Getting Substantive Concepts to (Do the) Work: Conceptual Progression from KS3 to KS5

​

Rosie Culkin-Smith

Alistair Dickins

TJ Alexander

#SHP25

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

New Start, False Dawn?

September 2021: A new school, a new team, a new idea…

​

Fordham (2017)

​

Optimism of a new start

​

Frustrating challenges

• Matching concepts to content teaching
• Teaching concepts effectively
• Mastering concepts ourselves

​

Back to the drawing board

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Why Substantive Concepts?

• Order and categorise content through time

​

• Support analysis

​

• Enable comparison/contrast

​

• Give access to historical language/literature

​

• Give access to exams

Revolution

Hierarchy

Peasant

Economy

Protest

Total War

Race

Imperialism

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?

Substantive concepts are really “just words” (weighty conceptual terms); they are not themselves actually “concepts” at all (as the concept is the idea expressed by the word)…

​

…and words are a matter of language

​

So what does this have to do with teaching history?

Caroline Coffin (2006):

​

“making visible the key linguistic resources for making historical meaning” to “give students access to the language of history in a systematic way”

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?

Does the linguistic release the conceptual in history? (Spoiler: yes!)

Foster (2013)

Woodcock (2005)

Fordham (2016)

Carroll (2016)

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?

Why didn’t our first approach work?

​

Look through the original list (Fordham, 2017)

• Which do you explicitly teach?
• Which do you not?
• Which do you teach which are not on that list?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

KS4: major substantive concepts cited in AQA specifications

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

KS5: major substantive concepts cited in AQA specifications

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?

Complexity of learning a new word (Ulf Schütze, 2025)

Phoneme (spoken form)

Lexemes (written form)

Lemma (concept)

How do you introduce a new word and its concept?

• From language to concept: deconstructing a term in order to establish the concept it represents
• From concept to language: constructing a concept in order to access the term that represents it

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?

GENOCIDE

Etymonline for etymology and origins of terms: https://www.etymonline.com/word/

Knowing Common Pre-/Suffixes

• Anti-
• Pro-
• Un-
• -isation
• -ion
• -ism
• -archy
• -cracy

​

But look out for “false friends”…

SUCCESSION

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?

Power

Authority

being able to control and command others

being seen as having the right to hold power

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?

Receive definition

Recall definition

Apply definition to context

Establish working definition

Recall definition

Appraise original definition

Apply definition to context

Problem of rote-learning “dictionary definitions” (Palek, 2015)

​

Need to engage students in active construction of meaning to unlock concepts behind words (van Boxtel and van Drie, 2013)

​

• The word is not the concept (it is the term that refers to the concept)
• A definition is only a partial description of that concept (and necessarily incomplete)

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?

REVOLUTION

Problem of semantic shift – the concept expressed by a word changes over time, so needs to be revisited multiple times (Fordham, 2016; 2017)

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?

MONARCH

“the idea of what it meant to be a monarch remained inescapably male… a queen’s very title, from the Anglo-Saxon word cwén, meant the wife of a king, not his female equivalent.” (Helen Castor, 2010)

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?

Can weighty conceptual terms in foreign languages be expressed by an English word (i.e. is there meaningful semantic equivalence between languages?)

“Unfortunately full synonymy is exceptional, both intralingually and interlingually.” (Dickins, Hervey, Higgins, 2013)

Führer

Volksgemeinschaft

Rechtsstaat

Vozhd

Pogrom

Soviet

Caudillo

Junta

Pronunciamiento

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?

Accessing and using foreign-language conceptual terms

​

​

​

​

• Morphology
• Phonology
• Conceptual understandings

Volksgemeinschaft

“a social hierarchy which was somehow ‘just’ and in which everyone had a niche where he could feel secure and respected: in short, a true ‘national community’ (Volksgemeinschaft) from which all sources of friction and unease had been removed, all reminders of ‘conspiracy’, all abnormality, all that could jeopardise the ultimate ‘ideal order’.” Peukert (1993)

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?

(Approximate) semantic equivalence between non-English-language conceptual terms

​

Can we translate one foreign-language term into another (better than we can translate it into an English-language term)?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?

The problem of pronunciation…

​

…can be overcome! (But it takes some effort)

​

The need for choral and individual oral practice

​

• Language resources in school (colleagues and students)
• Online pronunciation guides and dictionaries
• Personal practice

Führer

Volksgemeinschaft

Rechtsstaat

Vozhd

Pogrom

Soviet

Caudillo

Junta

Pronunciamiento

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

An Approach through Six Questions

1. If substantive concepts are a matter of language, what do they have to do with history?
2. If substantive concepts are so important, which ones should we choose to teach?
3. If substantive concepts are just words, why are they so difficult to learn?
4. If substantive concepts carry meaning, why can’t we just give students their definitions?
5. If substantive concepts are part of our language, why aren’t all of them in English?
6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Q6. If substantive concepts help explain the past, why should our students doubt and challenge them?

Cappelen (2018): the “representationally complacent” vs. the “representational skeptics” [sic]

​

This calls on us to empower students to interrogate, critique, and where necessary reject certain words and the concepts they express

But does this mean we can get rid of a term (and its concept) altogether?

Race

Terrorism

Totalitarianism

Golden Age

Crusade

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

Further Discussion

Language and Substantive Concepts Part 1: Weighty Conceptual Terms

Language and Substantive Concepts Part 2: Speaking in Tongues

Language and Substantive Concepts Part 3: Turning Students into Sceptics

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

References

Carla van Boxtel and Jannet van Drie, “Historical reasoning in the classroom: What does it look like and how can we enhance it?” Teaching History 150 (2013), pp. 44-52.

Herman Cappelen, Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering, Oxford University Press (2018).

James Edward Carroll, “Grammar. Nazis. Does the grammatical ‘release the conceptual’?” Teaching History 163 (2016), pp. 8-16.

Helen Castor, She Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, Faber and Faber (2010).

Caroline Coffin, Historical Discourse: The Language of Time, Cause and Evaluation, Continuum (2006).

James Dickins, Sandor Hervey, Ian Higgins, Thinking Arabic Translation: A Course in Translation Method: Arabic to English, Routledge (2013).

Michael Fordham, “Substantive Concepts at KS2 and KS3”, in Clio et cetera blog (2017): https://clioetcetera.com/2017/11/09/substantive-concepts-at-ks2-ks3/.

Michael Fordham, “Knowledge and Language: Being Historical with Substantive Concepts”, in Christine Counsell, Katharine Burn and Arthur Champan (eds.), MasterClass in History Education: Transforming Teaching and Learning, Bloomsbury (2016), pp. 43-57.

Rachel Foster, “The more things change, the more they stay the same: developing students’ thinking about change and continuity,” Teaching History 151 (2013), pp. 8-17.

Jacques Haenen and Hubert Schrijnemakers, “Suffrage, feudal, democracy, treaty… history’s building blocks: leaning to teach historical concepts”, Teaching History 98 (2000), pp. 22-29.

Dominik Palek, “Finding the place of substantive knowledge in history”, Teaching History 158 (2015), pp. 18-27.

Detlev J. K. Peukert (1993), Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life (trans. Richard Deveson), Penguin

Ulf Schütze, Language Learning and the Brain: Lexical Processing in Second Language Acquisition, Cambridge University Press (2025).

James Woodcock, “Does the linguistic release the conceptual? Helping Year 10 to improve their causal reasoning,” Teaching History 119 (2005), pp. 5-14.

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by

schoolshistoryproject.co.uk

Supported by

Supported by