Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T08:10:06.374Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Applied History and Social Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Peter N. Stearns
Peter N. Stearns*
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Among the various facets of the new public history movement, applied history holds particular interest for social science historians. Public history generally involves the effort to use historical work for nonacademic audiences; it thus embraces historical museum work, aspects of archive preservation, and media presentations for general audiences. All these are admirable goals, not of course novel, but receiving new and explicit attention in a variety of recent programs, and in the Public History Association. Applied history, though part of public history in its broadest sense, has a more specific mission (one must note that some of the presentation training programs in public history are labeled “applied,” a terminological confusion that one hopes can be remedied). Applied historians seek directly to integrate certain kinds of historical research with the process of policy research, in both public and private sectors. Applied historians do this research themselves, most typically on a contract basis from academic sanctuaries but potentially as policy researchers independent of a direct academic base. They are also involved in training graduate students in this research mode, and in several cases have also mounted undergraduate courses or programs in the genre.

Type
Teaching Methods
Information
Social Science History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Spring 1982 , pp. 219 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

fn00

Editors’ Note: This is a new section in the journal. The editors hope to stimulate the development of social science history courses in college and university curricula by publishing articles aimed at developing teaching methods that will carry the challenge and exhilaration of the research process into the classroom. In pursuit of this goal, we shall disseminate information concerning cross-disciplinary or program-oriented course experiments that have innovative promise and that are judged to deserve a wide audience. If you know of such programs, please send the information to us.

References

King, G. B. and Stearns, P. (1981) “The retirement experience as a policy factor: an applied history approach.” J. of Social History 14: 589–626.Google Scholar
Lipset, S. M. (1979) “Predicting the future of post-industrial society: can we do it?” pp. 1–35 in Lipset, S. (ed.) The Third Century: America as a Post-Industrial Society. Stanford, CA: Univ. of Stanford Press.Google Scholar
May, E. R. (1973) “Lessons” of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Resnick, D. P. (1981) “Educational policy and the applied historical testing, competency and standards,” J. of Social History 14: 539–560.Google Scholar
Schroder, A. M. (1980) “Applied history: an early form of public history.” Public Works Historical Society Newsletter 17: 3–4.Google Scholar
Stearns, P. N. (forthcoming) “History and policy analysis: toward maturity.” Public Historian.Google Scholar
Tarr, J. A. (1981) “Changing fuel use behavior and energy transitions.” J. of Social History 14: 561–588.Google Scholar