The discipline of history is as much about conceptual thinking as it is about gathering historical knowledge – although, in general, the latter provides the basis for the former. This article focuses on two ‘second-order’ concepts: change and continuity, and similarity and difference. It shows how they can be applied to historical problem-solving, especially where they form the main assessment objective for particular parts of an exam specification.
Change refers to the shift from one situation to another over a long period of time (in awarding body specifications this is deemed to be at least 100 years). From this also stems the notion of continuity, which is that little is perceived to alter over a time period. The complexity of change and continuity is only fully appreciated when noting that they can be analysed according to their pace, extent, nature and process.
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