History Education in German-Speaking Switzerland – A Distinct Community of Its Own?

Abstract

With the professionalization of teacher training at Swiss universities of teacher education starting in the 2000s, subject didactics have come to see themselves as scientific disciplines. Following Rudolf Stichweh’s definition of scientific discipline and community, this article discusses the extent to which those working in history education in German-speaking Switzerland have formed a scientific community. In this context, the Swiss-German Society for History Didactics (DGGD), founded in 2008, is interpreted as a framework in which a “sufficiently homogeneous communication context” (Stichweh) can unfold. Based on the minutes of the DGGD, interviews and a questionnaire survey among the members, we also examine career structures, or rather the socialization process, as well as the corpus of scientific knowledge and the self-image with regard to a specific expertise or competence.