Abstract:
It has been widely accepted that history education is key in the formation of identity by providing groups with knowledge and understanding of their common past. Historical consciousness is, thus, formed through the transmission of history education. In the context of collective victimhood, official and unofficial historical narratives in this research became the tools for the transgenerational transmission of collective victimisation, resulting in a victim-based identity. The formation of identity which is based on either official or unofficial history is believed to lead to a double-consciousness, where the historical consciousness created through official history interacts with a sense of collective victimhood.
This qualitative case study had the dual purpose of conceptualising and understanding pre-service teachers’ sense of collective victimhood as a historical consciousness that indicated a specific social identity. Data for this study was obtained using an open-ended question from an electronic survey distributed in 2018 as part of an existing project. A total of 138 narrative responses from the purposively sampled first-year education students at the University of Pretoria in 2018 was analysed using critical qualitative content analysis. Findings from the data analysis conceptualised three social identities, namely South Africanness, rainbowism and Black victimhood. Of these three social identities, the historical consciousness presented through the use of historical thinking skills was different in the way that group-based effects manifested in the narrative responses. The historical consciousness contained within South Africanness manifested in attitudes of civic responsibility and justice. Rainbowism and Black victimhood presented a sense of collective victimhood through hostility and injustice, where rainbowism’s sense of collective victimhood was influenced by colour-blind ideology. Historical-thinking concepts were selectively used in the victim-based identities of rainbowism and Black victimhood, suggesting the presence of a double-consciousness. The findings from this study contributed to the broader field of history education and collective victimhood respectively in its understanding and conceptualisation of a pre-service teachers’ sense of collective victimhood as historical consciousness indicative of specific social identities.
