An empirical evaluation of ‘big questions’ as an organisational framework for interdisciplinary social studies in a Scottish high school

Citation

Doyle S & Smith J (2022) An empirical evaluation of ‘big questions’ as an organisational framework for interdisciplinary social studies in a Scottish high school. BERA. London. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/an-empirical-evaluation-of-big-questions-as-an-organisational-framework-for-interdisciplinary-social-studies-in-a-scottish-high-school

Abstract
First paragraph: This research project was one of three to be awarded a British Curriculum Forum Curriculum Investigation Grant for 2020–2021. The project was a collaboration between a high school in Central Scotland and a university-based researcher which aimed to assess the impact on pupils and staff of a school-designed integrated social studies curriculum. Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence suggests that schools should aim to develop links between social studies (history, geography and modern studies) but provides little guidance to schools about how this might be achieved. In many schools, integration is either undertheorised or non-existent; this project aimed, instead, to apply insights from Big History (Christian, 2004) and Big Questions (Harlen, 2015) to offer pupils a curriculum which both sparked their curiosity and created a meaningful foundation for further study.