Abstract

In Chile, over the past decades, historians and educators have expressed critical views regarding attempts to reduce school hours dedicated to the subject of History, Geography, and Social Sciences. One of their main arguments is that this impacts the citizenship education provided to students by their schools. However, this effect cannot be taken for granted solely because this subject exists; it must be examined how it is produced by the various components of the teaching-learning processes involved, including the curriculum. This article analyzes how the Chilean curriculum has constructed the relationship between history teaching and citizenship education since the return to democracy. Through a historical and qualitative analysis of the content of curriculum documents from the period, it is argued that, since the 1990s, the Chilean curriculum has progressively incorporated the development of historical thinking as a specific purpose of the subject of History, Geography, and Social Sciences. At the same time, there has been a shift from a civic education aimed at providing theoretical knowledge about the State to a citizenship education that seeks to promote skills and attitudes for life in society. However, the incorporation of historical thinking has been uneven, excessively prioritizing some of its dimensions over others or presenting the former in an ambiguous manner. This raises questions about the extent to which this new approach to historical education contributes to the new objectives of citizenship education.