Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on History, Social Sciences, and Education (ICHSE 2024)

I Don’t Know, I just Don’t Like History: Historical Understanding of Students With Intellectual Disability

Authors
Nur Fatah Abidin1, *
1Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta, Indonesia
*Corresponding author. Email: nurfatah@staff.uns.ac.id
Corresponding Author
Nur Fatah Abidin
Available Online 18 November 2024.
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-307-8_3How to use a DOI?
Keywords
disabilities; history subject; historical understanding
Abstract

In 1976, Franz Henkemeier researched the historical understanding of students with disabilities in the setting of German Special School. Henkemeier asked the students questions about why they should learn history. Most informants, aged nine, said history could prevent them from being conspicuous after leaving school. This subject impacts their social and political attributes as they want to be a part of and participate in society. Today, the same question may be revisited in a different or more critical setting: To what extent have the voices of students with disabilities in history learning been heard? In answering the questions, a thorough analysis of the historical understanding of students with disabilities is required. Unfortunately, there is a gap in the study since Henkmeier’s study. Many remarkable studies have been conducted in this area, resulting in the methods and approaches for specific learner characteristics such as learning disabilities, intellectual disability, or deaf people. However, regarding disabilities, the complexities of students’ dis/ability may affect the generalization of those teaching methods. This article reports a study on the historical understanding of students with disabilities in the setting of Indonesian special education. The main question is to what extent the students understand history. A qualitative study was conducted in Secondary Special School Surakarta (SMALB) using a case study approach. Four students with intellectual disabilities were interviewed. The interview started with a fundamental question regarding their knowledge of history. The data were then analyzed to build a holistic data of students’ historical understanding. The findings of the research show that mentally disabled students struggle to understand history as a subject in school, even at the elementary level of understanding. The first impression is that history is unattractive and difficult to learn. They tend to understand in a very personal way and associate history with significant events in their past that are easy to remember. The findings lead to a further question: Should intellectually disabled students learn history?

Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on History, Social Sciences, and Education (ICHSE 2024)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
18 November 2024
ISBN
978-2-38476-307-8
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/978-2-38476-307-8_3How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Nur Fatah Abidin
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/11/18
TI  - I Don’t Know, I just Don’t Like History: Historical Understanding of Students With Intellectual Disability
BT  - Proceedings of the  2nd International Conference on History, Social Sciences, and Education (ICHSE 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 17
EP  - 23
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-307-8_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-307-8_3
ID  - Abidin2024
ER  -