997; Stahl, Hynd, Britton,
McNish, & Bosquet, 1996; Wineburg, 1991), and how they write in response to historical questions (e.g., Monte-Sano, 2010; Rouet et al., 1997). For example, Wineburg (1991) studied eight
historians and eight high school students as they puzzled aloud about a historical problem while
reading through texts that might serve as evidence. He found that the historians regularly used
a sourcing heuristic, reading and analyzing who wrote the document and when the document
was written before they read the actual text. Wineburg also argued that historians understood
the primary source documents they were reading by using a contextualizing heuristic, or reconstructing the social context in which the texts occurred, and by analyzing the intentions and
motivations of the authors. Furthermore, the historians worked through the documents as if they
were prosecuting attorneys, corroborating information by putting them side-by-side and locating discrepancies. The high school students in Wineburgs study, however, failed to question the
texts in the ways the historians did. They did not read the texts to consider the authors intentions
or to situate texts in the social context, but only to gather information. They saw the authoritative textbook excerpts Wineburg provided them as the most reliable because they just gave
straight information, and they rarely compared accounts, becoming flustered when they faced
contradictions.
A later study by Britt and Aglinskas (2002) provided further insight into how novices use the
sourcing heuristics identified by Wineburg (1991) by describing features of sourcing to which
novices are more likely to attend. These features include the authors position, meaning his or her
occupation or credentials; the authors motivation, or the possible reasons the person may have
written the document; or the authors level of participation, indicating if they knew the person
was a participant in the activities or not. Some students in Britt and Angliskas study also offered
an author evaluation, stating their opinion of the author. In addition, the students sometimes
mentioned the date or time period in which the document was written, the document type (e.g.,
a textbook or autobiography), or they made a statement evaluating the type of document it was.
Though these elements of sourcing seemed to be relatively easy for novices to apply, Britt and
Aglinskas concluded that students in both high school and college are nevertheless unlikely to
spontaneously apply them, and that even students who are competent at citing a source may
still not fully appreciate the document and author features that go into the selection of a source
(p. 495). After studying students who worked with an online application designed to encourage
sourcing, however, Britt and Aglinskas resolved that students will develop historical literacy
skills like sourcing with appropriate and sustained instruction and that document-level skills are
generalizable to other domains that use documents as evidence and involve arguments to support
theories (p. 512).
Although such research provides valuable information about differences in peoples historical
knowledge and skills, there is yet little research on how people use their historical knowledge
outside the domain of history. The next section highlights some notable exceptions.
317
Research on Using History to Reason About Civic or Political Issues

In a longitudinal study of 47 high school students in London schools, Foster et al. (2008)
investigated how students think about the past and use their historical frameworks to make sense
of their place in the world (p. 2). The problem the researchers gave students to consider in
the study was whether or not the United States would remain the most powerful nation in the
world. Although this study did not ask students to use history to grapple with a civic or political
issue per se, it did consider how students used historical knowledge to connect past, present,
and future. Using data from writing samples and interviews, the researchers concluded that the
majority of students did not instinctively draw on historical knowledge to inform contemporary
and future perspectives. Further, they found that most students talked only about the present
as they reasoned about the issue, or talked about a backward projected present in which they
demonstrated they believed the past was like the present (p. 4). They also found that the past
for most students consisted of disconnected and arbitrary events, and that only a minority seemed
to possess a sophisticated understanding of history as a process of change and development.
One study that helped illuminate how novices, as well as experts, use history in reasoning
about civic and political issues was conducted by Voss, Greene, Post, and Penner (1983) and
focused on how experts and novices solve ill-defined problems in the social sciences. Though this
study sought to uncover the problem-solving process rather than the ways people use historical
knowledge, the outcomes revealed that the participants employed historical knowledge in their
analyses. The study asked participants to solve a problem related to crop productivity in the
Soviet Union. The participants, representing a range of domain-specific experience, were five
university faculty members and one advanced doctoral student with expertise related to the
topic; 10 undergraduate students, six of whom were in a course on Soviet domestic policy; seven
graduate students and faculty in political science but with expertise in Latin America; four faculty
from the chemistry department; and one member of the foreign service. They were all asked to
think aloud about the problem using only their background knowledge and a paper and pencil
to help them think through the problem if necessary. Voss and colleagues (1983) found that
one way the more expert participants employed historical analysis was to frame the problem by
using knowledge of the past to identify sub-problems and constraints complicating agricultural
productivity, and to construct causal relations between concepts, facts, and principles relevant
to the issue. The authors concluded that the experts causal explanations seemed necessary for
developing an argument about the problem and its potential solutions. The less experienced
participants in their study used historical analysis far less, and were not effective in using their
background knowledge in the problem-solving context.
Causal reasoning was an important component for reasoning about political issues in an
expertnovice study by Jones and Read (2005) as well. They asked 36 people of varying expertise
to think aloud while reasoning about one of three topicsthe IsraeliPalestinian conflict, the
crises in the Soviet Union shortly after its break up, or apartheid in South Africa. They found the
expert participants in their study were more likely to employ historical analysis in explaining the
problem presented them, especially through causal reasoning. The typical expert would start with
the earliest historical aspect of the situation and describe how one event led to another in order
to tie together past, present, and future events. Jones and Read argued that the use of historical
information is a major characteristic of the noviceexpert shift in reasoning about a political
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SHREINER
issue, and that experts have an increased tendency to become a storytellerthat is, to employ
causal historical narrativesin explaining the nature of the political conflict.
The use of narrative in reasoning about the present also played an important role in a later
study by Mosborg (2002) that focused on analyzing high school students thinking as they read
daily newspaper articles. Mosborg found that, for students, the news articles elicited narratives
contrasting how things were back then and how things are now. Although Mosborg characterized
students narratives as about change and continuity rather than causation, the students still used
narratives like experts in the previous studies had to explain and frame the issue about which
they were reading. Furthermore, Mosborg argued that the events students referenced in their
reasoning process seemed dependent on what she called background narratives regarding the
concept of religious freedom at issue in the article; students referenced events in line with either a
narrative emphasizing that U.S. history has been about expanding religious freedom or that U.S.
history has been about straying from Christian heritage. Mosborg thus concluded that reading the
news became an occasion for self-expression, with historical references recruited as footnotes
and illustrations in voicing a personal point of view.
Together these studies suggest that historical narrative is an important tool for framing and
reasoning about contemporary issues. By themselves, however, the studies tell us little about the
nature of peoples historical narratives, whether expert or novice. For this, we must turn to another
body of research.
Research on the Use of Narrative

Narrative is one of several sociocultural tools that people use to structure and make sense of
historical information (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Bruner, 1991). Bruner (1991) defined a narrative
as an account of events occurring over time, comprised of an ensemble of ways of constructing
and representing the sequential, diachronic order of human events. He added, What underlies
all these forms for representing narrative is a mental model whose defining property is its unique
pattern of events over time (p. 6).
Indeed, research has revealed that even very young children use narratives to give the past
meaning, trying to make connections between whatever information they have in memory in
order to produce accounts that hang together (VanSledright & Brophy, 1992, p. 851). However, students accounts, even when arranged in a narrative form, can also be fragmentary and
simplified. They might conflate information from various sources, or contain fanciful elaborations (McKeown & Beck, 1990; VanSledright & Brophy, 1992; Wills, 2011). Such features of
childrens narratives may be prevalent because of the multitude of sources from which children
acquire information about the past. Wineburg, Mosborg, Porst, and Duncan (2007) have pointed
out that students narratives do not emerge via spontaneous generation from some neurological
incubator (p. 44). They are influenced not only by the school curriculum (Wills, 2011), but also
by a team of players, including family members, movies, and television, all of which form
contemporary historical consciousness (Wineburg et al., 2007, p. 44).
Wertsch (2004, 2008) argued that there are in fact two levels of narrative in peoples historical
consciousness: specific narratives and schematic narrative templates. The former are the focus
of history instruction in the schools and deal with mid-level events that populate textbooks,
examinations, and other textual forms found in that context (Wertsch, 2004, p. 51).
319
Constructing such specific narratives, argued Wertsch (2004), entails the act that grasps
together the detailed actions of . . . the storys incidents. It draws from this manifold of events
the unit of one temporal whole (p. 51). The schematic narrative templates, however, involve a
much more abstract level of representations and provide a narrative framework that is compatible
with many instantiations in specific narratives (p. 51). Such narrative templates, argued Wertsch
(2008), are concerned with general patterns rather than specific events and actors. . . . The
narrative templates can produce replicas that vary in their details but reflect a single general
storyline (p. 123).
Bruner (1991) also wrote of both general and detailed forms of narrative in peoples narrative
construction of reality. He characterized the more abstract or general form of narrative as
complementary to the detailed form, writing:
Narratives take as their ostensive reference particular happenings. But this is, as it were, their vehicle
rather than their destination. For stories plainly fall into more general types: boy-woos-girls, bullygets-his-comeuppance, and so on. . . . In this sense the particulars of narratives are tokens of broader
types. . . . Particularity achieves its emblematic status by its embeddedness in a story that is in some
sense generic. And indeed it is by virtue of this embeddedness in genre, to look ahead, that narrative
particulars can be filled in when they are missing from an account. (pp. 67)
Although such scholarship suggests that both general narratives, or schematic narrative templates,
and detailed, or specific, narratives play a role in how people make meaning of the past, it is unclear
as to how people bring such narratives to bear on contemporary political issues. Furthermore,
although some of the studies I have discussed provide important insight into how people use
historical background knowledge to reason and solve problems, we have little research to provide
insight into the role historical knowledge, including historical narrative, plays in the reasoning
process when people are presented with a variety of information relevant to an issue. This is
unfortunate given that both students (see, e.g., National Governors Association Center for Best
Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) and citizens are expected to deal with
a variety of information in everyday problem-solving and decision-making situations. This study,
then, explores the nature of historical knowledge people with varying levels of experience and
practice in the civic and political realm bring to bear on issues we face as citizens, and the ways
they employ such knowledge in reading and reasoning about a contemporary issue.
METHOD
The think-aloud method treats verbal reports of thinking as data, so that they are open to inspection
and interpretation by anyone (Newell & Simon, 1972; Someren, Barnard, & Sandberg, 1994). The
method has proved in other studies (e.g., Carretero et al., 1994; Wineburg, 1991) to be a useful
procedure for determining how experts and students think, and for observing the similarities and
differences between expert and novice thought processes. The participants for this think-aloud
were eight civically engaged political scientists and eight high school students. I asked them to
think aloud about the issue of bipartisanship in American politics while working with a variety
of documents. Specifically, I asked them to reason in response to the prompt: Should politicians
320
SHREINER
work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan divisions between the Democratic and
Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?
I chose bipartisanship as the topic because it has been a ubiquitous issue in the political
realm for at least the past decade. Partisan bickering of late has been a subject of concern for
American citizens, political scholars, and policymakers alike (e.g., Desilver, 2013, 2014; Pew
Research Center for the People & the Press, 2009), contributing to cries for solutions to the
perceived problem on the one hand, and defenses of partisanship as a healthy and normal aspect
of democracy on the other (e.g., Mansbridge & Martin, 2013; Rosenblum, 2010). At the time of
the study, the 2008 elections were approaching, making partisan differences and the potential for
bipartisan compromise particularly hot topics for discussion. Further, the issue of partisan politics
has a rich history that is often the subject of inquiry for political scientists (e.g., Aldrich, 2011;
Rosenblum, 2010), and has the potential to elicit thinking about government and the political
system, political parties, and the idea of democracy itself.
Participants
Political scientists served as the experts in the study because they are, by virtue of their Ph.D.
training and professional work, informed and knowledgeable about political and civic issues
such as bipartisanship. Six of the political scientists work concentrated on American government and politics, while two of them on comparative government and politics. In addition to
being experts on political structures and processes, the political scientists participating in this
study were active and engaged citizens who have demonstrated, through their community involvement, their interest in political and civic issues outside of academia. Each reported being
involved in two or more community organizations or activities, and in four or more recent
political activities, such as voting or engaging in a public debate (see Table 1 for experts
backgrounds).
The novices in this study were eight high school studentsfour 10th graders and four 12th
graders. Following the lead of other scholars who have designated high school students as novices
(e.g., Carretero et al., 1994; Wineburg, 1991), I assumed that the students would be unpracticed
in solving problems relevant to civic life. All the students in the study were recommended by
their teachers based on the following criteria: First, all were at or above reading level. If students
were not at a competent reading level for their grade, it might confound with how students were
using the text-based information. Another potential confounder was students knowledge base, so
a second criterion was that all students had completed civics or government and history courses,
and had performed well. Third, all students had scored greater than the national average on pretest items drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) examination in
civics and government, which teachers agreed to administer to students in their classes. Finally, I
asked that teachers select students they believed to be good citizens based on their participation
in the school and community. Four of the students were 10th graders who had just completed the
required civics course in their schools. Two students were from a suburban public high school, and
two were from a charter public school that drew from nearby suburban areas, as well as a major
urban and low socioeconomic area. The four remaining students were from this charter public
school as well, but were 12th graders who had completed required civics and history courses,
and were currently enrolled in an elective course on current events. A survey I administered also
321
-American Government and Politics

-Political Theory
-Public Law
-British Idealism
-Educational Theory
-Ancient Greek Political Thought
-Gender and Politics/Feminist Theory
-Research methods and statistical analysis
-Sociobiology and feminism

-Methods
-Political Psychology
-Use of gender in political campaigns
Alex
Rachel
Kate

-Political Psychology
-Public Opinion
-Impact of pedagogy on students
civic competence
Research Areas
David
Political
Scientist
-Voting
-Attending a political rally
-Volunteering for a campaign
-Contributing money for a political cause
-Writing a letter or e-mail in support of
political cause
-Signing a petition
-Speaking publicly
-Political leadership role
-Engaging in public debate
-Voting
-Contributing money for a campaign
-Religious organization
-NAACP
-City planning commission
-City historical architectural preservation
commission
-Various volunteer opportunities
-Sierra Club
-Biking Club
-Urban community organization
(Continued on next page)
-Voting
-Writing letter or e-mail in support of political
cause
-Signing a petition
-Speaking publicly about a political issue
-Engaging in a public debate
-Voting
-Volunteering for a campaign
- Board of directors for religious organization

-President elect for religious organization
-Former president of university religious
organization
-Member of Board of Directors for university
religious organization
-Elementary school volunteer

-Membership in religious organization
Recent Political Activity
Community Membership/Activity
TABLE 1
Profiles of Participating Political Scientists
322
Note. All names are pseudonyms.
Sharon
-Comparative Government and Politics

-Political Theory
-Race, Ethnicity and Politics
-Urban Politics
-Comparative Identity Politics
-Migration
-How groups construct belonging in an era of
globalization

-Public opinion on foreign policy
-Public opinion and terrorism
-Gender gaps in public opinion and foreign
policy
-Comparative Government and Politics
-Latin American Migration
-Democratization and Militarism in Latin
America
-U.S.Latin American Relations
Doris
Michael

-Political Theory
-Public Policy and Administration
-Political Theology
-Religion and Politics
-Catholic Social Teaching
Research Areas
John
Political
Scientist
-Human rights organization

-Conservation organization
-Food cooperative
-Board of organization serving Spanish

speaking population
-Faculty representative for multicultural needs
committee
-Former Peace Corps volunteer
-Nonprofit organization dedicated to the

creation of parks and protection of land
-Nonprofit group organizing local music, art
and heritage festival
-Nonprofit institute for life-long learning
-Center for community leadership
Community Membership/Activity
TABLE 1
Profiles of Participating Political Scientists (Continued)
Recent Political Activity

-Voting
-Signing a petition
-Protesting
-Speaking publicly
-Writing magazine articles
-Voting
-Writing letter or e-mail in support of political
cause
-Signing a petition
-Speaking publicly
-Voting
-Writing letter in support of political cause
-Petitioning
-Signing a petition
-Speaking publicly about a political issue
-Political leadership role
-Voting
-Signing a petition
323
revealed the school or community activities in which students were participating. The frequency
with which students read or watched the news on their own varied from almost never to every
day (see Table 2 for students backgrounds).
Documents
There were two sets of documents related to bipartisanship for the think-aloud session. The
first set consisted of nine documents that all subjects would read through in the same order to
aid in data segmentation and comparative analysis. I refer to these as common documents (see
Table 3 for descriptions of common documents). The set consisted of four types of documents:
background on the issue, survey data, opinion pieces, and newspaper articles. All represented
information both available in the public domain and subject to inquiry by political experts.
Four of the common documents were adapted from an article on the Facts on File Issues and
Controversies website (Bipartisanship, 2008), which is a weekly updated database with print and
online references on current issues for high school and academic markets. It provided a wide
array of problems that could be used in this study and would likely be used by some practicing
teachers. Three other common documents were excerpts from viewpoint essays included in the
Gale Opposing Viewpoints database, which includes essays on current social issues written
by well-known columnists, scholars, and politicians. The last two common documents were
newspaper articles I found by searching the Newsbank Access World News database using the
keywords bipartisanship, bipartisan, partisanship, and partisan. Both articles provided
examples of bipartisan actions in Congress.
The second set of documents was one I told subjects they had the option to look through or not to
further address the problem. I refer to these as chosen documents (see Table 4). To aid participants
in making choices about which documents to read, I arranged the documents in folders titled,
background information, historical documents, and additional news articles. My purpose
for this portion of the think-aloud was to see how participants would choose and then use chosen
information to address the problem. The background information folder provided pieces that
might give subjects some historical grounding on the issue of bipartisanship. It consisted of three
other pieces from the Issues and Controversies on File article. The historical documents folder
held an excerpt from The Federalist, Paper Number Ten, by James Madison (1787), as well as
an excerpt from George Washingtons (1796) Farewell Address. These excerpts from primary
source documents were intended to provide subjects with additional historical perspective on
bipartisanship by giving them access to the viewpoints of two of the nations founding fathers.
For my purposes, their reading of these texts could also provide insight into how subjects view
and use historical documents in reasoning through a problem. The third optional folder, titled
additional newspaper articles, could provide subjects with more information on current events
related to bipartisanship.
In addition to the document sets, I also provided a dictionary for high school students. A
pilot study helped me determine that a dictionary could help young readers pronounce and
define unfamiliar words that might otherwise negatively affect reading comprehension. However,
students were not required to use the dictionary and only one student did.
324
10th/16 years old
10th/15 years old
10th/15 years old
10th/15 years old
12th grade/
17 years old
Jenny
Deborah
Karen
Marianne
Grade/Age
Alfred
Student
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
-European History
-Current Events
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
Social Studies Classes

Taking/Completed
-Community volunteering
-Charity work
-Cultural organization based on ethnicity
-Academic club
-Student council
-Student exchange program
-Charity work
-Academic club
-Art, music or drama organization
-Sports team
-Young UN group
-Cultural association based on ethnicity
-Academic club
-Art, music, or drama organization
-Student council
-Charity work
-Girl Scouts
-Academic club
-Sports team
A few times per week
A few times a week
Every day
Participation
Every day
Frequency of
Reading/Watching the
News
TABLE 2
Profiles of Participating High School Students
325
12th grade/17 years old
Rafael
Joshua
Note. All names are pseudonyms.
Tanya
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
-Current Events
-Civics
-Economics
-U.S. History
-Current Events
-Civics
-U.S. History
-Current Events
Almost never
-Youth organization affiliated with political party or

union
-School newspaper
-Environmental organization
-Charity work
-Sports team
-Environmental organization
-Boy Scouts
-Sports team
-Student council
-Academic club
-Sports team
326
Description
Stated the issue itself: Should politicians work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are
the partisan divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties actually a sign
of a healthy democracy?
Bipartisanship. (2008). Issues & Controversies on File. Retrieved from Issues and
Summary of the Issue excerpt that provided background information on the issue,
Controversies website.
including an explanation of why bipartisanship even qualifies as a controversial issue.
A bar graph created from a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the
Press. This graph reported differences between the so-called priorities of Democrats
and Republicans.
Pie chart also created from a survey by the Pew Research Center. It showed the
percentage of respondents from a January 2007 poll that would vote for a liberal
Democrat, a moderate Democrat, a conservative Republican, a moderate Republican,
and those who were undecided.
Schambra, W. (2006). America has always had divisive politics. In J. Bauder (Ed.), Is
Schambra, the director of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the
the political divide harming America? Detroit: Greenhaven Press.
Hudson Institute, argued that divisiveness in American politics is no higher or more
of a problem now than it has been in the past.
Kinsley, M. (2007). In defense of partisan bickering. Time, 169, p. 41.
American political journalist, Michael Kinsley, argued that people in a democracy
disagree, so partisanship is not going to go away. He also argued that ideology is a
good thing, allowing voters to choose a candidate without really knowing all the
specifics of their politics.
Brooks, D. (2004). A polarized America. Hedgehog Review, 6(3).
An excerpt from a piece by David Brooks, former editor and columnist for the Wall
Street Journal and the Weekly Standard, and an op-ed columnist for the New York
Times. Brooks argued that the political divide is harmful to the United States because
it causes people to have more loyalty to their political team than to the country and
prevents people from honestly discussing solutions to problems.
Broder, D. S. (2008, February 14). A did-something Congress. The Washington Post, p. Newspaper article that reported on the bipartisan approval of the economic stimulus bill
A25.
that was sent to President George W. Bush in February 2008 and eventually approved,
arguing that the act represented a dramatic reversal of the gridlock that had
characterized executive-congressional relations throughout 2007 and reflected the
recognition by both Republicans and Democrats of the public disenchantment with
official Washington that has been one of the dominant themes of the 2008 presidential
campaign.
Herszenhorn, D. M., & Bajaj, V. (2008, April 2). A bipartisan bid on mortgage aid is
Newspaper article that reported in April of 2008 on the bipartisan move to work on a
gaining speed. The New York Times, p. 1.
package of legislation to aid homeowners at risk of foreclosure, situating the
legislators actions as a move in casting aside partisan differences.
Document Source
TABLE 3
Descriptions of Common Documents for Think-Aloud Session
327
Lengell, S. (2008, March 30). Election shaping on Hill-Democrats push bills

that wont pass to outline differences with Republicans. The Washington
Times, p. A01.
Araton, H. (2008, February 14). Politicians turn steroid hearing into a partisan
squabble. The New York Times, p. D1 (L).
George Washingtons Farewell Address
Bipartisanship. (2008). Issues & Controversies on File. Retrieved from Issues

and Controversies website.
James Madison, The Federalist, Paper No. 10

Document Source
Description
Excerpt called The Evolution of Partisan Politics in the U.S. that provided
an overview of the history of partisan politics in the country.
Excerpt called Policy Statements by the Democratic and Republican Parties,
that had excerpts from the parties websites regarding their positions on
issues like immigration and healthcare.
Excerpt called Recent Key Events, providing a selected chronology of
events since 1992 related to the issue of bipartisanship.
This excerpt from The Federalist Papers warned of the danger of factions in
government, characterizing them as having the potential to cause
instability, injustice, and confusion.
In his farewell address, Washington also argued that faction is part of mans
nature and passions, but that the mischiefs of the spirit of party are in
need of constant vigilance and restraint.
Newspaper article that covered the steroid hearing for baseball player Roger
Clemens. I purposely chose an article covering a story that might be of
more popular interest, but that was, nonetheless, about an issue
supposedly influenced by partisan disagreement among legislators.
Newspaper article that Democrats were purposely pushing legislation that
would not meet the approval of President George W. Bush or other
Republicans to highlight their differences with the opposing party in the
presidential election year. It provided a contrast to the newspaper articles in
the common document set because it focused on partisan differences, rather
than providing an example of bipartisan-supported legislation.
TABLE 4
Descriptions of Chosen Documents for Think-Aloud Session
328
SHREINER
Think-Aloud Procedure
I gave the subjects simple, straightforward instructions, and told them not to explain or interpret
their responses. I did not tell them what information should be attended to, or what differences in
performance could occur (Someren et al., 1994). In accordance with the suggestions of Ericsson
and Simon (1993) I gave three practice problems to each subject at the beginning of the session.
Since thinking aloud is unnatural, previous studies (e.g., Wineburg, 1991) have recommended
and employed opportunities for subjects to practice, or warm up.
The think-aloud session consisted of five segments: (a) a report of prior knowledge, (b) a
concurrent think-aloud with the common documents, (c) a retrospective think-aloud with the
common documents, (d) a concurrent think-aloud with the participants chosen documents, and
(e) a retrospective think-aloud with the participants chosen documents. Each session lasted
anywhere between one and two hours. With wide variations within each group, time differences
seemed dependent on the participant and their particular style and pace, not upon their expertise.
During the think-aloud procedure, I did as little to interfere as possible. Only when the subject
stopped talking for around five seconds or longer did I prompt him or her to continue.
In the first segment, I asked subjects to tell me what they already knew about the issue
of bipartisanship. Next, I gave subjects the common documents. Both political scientists and
students verbalized their thoughts while reading the documents on bipartisanship and addressing
the problem: Should politicians work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan
divisions between the Democratic and Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?
In addition to the concurrent verbal report, I used retrospective reporting after the subjects read
through the documents, asking them to go back and talk more about what they were thinking
while reading and addressing the problem. Such reporting can be useful in learning why subjects
thought they were thinking something at a particular time, or to better understand parts of the
concurrent report that seemed incomplete or odd (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). In the third part of
the think-aloud session, I gave subjects the second set of documents and told them they could
choose to look at documents in the set or not. I then instructed them to think aloud throughout
the process of choosing and reading the documents. At the end, I again asked them to go back
and talk about what they were thinking.
ANALYSIS
I coded and analyzed all verbal data from the common documents session, but for verbal data
from the chosen documents segment, I only analyzed the documents used by at least 50% of the
subjects. All of these documents happened to be those that might provide historical perspective.
For purposes of comparison, I broke up transcribed data by paragraphs as they were represented in
the common and chosen documents, and highlighted all places where participants said something
in reaction to the documents. As I will describe below, I saw these statements as different
kinds of moves participants were making, and it was these moves that served as the units of
analysis for the study. After coding, which I describe below, I established interrater reliability with
an experienced qualitative researcher using transcripts from three political scientists and three
high school students. Initially, interrater reliability was 73% but we were able to resolve most
329
FIGURE 1 Average number of times students and political scientists referenced different kinds of knowledge during the
common documents portion of the think-aloud session.
disagreements through discussion, resulting in interrater reliability of 97% (Miles & Huberman,
1994).
My first round of analysis was aimed at highlighting the various references participants made
to other places in the documents they were reading or to background knowledge they possessed
outside of the document set. I combined a modified grounded theory approach (Auerbach &
Silverstein, 2003; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). The grounded
theory approach was modified in that it employed a mixture of predetermined and grounded coding
(Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994). Based on my observations during
the think-aloud sessions, I developed descriptive, predetermined codes to note the kind of moves
subjects were making (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Miles & Huberman, 1994) while reading
through the documents and reasoning about the problem. These moves included references to
another document, to a point within the same document, to the problem, to background knowledge
or experience, or reactions to information in the document (see Table 5 for examples of short-hand
codes for moves and their operational definitions). I then used a grounded approach to develop
codes for the types of information or knowledge participants were using, such as knowledge of
the source or knowledge of government (see Table 5 for examples of shorthand codes for types of
knowledge; Figures 1 and 2 also show the types of knowledge participants employed during the
different segments of the think-aloud). Out of this round of coding, I was able to identify segments
of the think-aloud where participants were referring to knowledge of history or information about
history, which then provided the subject of my next round of analysis.
In this next round, I organized segments coded as references to historical knowledge or information and analyzed the content to determine the nature of the historical knowledge participants
were using. I found that, in addition to general statements about the history of political parties,
partisan politics, or American politics in general, there was also evidence of concepts that characterize historical understanding, such as periodization, significance, cause, change over time,
and historical empathy. Realizing these were redolent of the second-order concepts identified
330
Subjects thoughts are moving back in space to

the problem as originally stated.
Subjects thoughts are moving in time to

knowledge of history.

knowledge of the document source.

conception of bipartisanship (i.e., idea about
what bipartisanship is and is not, or does or
does not entail).
S-P
T-K: H
T-K: SO
T-C: BP
Example(s)
Rachel: Okay, lets see, so weve got a bunch of different documents here about um, about it, well
Im just flipping through and Im looking at who wrote these articles and where they came from.
Karen: So, and then back in this one, the graph that says that America would choose a moderate
Democrat . . .
David: Im going back and just looking at the original question, if I could find it. Should politicians
work toward a spirit of bipartisanship or are the partisan divisions actually a sign of a healthy
democracy?
Marianne: So back to the beginning, the issue, should politicians work toward the spirit of
bipartisanship or are the partisanship, or are the partisan divisions between Democratic and
Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy?
David: . . . as I look back to the 50s Republican party and the 50s Democratic party for that matter, it
doesnt strike me in retrospect as a horrifically partisan time. Certainly I wouldnt put Eisenhower
in as a remarkable partisan but, on the other hand, depends on how early in the 50s . . . I mean if
its 50 or 51 youre talking about Republicans up against Truman, the Do-Nothings 80th
Congress, which was very partisan. But if youre talking about 53, 54, its a less partisan period.
Tanya: I think there have been a lot of corrupt things in American history that a lot of people dont
talk about.
Sharon: So this person is at the Hudson Institute, which I happen to know is more of a conservative
place.
Rachel: Some of these names I recognize, like David Brooks. I see him on the Jim Lehrer News
Hour.
Rachel: I dont think working toward bipartisanship as an end in and of itself is really going to solve
anything. I think bipartisanship will come naturally as lawmakers need to get something enacted.
They will have to look to bipartisanship support, particularly in the climate that it is today.
Rafael: I do think [bipartisanship] is realistic and it can change the way Republicans and Democrats
feel about each other . . .
Note. Underlined letters correspond to the letters used for the code listed in the left-hand column.
Subjects thoughts are moving in space to

another document in the document set.
Operational Definition
S-D
Code
TABLE 5
Sample of Codes Used to Describe Participants Moves During the Think-Aloud Sessions
331
FIGURE 2 Average number of references students and political scientists made to different kinds of knowledge during
the chosen documents portion of the think-aloud session.
in literature on historical thinking (e.g., Andrews & Burke, 2007; Gaddis, 2002; Lee, 2005), I
categorized the passages as such (see Table 6 for examples of historical knowledge).
Another round of analysis for this study was aimed at determining how participants were
using their knowledge. Here I used a grounded theory approach (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003;
Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and content analysis (Neuendorf, 2002). For the text-based documents,
more than 20 different grounded codes emerged, so I categorized them to help make further sense
of what subjects were doing. I classified one set of codes as information-extraction reading
strategies, which subjects used to aid in understanding of the text and included summarizing,
paraphrasing, backtracking for clarification, and determining the authors purpose. I classified
another set of codes as evaluative reading strategies, which subjects used in determining the
value or merit of a piece of information. These strategies were similar to those described by Britt
and Aglinskas (2002) and consisted of sourcing, contextualizing, and questioning the author. I
also included choosing not to read something in this category because it seemed to be a product of
text evaluation as well (see Figure 3). I classified the third set of codes as reasoning strategies.
These included strategies for voicing an opinion, such as agreeing with the text, providing a
reason for agreement, disagreeing with the text, providing a reason for disagreement, expressing
a viewpoint (independent of what text was asserting), and providing support for the viewpoint.
After coding all the transcripts using my grounded coding scheme, I counted the different
kinds of moves participants were making throughout the think-aloud with both common and
chosen documents. I then conducted two-tailed, unpaired Students t tests to see if there were
statistically significant differences between means. I tabulated data to compare the average number
of times subjects used information-extraction reading strategies, evaluative reading strategies, and
reasoning strategies while reading and thinking about the text-based documents throughout the
common documents session. In addition to performing two-tailed, unpaired Students t tests
to compare political scientists and students actions for each document, I performed one-way
ANOVA tests with a Bonferroni posttests to see if there were statistically significant differences
among the political scientists and students.
332
Political scientist Alex: Washingtons worried

about narrow, private interest in society that
serves its own narrow interest and not the
broader good.
High School Student Alfred: George
Washington is more important because he
was our first president.
High school student Rafael: As far as Im
concerned America has been divided as a
political party, as politicians are concerned,
and it will probably always be
High school student Tanya: America as a
whole has never been united.
Participant: Comment
Washingtons Farewell Address
Washingtons Farewell Address
After finishing the Schambra piece.
Comment on the authors position
Evaluate historically grounded claim and

disagree
Document/Segment of Document
Comment on the authors motivation for

writing the document
Use of Knowledge
Evaluate historically grounded claim and agree Schambra (2006): In fact, politics for our
parents greatest generation was just as
boisterous, nasty, and over the top as it is
todayindeed, as it always has been, for
Americans.
Schambra (2006): Lets step on them!
Periodization
Political scientist David: As I look back to the Evaluate historically grounded claim and
disagree
exhorts the early 1950s Republican election
50s . . . it doesnt strike me in retrospect as
poster hanging in my basement.
a horrifically partisan time.
Political scientist Kate: Gay rights and
Evaluate historically grounded claim and
Evolution of Partisan Politics: [In] the
feminism didnt really exist as political
disagree
turbulent 1960s, Liberals flocked to the
issues until after the 1960s so thats
Democratic Party, which advocated
oversimplification.
well-funded federal social programs and
championed other so-called progressive
causes, such as gay rights and feminism.
Support argument
Federalist No. 10: The instability, injustice,
Change over Time Political scientist David: There were no
and confusion introduced into the public
political parties at the time and I think
councils have, in truth, been the mortal
Madison would have been comfortable with
diseases under which popular governments
the argument that political parties as they
have everywhere perished . . .
developed represent factions.
Narrative
Template
Knowledge of
Source
Type of
Knowledge
TABLE 6
Examples of Connections Between Participants Historical Knowledge and Its Uses
333
Causation
Political Scientist Alex: Its been the

evolution of the Democrats and
Republicans, the death of all the liberal
Republicans and conservative Democrats,
that has broken the parties up.
Frame the problem
Evaluate historically grounded argument and

Political scientist John: Communism and
agree
New Dealism took place in a context in
which really people did think that we were
in a kind of struggle between the children of
light and the children of darkness and there
were good reasons, I think, to be cautious
and careful. Certainly New Dealism,
Franklin Delano Roosevelts political
philosophy, is something that, at the time
was, I think, immensely important for the
United States. It certainly wasnt
Communism.
Political scientist Doris: At the same time, in Evaluate historically grounded claim and
disagree.
the 1940s while that was going on, there
was tremendous partisanship and fighting
between the Republicans and Democrats
over the rise of labor and all the laws had
been passed to support labor unions.
Evolution of Partisan Politics: That spirit of

cooperation helped U.S. politicians design a
coherent approach to the challenges of the
Cold Wara rivalry between the U.S. and
Soviet Union that lasted nearly half a
centurywithout suffering many significant
partisan clashes.
The Issue: Most people agree that the U.S.
government is sharply divided along party
lines. Republicans and Democrats often
disagree on how to resolve pressing issues
facing the U.S. today.
Schambra (2006): Lets step on them!

exhorts the early 1950s Republican election
poster hanging in my basement. It features
the partys pachyderm with his foot planted
squarely on two squirming figures, one a
mustachioed Stalin look-alike labeled
Communism, the other a spectacled,
briefcase-toting bureaucrat labeled New
Dealism.
334
SHREINER
FIGURE 3 The average number of times students and political scientists employed specific types of evaluative reading
strategies, including the heuristics of sourcing and contextualizing, while reading text-based documents during the
think-aloud session.
To see specifically how historical knowledge was being put to use by the subjects, I used constant comparative analysis with verbal data for both political scientists and students, connecting
the historical knowledge codes with the utility of movement codes, and analyzing the text to
which they were responding. This analysis allowed me to draw conclusions about how subjects
were using historical knowledge as they employed the aforementioned evaluative or reasoning
strategies. I then used content analysis to look across participants verbal data, noting patterns,
similarities and differences among political scientists, among students, and between political
scientists and students (see Table 6 for examples of how types of knowledge were used).
RESULTS
In the sections that follow, I discuss the participants perceptions of historys usefulness, and how
participants approached the documents in determining how useful they would be for reasoning
about the issue of bipartisanship. Next I discuss the nature of participants historical knowledge
in use, noting both similarities and differences between experts and novices. I also explain how
participants were using their knowledge and those features of their knowledge that seemed most
usable.
Perceptions of Historys Usefulness

Both experts and novices in this study indicated that they viewed history as potentially useful
in helping them think about the issue of bipartisanship. When given the option of choosing
335
from a selection of historical and contemporary documents, all the participants chose to look
at documents of a historical nature first. Five out of the eight political scientists, for example,
began with either Washington or Madison and one reported that the only reason he did not choose
these documents was because he was already so familiar with them. The remaining three political
scientists chose the Evolution of Partisan Politics piece. The high school students made similar
choices, looking at documents of a historical nature before any other kind. Five out of eight of
them chose to look at Washington or Madison first, and the other three began with the Evolution
of Partisan Politics piece.
Despite the fact that both the political scientists and the high schools students viewed history
as useful in the reasoning process, the degree to which they actually used historical knowledge
and information was substantially different. All eight of the political scientists used historical
knowledge while reasoning through the documents whereas only three of eight high school
students referenced historical knowledge. This, of course, could be attributed to differences in
their knowledge bases. The political scientists serving as the experts in this study, not surprisingly,
were more knowledgeable about bipartisanship, government, politics, and current events than the
high school students (see Figures 1 and 2). All the political scientists could provide a detailed
definition of bipartisanship and link it to ideas about partisan politics, political parties, and the
legislative process. On the other hand, three students initially reported that they knew nothing
about bipartisanship, or at least did not know the term bipartisanship, although it later became
clear that these students understood something about disagreements and efforts at consensus in
politics. The other five high school students could provide a basic definition of bipartisanship
as when political parties with differences or conflicts work to reach some compromise or
agreement.
The differences between the knowledge bases of political scientists and high school students
were neither surprising nor unexpected. Indeed, their designations as experts and novices in the
study indicate my presumptions about differences in their experience and knowledge. The focus
of this investigation, though, was not to understand how much more knowledgeable or skillful
one group was than another, but rather to understand how participants of differing experience
reasoned with what knowledge and skills they possess, including how they approach information
with their knowledge and skills, as well as what aspects of their knowledge they found usable. In
what follows, I will discuss these findings.
Using Sourcing and Contextualizing Heuristics

When approaching documents provided to read through for the think-aloud session, the most common types of evaluative strategiesthat is, strategies to determine the value of a documentthe
political scientists in this study employed were sourcing and contextualizing (see Figure 3).
These are heuristics that researchers (e.g., Monte-Sano, 2010; Reisman, 2012; Wineburg, 1991)
commonly associate with historical thinking and problem solving. Some students also employed
sourcing heuristics while reading through the documents and reasoning about bipartisanship, but
the degree to which they sourced and the kind of sourcing they used differed markedly from the
political scientists.
336
SHREINER
Sourcing
The political scientists sourced documents significantly more than the high school students
(p-value = .0047; see Figure 3). Moreover, all of the political scientists used a sourcing heuristic,
while only three high school students did.
Not only did the degree to which political scientists and high schools students sourced the
documents differ markedly, but also the kind of sourcing that they employed. When the three
high school students who sourced documents did so, they attended to some combination of
the document date and type, and to what Britt and Aglinskas (2002) refer to as the authors
positionthat is, the occupation, position, or credentials of the author. Specifically, four out
of the eight students noted that Washington was the first president, deeming the document as
something important to read, and one of them explicitly noted that Washingtons Farewell
Address was from 1787, a long time ago.
Political scientists attended to these features as well, but they also attended to the document date
and type, to the authors position, and to what Britt and Aglinskas (2002) referred to as the authors
motivation (i.e., the possible reasons the author wrote the document) and participation (i.e.,
whether or not the author participated in relevant activities). Rachel, for example, made a series of
statements about Madison and Washington when reading the historical documents they authored.
While reading Madison, she said, If Madison didnt want factions he wouldnt have made it
difficult to get things done. I mean, he created three branches of government and that makes
things difficult to get done. Of Washington, she said, He doesnt mean parties the way we know
them today. . . . Washington was in a different time and didnt read Aldrich, [who wrote a book
on the origin and transformation of political parties]. Political scientist Doris also made a point
of Washingtons motivations, stating:
Washington of course is leaving government, just as the political parties are beginning to form and
certainly had nothing like we have today. And you wonder if what he wrote was tinged by the issues
of the time including the developing hatred between Adams and Jefferson who were surely to be
his successors. I mean I think the Congress at that time was, and the administration was, filled with
people whod been working for freedom for 20 years together and they were beginning to see some
really evil things. I mean after all, remember the duel with Aaron Burr; they saw some really hatred
evolving. But Im not sure that Washingtons comments would be the same in the light of the party
system that developed later.
Moreover, several of the political scientists made evaluative statements about the author or
document, stating their opinion of them and their value as a source. For example, in regards to
reading the Kinsley viewpoint piece, Alex stated the following in his retrospective interview:
I guess I was struck by the source . . . that we were moving into more political territory here with
Michael Kinsley, rather than with William Schambra. [T]hat struck me, I guess because I was looking
at who it was and that this fellow [Schambra] was from the Bradley Center, which I didnt read out
loud I guess. And I know Michael Kinsley from his other writings.
Rachel flipped through the common documents and said, [S]ome of these names I recognize,
like David Brooks. I see him on the Jim Lehrer News Hour. She then added, with a laugh, So I
dont know if that makes me believe him or not. Sharon read that William Schambra was at the
337
Hudson Institute, and added, which I happen to know is a more conservative place, so I have
that in my mind even before I begin to read it. While looking at the graphic data, Alex saw that
that the data in the bar graph was gathered and presented by the Pew Research Center and stated,
matter-of-factly, Theyre reputable. Likewise, David read Pew Research Center and associated
them with a reliable, solid methodology.
Of course, the political scientists background knowledge, whether of history or current events,
had an important influence on their tendency to source the documents they were reading. They
commonly recognized the names of the authors, whereas students only recognized Washington
and sometimes Madison. High school student Tanya, who regularly read the source information
at the top of the documents, always followed with some variation of I never heard of him.
However, while political scientists knowledge bases might have led them to demonstrate
that they were sourcing more often, political scientists also sourced when they had little or no
knowledge of a source. For example, Sharon indicated that she was wholly or partly unfamiliar
with several of the sources, but she still tried to gather some idea of what perspective the author
was coming from by looking at was provided her in the documents. Of Michael Kinsley, she
read, . . . Whos a commentator and also described as a liberal pundit. She then added, So
this is interesting if this person is also defending partisanship but from a different political
perspective. Consistently, when political scientists were not certain about the source, they tried
to take what little knowledge they had and piece together some notion of the authors perspective
or bias. For example, Michael read that William Schambra is the Director of the Bradley Center
for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the Hudson Institute and said, . . . Which I think is a
conservative think tank. David read the name David Brooks and commented, David Brooks is
the Times columnist? I dont read the Times. He worked for the Wall Street Journal. I believe
Brooks is sort of the token conservative on the Old Gray Lady.
It seems then, it was not entirely the political scientists content knowledge that led them to
source; they sourced regardless of knowledge to see if they could determine the reliability of the
source. Most students, on the other hand, were clearly not in the habit of sourcing information.
Indeed, most of them did not read the provided source information at any point in the process. In
some cases, by skipping the source entirely, they missed information that could have given them
some idea of the authors perspective. The beginning of the Kinsley piece, for example, described
Kinsley as a liberal pundit, which would have clued students into his political leanings. Yet,
the majority of students neglected to acknowledge source information before, while, and after
reading the body of each document.
Contextualization
If students relative lack of background knowledge contributed to their tendency to ignore
sources, it probably also accounted for the fact that they never provided or indicated that they
were trying to provide contextual information for the documents. Political scientists, on the
other hand, regularly contextualized documents, both historical and contemporary. For example,
looking at the pie graph, David commented, This is January of 07. Im trying to think what
was particularly salient then was right after Bush got his clock cleaned in the midterm elections
so, it certainly was part of a down cycle for him. Kate did something similar with the pie graph,
stating, Well, were a year out from the primaries and starting two years from the election.
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Both used their knowledge of current events to try to make meaning out of the information they
encountered. Again, however, political scientists also tried to contextualize even when they lacked
knowledge. Michael, for example, simply noticed that the survey data for the pie chart was from
2007, over a year before he was looking at it, and said, 2007, that was quite a while ago so I
wonder what it would look like today. Kate dated the New York Times article, saying, And that
was when, in April? April. And I dont know what has happened to that bill since then.
Although background knowledge likely influenced the degree to which participants used
sourcing and contextualizing heuristics while reading the documents, both political scientists
and students nonetheless used historical knowledge in the reasoning process. So what characterized the historical knowledge participants used? As I will argue in the next section, the
historical knowledge participants used was structured as historical narrative, although the detail
and specificity of narratives differed markedly between political scientists and students.
Using Historical Narrative to Reason About Contemporary Issues

Both the political scientists and high school students in the study made references to what Wertsch
(2004, 2008) would call schematic narrative templates, or general statements characterizing the
history of politics in the United States. For example, high school student Tanya restated the same
basic storyline for American politics in several different ways, saying America as a whole has
never been united, Weve been trying to come together through all the presidents but were still
not close, and Weve been trying to come together for years. For her, the historical story relevant
to the issue of bipartisanship was simply that America was and always had been politically divided,
despite Americans best efforts to become more united. High school student Rafael referenced
a similar story, stating, America has always been divided. High school student Deborah also
used historical narrative to some degree in the think-aloud, but hers was less a characterization
of the whole of American political history, and more about the difference between then and now.
She stated, simply, that They came together more back then [when Washington was president],
indicating that there was more bipartisanship then than nowa slightly less bleak outlook on
politics in the American history, but with some sense of decline over time.
Interestingly, these students had similar views as the political scientists, who also made such
general statements about the U.S. political past in the reasoning process. Like high school students
Tanya and Rafael, political scientists Michael, Alex, Rachel, John, and Doris stated that American
politics had always been divisive. And political scientists David and Kate had views similar to
those of high school student Deborah, who stated that partisanship had worsened over time.
Yet, never at any point did the students provide detail to their stories; they did not mention
issues that divided political parties, how the views of political parties changed over time, or
examples of failed efforts to come together. Moreover, they did not provide any explanations as
to why divisiveness existed in the first place.
The political scientists, on the other hand, provided examples and explanations as to how
politics had always been divisive, or how it had worsened over time. Moreover, the details the
political scientists gave seemed to temper their views to some degree, creating less of a wholly
negative picture of the state of American politics than was conveyed by the students. For example,
the political scientists who stated that partisanship had always existed explained that the system
was just set up the way it was and it was not a majorly concerning problem. Those who argued
that partisanship had gotten worse provided a clear cause for it worsening, which in some ways
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implied the possibility of solution. Kate, in fact, offered a detailed solution, describing how the
political parties had to sit down and agree on what the problem was.
Political scientist John serves as an interesting case to illustrate the use of detailed narrative in
the reasoning process. Because of the frequency of his historical references, I could piece together
a nearly coherent narrative of the evolution of partisanship in American politics. Consider, for
example, the story that is constructed by reorganizing Johns separate comments (with time
separation indicated by ellipses) in the following way:
[T]he system as its built was designed to make it very, very difficult for government to get anything
done. We set it up that way because we were afraid of government and we were fearful of majorities
doing too much damage in too short of a period of time. . . . There are lots of people who didnt
like each other on both sides of the aisle for 220 odd years in this country and that hasnt changed a
whole lot. . . . The rancor that we see today isnt nearly as bad as some of the rancor we saw, even
at the beginning of the Republic. And so, part of my sort of first impression is that [the argument that
partisanship has become worse] is just a myth. Everybody thinks that its worse now than it used to
be, but if they went back and read speeches and looked at the way that people talked in newspapers
about one another and the kinds of things that were being said, I think theyd be shocked. . . . The
1920s, 1930s in this country were probably some of the most fascinating times to be alive in terms
of political ideas. You had people like Father Coughlin on the right, who had millions and millions
of listeners coming out of Michigan who was preaching a sort of fascism that we would associate
with Benito Mussolini. We certainly had supporters on the left of what was going on in the Soviet
Unioncertainly at least some Leninists and some Trotskyites, who were very, very excited about
the possibility of a revolution taking place in this country, and then we had all kinds of people in the
middle from Populists to Democrats and Republicans and Socialists like Eugene Debs. This was as
far from unity as we could possibly get. Its always funny to remember that Eugene Debs runs for
president from a jail cell as a Socialist candidate in 1920 or so and gets a million votes, right? And
so one of the things that I think we need to understand is that this was not a golden age of political
discourse but was actually one of the most rancorous and contentious periods in American history,
where almost anything was possible for better or for worse. . . . At the end of the day the greatest
generations politics were indeed much, much more interesting and radical in the sense of what was
possible as opposed to today where I think that while we have maybe a lot louder, a lot more oh, once
again to use the word boisterous or rancorous voices, at the end of the day there arent really any
radical voices at the table in the way that there were in the 30s and the 40s. Theres nobody out there
whos running as a Socialist, whos going to get a million votes. Theres no Fascist out there, even in
the electronic age, whos going to have 24, 25 million radio listeners to his broadcast every week and
so for me, of course, this is just one of those funny kinds of ideas that somehow its gotten worse.
By looking at the segments separately, one might not recognize the organization of bits of
information into such a nearly coherent whole, yet clearly he held such a narrative in his working
memory, and used it fluently in reasoning about the question of whether or not partisanship had
become worse.
How Experts Used Historical Narrative

Political scientist John used the segments of his seemingly complete narrative for different
purposes at different points throughout the think-aloud. Indeed, the political scientists in this
study used historical details for several common purposes while reasoning about the issue of
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bipartisanship, emphasizing different segments of the narratives at appropriate points in the

reasoning process. They used historical narrative to (a) frame the problem they were addressing,
(b) provide support for their own arguments, and (c) make sense of and evaluate historical
references made by authors.
Using history to frame problems. At the beginning of the think-aloud session, seven out of
the eight political scientists immediately drew on historical knowledge to help frame the problem:
Should politicians work toward a spirit of bipartisanship? Or are the partisan divisions between
the Democratic and Republican parties actually a sign of a healthy democracy? More specifically,
the political scientists used pre-existing historical knowledge to dig more deeply into the issue and
surface its historical antecedents. For example, when presented with the topic of bipartisanship,
political scientist Kate said:
Since the 1950s, but certainly since the late 60s the Congress has become more polarized in terms
of its relationship across party lines. The Republicans have gotten more conservative; the Democrats
have gotten somewhat more homogeneously liberal. Both have lost their opposition wings and that
has made it difficult to cooperate across party lines. The current state of campaigning in America
makes it such that the party thats in opposition to the president has very little incentive to cooperate
with the sitting president.
Political scientist David also said something about the separation of the two parties when presented
with the issue, stating, Its been the evolution of the democrats and republicansthat the death
of all the liberal republicans and conservative democrats have broken the parties up. And Doris
talked about why it has emerged as a problem now, asserting:
Bipartisanship used to be quite common in this country, particularly in dealing with foreign policy. The
belief was we should not be divided as a country when we face the outside enemy. But bipartisanship
has not been very present in Washington for quite some time.
While political scientists placed the issue of bipartisanship within a historical context before
even stating their opinion on the issue, students failed to historicize the issue at all. Several of them
seemed aware that there was an issuethat political parties had trouble agreeing on issuesbut
they did not wonder aloud about whether or not this had always been the case.
Using history to support a position. Political scientists also used pre-existing historical
knowledge to support their own positions on the issue, whereas students never did. For example,
political scientist Kate summarized her position at the end of reading the documents, asserting
that partisanship has always been divisive but that there was now a problem with agreeing on what
the problem is; politicians needed to figure out how to work together to agree on what problems
needed solving. She argued:
Partisanship has always been divisive. It was divisive in the 19th century, it was divisive in the late
19th century over trade issue, it was divisive in the early part of the 20th century, but when has it ever
been as nasty as it is now, when they cannot even agree on the problems.
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Political scientist Johns position was that partisanship is no more of an issue now than it ever
was; it just exists and always will because of the way that the government was set up, and that
people only see it as a major problem now because of media access. He stated:
The system as its built was designed to make it very, very difficult for government to get anything
done. We set it up that way because we were afraid of government and we were fearful of majorities
doing too much damage in too short of a period of time. . . . One of the things that I think has really
increased the level of awareness about the viciousness of the politics that we have today is the access
to the 247 media world that we live in now. Every thought, every idea, every printed word, every
speech is available almost instantaneously to everybody who has a computer or access to a computer.
And if we look at cable news, it certainly lives and breathes on conflict. The fact of the matter is there
are lots of people who didnt like each other on both sides of the aisle for the last 220 odd years in
this country, that hasnt changed a whole lot.
Several students argued that there should be more bipartisanship in government, but not one
of them referenced historical knowledge in making this argument.
Using history to evaluate others historically grounded claims. For political scientists,
one of the most common uses of pre-existing historical knowledge was in evaluating historically grounded claims when reading arguments around the issue of bipartisanship. This usually
preceded a statement of agreement or disagreement with the claim the author was making.
The first claim that prompted this reaction from political scientists was the summary of the
different sides of the issue. The summary asserted that those arguing for more bipartisanship
think it has been declining over time and therefore Congress can get nothing done, while the
other side believes partisanship has always existed and that taking an uncompromising stance
is positive and productive. When reading the position of people arguing for more bipartisanship, political scientist Michael said, [P]eople arguing for bipartisanship think of the 50s as
sort of this golden era of working together, and I disagree. Political scientist John also implied
that people arguing for more bipartisanship might have a mistaken perception of the past. He
argued:
The rancor that we see today isnt nearly as bad as some of the rancor we saw, even at the beginning
of the Republic. And so, part of my sort of first impression is that thats just a myth. Everybody thinks
that its worst now than it used to be, but if they went back and read speeches and looked at the way
that people talked in newspapers about one another and the kinds of things that were being said, I
think theyd be shocked.
The viewpoint pieces prompted political scientists to use their historical knowledge to an even
greater degree. For example, in the piece entitled, America has always had divisive politics,
Schambra (2006) argued that politics is no more divisive and nasty now than it has been in the
past. This led John to recall knowledge of politics he referred to as the greatest generations
politics, and agree:
At the end of the day the greatest generations politics were indeed much, much more interesting
and radical in the sense of what was possible as opposed to today where, I think that while we have
maybe become a lot louder, a lot more oh, once again to use the word boisterous or rancorous voices,
at the end of the day there arent really any radical voices at the table in the way that there were in
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the 30s and the 40s. Theres nobody out there whos running as a Socialist, whos going to get
a million votes. Theres no Fascist out there, even in the electronic age, whos going to have 24, 25
million radio listeners to his broadcast every week and so for me, of course, this is just one of those
funny kinds of ideas that somehow its gotten worse.
Similarly, David used his historical knowledge to agree with Schambras overall argument,
stating, Im thinking of Alexander Hamilton and how vicious politics was in the late 18th and
early 19th century, so certainly theres something to be said for that. However, he later disagreed
with, or at least questioned, an historical reference Schambra made to support his argument.
Schambra referenced an early 1950s political poster with the Republican elephant stepping on a
Stalin-like character and a New Deal bureaucrat, to which David responded:
Okay, so this is trying to tell me that republicans of the early 50s were fairly harsh and vicious and
partisan in their outlook, which as I look back to the 50s Republican party in the 50s, Democratic
party for that matter, it doesnt strike me in retrospect as a horrifically partisan time. Certainly I
wouldnt put Eisenhower in as a remarkable partisan but on the other hand, depends how early in the
50s. . . . [I]f its 50 or 51 youre talking about, Republicans up against Truman, the Do Nothing
80th Congress, which was very partisan. But if youre talking about 53, 54 its a less partisan period.
Political scientists Kate and Doris made use of their historical knowledge to disagree with the
way the evolution of partisan politics was presented in the piece by the same name. For example,
in reaction to the statement that liberals flocked to the Democratic party in the 1960s because of
their stance on issues like gay rights and feminism, Kate argued, Gay rights and feminism didnt
really exist as political issues until after the 1960s so thats oversimplification. Doris reacted to
a statement about Republican Abraham Lincolns stance on slavery in the late 1850s, when it
became a major contentious issue between the two parties, arguing, Well, it was not [Lincolns]
major issue. She then disagreed with the articles omission of the idea that a split between the
northern Democrats and southern Democrats allowed Lincoln to win the election. She took issue
with another omission later on, when the article mentioned an uneasy calm that settled over the
United States with regard to partisan issues following the Civil War. She stated, Are we going to
argue? Arent we going to mention the fact that the Democrats in the south oppressedput the
blocks back under oppression and passed all the segregation laws and kept blacks out of politics?
Not going to mention that.
In two instances, historically grounded claims in the document sets also prompted students
to draw on their understanding of history. Both instances were while reading Schambra, who
argued that partisanship had always been a part of American politics. High school student Tanya
reacted in agreement to Schambras argument on three different occasions, saying, America as a
whole has never been united. . . . Weve been trying to come together through all the presidents
but were still not close. High school student Rafael also agreed with Schambra, stating, Yeah,
America has always been divided. While these students only used their knowledge of history
to agree with Schambras argument though, they never provided specific details to explain why
this had always been the case, as political scientists did. Instead, they simply indicated their
agreement with an argument that fit their own narrative templates.
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Usable Features of Experts Narratives: Periodization, Change, and Causation

The fact that the political scientists used detailed narrative components to reason about the
issue of bipartisanship implied that there was something inherently usable about their narratives.
Analysis revealed that, in fact, their narratives contained elements of periodization, change over
time, and causationelements that Lee (2005) refers to as second-order concepts (p. 32). More
specifically, the political scientists (a) emphasized how particular periods in American history
could be characterized according to both the hot button issues defining political relations and
to the relative degree of partisanship that existed; (b) provided explanations of either change
over time in political parties, or in partisan politics; or (c) provided explanations of causes for
the emergence of political parties, or causes for either more or less partisanship in politics (see
Table 6 for examples). They then used their understanding of periodization, change over time,
and causation to address claims in the documents they were reading about particular time periods,
how politics had changed over time, or what caused particular changes.
Periodization. Any mention in the documents of a particular time period in history, prompted
political scientists to express agreement or disagreement, referencing their own understanding of
that time period. These time periods were delineated by degrees of partisanship, and were often
associated with particular presidential administrations. For example, several political scientists
reacted to statements about politics in the 1950s with comments like, [P]eople arguing for
bipartisanship think of the 50s as sort of this golden era of working together and I disagree,
or As I look back to the 50s . . . it doesnt strike me in retrospect as a horrifically partisan
time. David reacted to a statement about partisan nastiness in the past by noting, Im thinking
of Alexander Hamilton and how vicious politics was in the late 18th and early 19th century, so
certainly theres something to be said for that.
Change over time. Change over time, that is, how political parties and degrees of partisanship shifted throughout time, was another useful organizing concept for the political scientists.
They drew on their understanding of how, from one period to the next, levels of partisanship
decreased and increased. Often the political scientists associated changes in degrees of partisanship with salient historical issues at particular time periods. Kate said, for example, [Politics]
was divisive in the 19th century, it was divisive in the late 19th century over trade issue, it was
divisive in the early part of the 20th century but when has it ever been as nasty as it is now, when
they cannot even agree on the problems? And John stated, [W]hen did the Democratic Party
become the left and when did the Republican Party become the right? Certainly this is probably
sometime in the 1980s that that became the sort of normal way of talking about things. We used
to actually have a left in this country and they would have been ashamed to be associated too
closely with the Democratic Party. And certainly the right would never think of themselves as
Republicans.
Periodization and change over time were closely linked for the political scientists. Certain
periods could be characterized by a few hot button issues, around which political parties built
their respective and usually opposing platforms. The stances the political parties took were
dependent on the principles and base constituencies they represented at that time, which often
shifted with historical context. Recognition of the characteristics of particular periods allowed
for recognition of patterns across these periods, which allowed the political scientists to evaluate
change over time.
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Causation. Salient issues during particular time periods were also important components in
political scientists understanding of causation in political history. Political parties proposed policies toward issues that dominated particular historical periods created such heated and passionate
debate over the proper course of action that partisanship intensified. Doris stated, for example,
[I]n the 1940s . . . there was tremendous partisanship and fighting between the Republicans
and Democrats over the rise of labor and all the laws had been passed to support labor unions led
by Robert A. Taft from Cincinnati. John argued that political ideologies across a wide spectrum
of issues caused partisanship in the 1920s and 30s stating, This was as far from unity as we
could possibly get.
In responding to claims about the danger or inherent problems of political parties and their
ideologies, political scientists called upon knowledge of what caused parties to emerge in the
first place. While reading Madison, for example, Kate said, Everything in the Federalist was
set up to work against coalitions that would evolve into partiesbut everyone thought everyone
would work in the nations self interest. Rachel reacted to Madison as well, stating, If Madison
didnt want factions he wouldnt have made things difficult to get done. I mean, he created three
branches of government and that makes things difficult to get done.
The structural or organizing elements of the political scientists narratives proved useful at
different points and for different purposes. Indeed, it seemed to make history more usable in
reasoning about the issue of bipartisanship, particularly in reasoning with outside information,
much of which used elements of periodization, change over time, and causation themselves.
DISCUSSION
This study reveals important differences in the ways that experts and novices use historical
knowledge and information to reason about a contemporary political issue, and in the nature of the
historical knowledge they employ. First, when confronted with textual and graphic information
relevant to a contemporary issue, the experts in this study took a more critical and analytical
stance, regularly sourcing and contextualizing information in order to judge its usefulness in the
reasoning process. The novices in this study occasionally applied sourcing heuristics too, but not
as regularly as experts, and only to note the year of the document or the authors position (e.g.,
George Washington was the first president.). In one sense this only confirms multiple other
studies (e.g., Britt & Agliskas, 2002; Rouet et al., 1997; Wineburg, 1991) showing how much
more fluently experts source and contextualize documents. However, it also shows the usefulness
of such historical literacy skills (Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008) for people using
texts to reason about a contemporary issue. Indeed, it would seem these historical literacy
heuristics are characteristic of civic literacy as well, further supporting their critical place in a
social studies education.
Secondly, although both the political scientists and the high school students viewed history
as important to use in the reasoning process, the degree to which they used it, as well as the
structure of their historical knowledge was markedly different. Political scientists used history
significantly more than high school students, and, more importantly, demonstrated throughout the
reasoning process that they had detailed, structured historical narratives from which they could
draw information. They used their historical narratives in order to (a) frame or contextualize the
issue they were addressing, (b) support their own opinion, and (c) evaluate historically grounded
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claims. Students used narrative to make meaning of the issue as well, but their narratives were
characteristic of what Wertsch (2004, 2008) has referred to as schematic narrative templates.
That is, their narratives took the form of general statements about the U.S. political past, lacking
in specific details and events. This narrative structure provided students with few tools for
approaching texts critically, although it did not hinder them from transposing their understanding
of the past upon what they were reading. Students who made reference to the past often did so with
general statements like America as a whole has never been united, and America has always
been divided. Although these views were not unlike those of some of the political scientists, the
students did not connect their narrative templates to any specific details, events, or time periods
from the past. Rather, they made connections only to those segments of text that fit their template,
seemingly ignoring information or opinions that countered their existing views. One student,
for example, made statements of a similar type whenever she read a passage that fit her general
narrative scheme, including America as a whole has never been united, Weve been trying to
come together through all the presidents but were still not close, and Weve been trying to
come together for years.
Cognitive research tells us that prior knowledge plays an important role in thinking, and that
people have theories about the world around them, even if they are lacking in detail, or are
misinformed or misconceived (Bransford et al., 2000). This serves as yet another example of how
youths use bits and pieces of information from their experiences to formulate stories about the
past (e.g., Barton & Levstik, 2004; Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Foster et al., 2008; Mosborg, 2002;
VanSledright & Brophy, 1992). It also confirms findings (e.g., Mosborg, 2002) that students will
use history when reasoning and reading about contemporary issues regardless of how complete
or detailed their understanding is. Although students in this study lacked specific and detailed
knowledge about the history of politics, partisanship, and bipartisanship in the United States as
compared with the political scientists, they still had enough experience with or knowledge of
politics to construct a narrative template and then use it to reason. In the case of reasoning about
bipartisanship, the historical context in which students lived likely played an important role in
the schematic narrative templates they used. Although this is to some extent speculative, all of
the students had been born in the early 1990s when Bill Clinton had entered the presidency. This
means that they grew up during an era that was, according to both some of the texts they were
reading and some of the political scientists, marked by a relatively high degree of partisanship in
U.S. politics. The common belief for some of these students, then, was not that partisanship was
getting worse; it had just always been bad. Such a view of history is akin to what Wineburg et al.
(2007) have referred to as historical occlusion, whereby some stories about the pastin this case,
stories about periods of relative bipartisanshiphave become muted in the transmission from
one generation to the next (p. 66). Given that the political discussions to which these students
had been privy in their lifetimes were probably characterized by talk of political partisanship,
they had no reason to think that it had ever been different.
Students use of such myopic schematic narrative templates at once demonstrates the power
of historical narrative in making meaning of civic and political issues we confront as citizens, but
also the disadvantages inherent in a superficial understanding of history. As Shemilt (2000) has
argued, a superficial understanding of historical narrative, or knowledge of only isolated incidents
within a narrative, poses potential misuses of history in which people draw universal lessons from
isolated incidents or false analogies between past and present. Indeed, Wertsch (2004) contended
that people who understand the past with only abstracted narrative templates tend to deny the
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pastness of events, linking together past and present in an ahistorical way. This seemed to be the
case with the students in this study, in that they appeared to impose their current understanding of
politics upon the whole of the pastthat is, to use a backward constructed present (Foster et al.,
2008)to reason through the issue, thereby failing to recognize or acknowledge that partisanship
at any particular time might be dependent on several contextual issues.
On the other hand, political scientists use of historical narrative demonstrates how usable
history can be when narrative frameworks have been constructed in such a way as to take into
account factors like time, change, and causation. The political scientists in this study clearly
differentiated past from present, situating contemporary events within a narrative framework that
was detailed enough for them to (a) delineate periods of time in political history according to
distinguishing events or patterns, (b) recognize multiple changes or shifts in bipartisanship over
and across time periods, and (c) explain events and shifts with multiple antecedents and contextual
factors. With such a narrative in memory, the political scientists seemed able to pick and choose
certain details from their narratives in order to make sense of historically grounded claims they
were reading, or to support the point they were trying to make. Their narratives also aided them
in framing the issue in the first place, helping them to point out historical antecedents that might
inform the present situation. It gave them tools with which they could take a more critical and
evaluative stance when reading material, and therefore question, agree, or disagree with claims.
The tools that the political scientists usedunderstanding of periodization, change over time,
and causationwere in fact characteristic of some of the second-order concepts used in the
construction and organization of historical narrative that scholars associate with historical understanding (e.g., Blow, 2011; Lee, 2005; Lee & Shemilt, 2004, 2009). Although elements of
narrative such as periodization, change over time and causation, as well as skills like sourcing
and contextualizing, are typically regarded as indicative of the historical understanding useful
for making sense of the past, they are also clearly important and useful for making sense of the
present. People trying to make sense of and reason about the political issues that confront them
as citizens can effectively use such aspects of historical understanding to approach and judge the
usefulness of information related to a contemporary issue, to frame the issue in a historical context, to help support claims, and to evaluate the historically grounded claims of others. In short,
historical understanding is important for civic and political understanding. Acquiring historical
knowledge that is more than disconnected bits and pieces of factual information will better equip
people for their roles as citizens.
Now, bipartisanship is only one among the myriad issues people might confront and reason
about as citizens. And not all issues that people confront as citizens have a history as rich as that of
bipartisanship. Thus, narratives organized by periodization, change over time, and causation may
not always so fittingly apply. However, many issues we confront as citizens do have rich histories,
and this study suggests that people whose historical knowledge about such issues is structured
in meaningful narratives may be better equipped to apply it. Furthermore, historical narrative
may prove useful in helping people understand the myriad ways their fellow citizens respond to
political issues and controversies, based on how history has shaped individuals and communities,
including their concerns, fears, and desires. Indeed, everything has a history, and therefore history
can always provide perspective. How it applies to different issues and is used by different people
are questions for future research. In the next section, I will discuss the implications of these
findings for future research, as well as implications for educational settings.
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IMPLICATIONS
Novices construct historical narrative templates from their knowledge and experience, no matter
how limited, in order to make sense of the present. Absent of specific details about the past,
however, the historical narrative templates that students build may prevent them from adequately
differentiating past from present, recognizing the importance of contextual factors, and realizing
that circumstances can change, and can be changed. They may, in fact, transpose the beliefs
they have developed from the cultural curriculum (Wineburg et al., 2007)such as, in this
case, that America is dividedonto the whole of the past. In addition, an understanding of
the past characterized only by generalities and lacking in specific details might limit students
fluency in using history to reason about contemporary issues. This is particularly true when
they are confronted with the historically grounded arguments of others that do have a more
detailed understanding of the past, such as was the case when these students were reading various
viewpoint pieces. To be sure, historical content knowledge matters in students civic education.
Yet, content knowledge alone is insufficient. Helping students build coherent, meaningful, and
usable narratives about the past means helping them acquire the tools of the discipline of history.
This study suggests that narratives that are usable for addressing contemporary problems are
organized with periodization schemes that give them order and direction, and are characterized
by attention to change over time and causal connections. This underscores the importance of
teaching understanding and application of second-order historical concepts that scholars of history
education have been advocating for decades (e.g., Lee, 2005; Lee & Ashby, 2000; Reisman,
2012; Shemilt, 1987). Further, it points to the need for developing history curricula that both
acknowledge the schematic frameworks that students bring to the classroom and help them
reshape their frameworks based on actual historical evidence. As Shemilt (2009) has argued,
frameworks can be valuable advance organizers, as long as they are revisited, updated, and
extended at regular intervals (p. 142). Helping students construct usable, coherent, and evidencebased narratives will not only help them to better understand the details of history, but it will help
them better understand how historians interpret and use evidence to create accounts of the past.
In working with evidence themselves, students can practice using historical thinking skills like
sourcing and contextualizing, skills that are not only fundamental to historical literacy (Moje,
2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008), but also to civic literacy. Given that students will likely
spend more time studying history in schools than any other social studies subject, this makes the
importance of teaching such skills in students history classes that much more pressing.
Of course, it is unrealistic to think that students will develop detailed historical narratives
relevant to every political issue they will face as citizens. Further, it is unrealistic and ahistorical
to suggest that the history topics that students study in school should be based on the civic
and political issues we face in the present. However, there are enduring issues in both U.S.
history (e.g., political partisanship, civil rights movements, immigration, states rights) and world
history (e.g., globalization, nationalism, imperialism, economic growth disparities) around which
students could develop usable narratives that will serve them well as they face contemporary
issues. To teach these enduring themes well is not to teach them in isolation, but within a larger
narrative framework that examines events, patterns, and processes through different scales of
time and space, while trying to the build the coherence and meaning that those with sophisticated
understanding ascribe to the past (Harris, 2012; Shemilt, 1987).
348
SHREINER
Constructing evidence-based usable historical narratives will do little for students civic competence, however, if students have no opportunity to practice using them to make sense of the
present. A hallmark of expertise is not necessarily the quantity of formal knowledge one possesses, but ones experience in using formal knowledge to solve problems to such a degree that
the formal knowledge becomes common sense or second nature (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993).
In the area of civic education, students need practice using historical content and habits of mind
to frame the issues they face as citizens, recognizing whether or not this is an entirely new issue,
its historical antecedents, and its place within a larger narrative framework. They need to be able
to evaluate sources of information associated with the issue and the historically grounded claims
others make, and to use information to support and give weight to their own opinions and claims.
Together these habits of mind underscore the importance of skills recommended in the recent
Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices &
Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). For example, the Common Core Standards for
Reading recommends that students be able to evaluate the argument and specific claims in
a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the
evidence (p. 60). This is not unlike the habits the political scientists in this study used as they
evaluated the historically grounded claims of the texts they were readinga habit that the high
school students had seemingly not acquired at all. Furthermore, the standards emphasize writing
evidence-based arguments and narratives, which might give students practice in developing the
skills and acquiring the knowledge used fluently by experts in this study as they took and supported
a stand on an issue in the civic domain.
While this study begins to reveal how both experts and novices use historical knowledge
and information to reason about a civic issue, it is only a modest start. First, the question
of bipartisanship is just one among many enduring issues with the potential to elicit historical
knowledge in use. We need additional studies of people reasoning about a wide variety of enduring
concepts and issues that cut across time and space and that may serve as the basis for enduring
issues in history and social studies education. Furthermore, we need studies exploring how people
use history to reason about policy issues where decisions made by voters and legislators may have
different impacts on various stakeholders. Do the histories of groups of people and communities
come into play as people reason and make decisions about these issues? Future studies may help
us answer such questions.
Further research comparing reasoning processes using a wide variety of texts is also needed.
Although beyond the scope of this article, this study raised interesting questions about how people
view survey data and newspaper articles as sources of political information, and the different kinds
of literacy practices needed to make sense of them. We also need studies that include participants
from different backgrounds and with different levels of expertise. How do non-Ph.D. political
activists reason? How about the high school teachers we are asking to teach these knowledge
and skills? This study was also limited by the fact that participants were reasoning individually;
studies of people reasoning about a civic issue around and with other people would also be useful.
Finally, we need research on classroom practices that effectively prepare students to use
historical knowledge for civic purposes. Though research on peoples thinking is a important first
step, research on curricular interventions (e.g., Bain, 2000; Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Reisman,
2012) informed by such research are critical if we want to understand how we might actually teach
students to reach more sophisticated levels of thinking and reasoning. What kinds of activities
can teachers design to help students not only acquire historical knowledge, but also to build
349
coherent narratives and then use them to reason about civic issues? Only by developing a clearer
understanding of how people use historical knowledge to inform their reasoning and decision
making in the civic realm, can we hope to arm teachers with the tools they need to educate the
next generation of citizens.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Tamara L. Shreiner is now at the History and Social Studies Department of Greenhills School,
Ann Arbor, Michigan. The author thanks Robert Bain, Jeffrey Mirel, Elizabeth Moje, Arthur
Lupia, Lauren McArthur Harris, and Chauncey Monte-Sano for their comments on this work.
FUNDING
This research was funded in part by fellowships from the University of Michigan.
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USING HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE TO REASON

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- Board of directors for religious organization

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Recent Political Activity

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-Nonprofit organization dedicated to the

Recent Political Activity

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10th/16 years old

10th/15 years old

10th/15 years old

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Social Studies Classes

A few times per week

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A few times a week

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12th grade/17 years old

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Lengell, S. (2008, March 30). Election shaping on Hill-Democrats push bills