Economic History in Action: Students Debating the Roots

of Modern Dilemmas

Historical Studies

www.le.ac.uk

Professor Steven King

Presented to:‘Promoting Engagement with the Teaching of

Economic History’22 March 2012, Oxford Brookes University

The challenge

• Folding of an economic and social history department into a wider unit.

• Gradual loss of economic history staffing.

• The impact of legacy courses, particularly in formal quantitative methods.

The context for a solution

• Day one year one matters. • Chimney pots and cuddliness.• Pathways.• Career links: How to make £1 million

with a history degree.• The need for something distinctive.

HS2342: Economic History in Action• The pensions dilemma • The future of the National Health Service• British energy policy• Personal debt and (over) consumption• The credit crunch• British membership of the EU• The rise of the BRICS• Immigration• British trading relationships• Gordon Brown

HS2342: Economic History in Action• Group A will argue for the proposition

that ‘The British state pension system has always contained the seeds of its own destruction’. Group B will argue for the proposition that ‘The British state pension system has been ruined by political ineptitude and the selfishness of the 1960s Baby Boomers’.

HS2342: Economic History in Action• Group A will argue for the proposition

that ‘The British have a long ingrained tendency to personal debt and over-consumption’. Group B will argue for the proposition that ‘Debt and over-consumption is a product of government policies of the last thirty years’.

HS2342: Economic History in Action• Training in how to formulate a case.• Facebook and Dropbox.• Dealing with the shy or socially

challenged.• Recording and circulating debates.• Dealing with sheer anger – better to

have two moderators than one.

HS2342: Economic History in Action• Assessment: Two individual debate

write-ups. What did both groups argue and, based upon the two arguments, the questioning and your subsequent reading, what are the lessons of history for responses to the modern economic and policy dilemmas that we have addressed?

HS2342: Lessons

• Group sizes of 30-32 equate to sub-groups of 15-16. This is the minimum number required to run the course.

• HS2342 requires substantial independent and group work outside the confines of the course. This notwithstanding it is a very popular vehicle.

• Students with little numerical background really come to understand ONS and BIS reports and statistical trends.

HS2342: Lessons

• Mean marks are 20% higher than those in Historical Studies as a whole and students generally gain 15-30% higher marks than their GPA going into the course.

• Blackboard and VLE are inconvenient electronic vehicles. Students tend to use outside solutions.

• External examiners are poorly equipped to deal with the intent and outcomes of this course.

• Broadly defined economic history dissertations have reached new peaks in every year since the course was launched.

HS2342: Lessons

• Students often become highly politicised. On one occasion I was accused of turning someone’s son into a ‘raving Tory’.

• Gender does not matter in terms of contribution or assessment.

• It is better to have Erasmus students as part of the cohort.

The Future

• Recruiting more staff: The importance of NSS and careers for economic historians.

• Making the course more interdisciplinary.

• Blogs and public performance.