Introduction

Citizenship education is a global concern that is part of public policy agendas in several countries (Santamaría-Cárdaba et al., 2022; Estepa-Giménez; Delgado-Algarra, 2021; ^{Ruiz; Herrera, 2021}; ^{Magendzo; Pavez, 2021}). The relevance of citizenship education in the global context is strongly related to the fact that education is responsible for preparing the people who will think, build, and live in the world from today onwards. This challenge requires citizens to be ready to confront and solve issues that have emerged as relevant for today’s societies, such as multiculturalism, care for the planet, gender diversity and equity, and the search for greater social justice (^{Godoy et al., 2022}; ^{Santamaría-Cárdaba et al., 2022}).

From the educational approach, defining the model of citizenship to be promoted is complex since the primary purpose is not human uniformity but the recognition of diversity and multiculturalism. This emphasizes the importance of recognizing the distinctive qualities of each society to pinpoint the factors that encourage more involvement in decision-making and the development of social frameworks for the future (^{Santamaría-Cárdaba et al., 2022}). From this perspective, the search for elements that strengthen citizenship training is not something static or purely normative but, rather, a constant debate within society to recognize the needs situated to the reality of each context in which educational processes are developed for the exercise of democratic citizenship (^{Martínez; Del Rey, 2021}).

In Chile, the enactment of Law 20.911 (^{República de Chile, 2016}), which creates the citizenship training plan for educational establishments recognized by the State, and the recent modification of the curricular bases for a third and fourth year of secondary education (^{MINEDUC, 2019}) have involved debates concerning the educational relationship between school and society centered on the figure of the citizen. This is mainly due to the fact that both of the above-mentioned education policies place a central emphasis on the role of schools in providing individuals with the necessary skills to thrive in 21st century society (^{Henríquez; Mardones, 2016}). Therefore, curricular decisions are set oncerning specific characteristics and problems of today’s society, such as globalization, climate change, and specific demands of social movements.

Despite considering the changes that the 21st century has brought, the concept of citizenship is understood as controversial, identifying that it is not explicitly defined in Law 20.911 (^{Republic of Chile, 2016)} or the guidelines regarding citizenship training (^{MINEDUC, 2016}). However, one can discern an implicit definition through the objectives and methods. In this regard, ^{Magendzo and Pavez (2021)} identify that in Chilean educational policies on citizenship training, a liberal citizenship model is present, which privileges individual freedom, economic well-being, and respect for the laws. In this sense, Citizenship is the state of being a member of a particular country, with all the rights and responsibilities that come with it, remarkably civil and political, guaranteed by the State, based on individual freedom. Even though citizenship education in Chile raises problems of a global nature, liberal citizenship aims to reinforce the identification of this status with the State and the nation (^{Magendzo; Pavez, 2021}).

In this setting, current educational policies point out that the school must be part of the controversies and debates that occur in society (^{Fernández, 2019}; ^{Jofre et al., 2015a}; ^2015b; ^{Jofre; Stein, 2019}; ^{Jofre; Kolstrein, 2013}), as proposed at the international level by the Beutelsbacher Consensus (^{Overwien, 2019}), Pointing out that educators must present everything controversial in science and society as such within the school. Likewise, the development of curricular proposals with a controversial approach that plan disciplinary transversality around citizenship training is recognized, incorporating the entire educational community in this work (^{Magendzo, 2016}; ^{Magendzo-Kolstrein; Toledo-Jofré, 2015}; ^{Fernández, 2019}).

Based on the previously mentioned, it is evident that curricular changes focused on citizenship training have emphasized recent history (^{Franco; Levín, 2007}; ^{Franco; Lvovich, 2017}; ^{Rivera; Mondaca, 2013}), considering contemporary issues. To comprehend this integration within the educational domain, it is relevant to mention that this historiographic field arises from the events experienced during the Second World War, where citizens took responsibility for knowledge and social reflection on historical experiences such as the Holocaust to prevent the repetition of these events. This duty, directly linked to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (^{UN, 1948}), is found in historiography, a previously unconsidered field of study which is the so-called history of the present time (^{Bédarida, 1998}; de ^{Amézola; Cerri, 2008}) and which has mainly developed in European countries, with scholars linking its consolidation to the creation of the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent, established in France in 1978, and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, founded in Germany in 1949. (^{Allier, 2018}). Although scholars in Europe have linked the emergence of this field of study to the events of the Second World War, each country has developed particularities in its approach. Examples are the French case, the study on the Vichy regime, and the Spanish case regarding Francoism. However, in all these cases, the solid or traumatic events (^{Rousso, 2018}) of this period mark the historical study of the contemporary issues of facts such as genocides or decolonization processes from which social issues emerge that occupy societies from the present.

From this perspective, Latin America is no stranger to world historiographic development and has managed to make an essential contribution to this field of study with a new denomination, which is that of recent history and which has its main point of departure in Argentina (^{Franco; Levín, 2007}). The particularity of this denomination is that it is directly linked to the dictatorship processes experienced in Southern Cone countries such as Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay, to name a few. As in Europe, scholars link the study of the recent past to socially traumatic experiences that have marked a break in their histories. However, each country has experienced and elaborated these events differently, leading them to make different historiographical and educational decisions. For example, Brazil has preferred to speak of a history of the present time because its elaboration of the past and social questioning from the present have prioritized issues related to indigenous and black people beyond what happened during its dictatorship, which has its counterpart in the cases of Argentina and Chile where the social struggles of the groups of relatives of victims of the dictatorship and former political prisoners have occupied a more significant place in public discussions about the recent past (de Amézola; Cerri, 2008).

Therefore, what is noteworthy about the incorporation of the history of the present time or recent history in the educational space is that it is not a historiographic field with defined temporal limits, which entails a definition of its scope based on the questions or problems posed by societies and their memory processes regarding the past. Therefore, its relationship with the school is not easy to understand since, unlike other historical periods, historiography cannot always define an official perspective on the facts to teach in the curriculum; instead, it raises the existence of multiple visions that emanate from the experiences of living actors contemporary to their study or teaching and that, therefore, have a high public and political interest. Another problematic aspect of its educational incorporation has been the need for chronological order in the study of history, which often prevents addressing current issues for school times and compliance with the required curricular coverage (^{De Amézola; Cerri, 2008}).

In this sense, the consideration of including recent history in the school curriculum has been accompanied both by the vision provided by the incorporation of controversial issues, understood as those topics that are part of public debate in society, and by memories, which entail that specific current issues bring together events or experiences of the recent past that involve a social interest. In both cases, society, from the present, determines the issues to address, building a close link between recent history and citizen education.

An example of this in Chile is the specific case of the subject of History, Geography, and Social Sciences; they explicitly incorporate it as an elective called “Historical Understanding of the Present” (^{MINEDUC, 2021}). This leads to a discussion around the representations of history that are part of its school teaching and challenges concerning the role of teachers in addressing issues that link them in a complex and integral way as professionals and citizens at the same time (^{Carretero; Borelli, 2008}; ^{González; Pagès, 2014}; ^{González, 2019}). In this sense, these areas blur their boundaries, ultimately leaving the decision in the hands of teachers.(^{Jofre et al., 2015a}, 2015b; ^{Jofre; Stein, 2019}; ^{Jofre; Kolstrein, 2013}), In the permanent classroom exercise link disciplinary, pedagogical, curricular, historical, and experiential beliefs and knowledge, among others, to define how to teach a given content (^{Cunningham, 2007}; ^{Loughran et al., 2012}; ^{Monte-Sano; Budano, 2013}; ^{Tuithof et al., 2021}; ^{Díaz; CofréMardones, 2014}).

This bibliographic essay aims to reflect on the incorporation of recent history in Chilean school education, based on educational policies and scientific literature about it, discussing, in addition, the challenges that this poses for history teachers when approaching their teaching in their teaching practice. In this way, on the one hand, a view of the incorporation of recent history from the macro-political point of view, evidenced in its presence in Chilean educational policies, offers specific viewpoints aligned with its historical context.

On the other hand, we take a micropolitical perspective by examining the challenges that teachers face when analyzing the teaching of recent history in the educational exercise (^{Henríquez; Mardones, 2016}) from the theoretical perspective developed by ^{Tuithof et al. (2021)}, In this context, we identify specific objectives that teachers have in mind when teaching history.

These are subsequently brought into discussion concerning the teaching perspectives identified in Chile by ^{Villalón-Gálvez and Zamorano-Vargas (2018)}, from which the critical perspective is identified as a teaching of history that, considering the need for students to understand their past, also incorporates the urgency of developing a dialogue between reflection and action (^{Freire, 2015}), which enhances a citizen training for social change.

We combine both views by recognizing that from citizenship training, a model of citizenship is sketched present in educational policies, which may or may not coincide with the representations of citizenship built by teachers, understanding that this implies diversity in the ways of thinking about being a citizen and their participation in today’s world.

Integration of Recent History in the Chilean Curriculum

In order to reflect on the incorporation of recent history in school teaching, it is necessary to know what is understood by recent history and by curriculum since both concepts allow us to develop a discussion on how this historiographical field acquires pedagogical interest in order to become present in educational policies and the classroom.

Recent historyis a historiographical field that emerged during the post-World War II period, and it questions the assumptions that underpin the construction of the modern Western world. These assumptions correspond mainly to humanity, modernity, and progress, and the experience of Auschwitz questions these assumptions as a representative expression of horror and the limits of humanity beyond the mere name of a concentration camp (^{Mèlich, 2004}). For this reason, events that mark a rupture in history and human life (^{Franco; Levín, 2007}; ^{Franco; Lvovich, 2017}), such as wars, genocides, dictatorships, or human rights violations, situate recent history around the question of how was it possible for this to happen? This deepens historiographical knowledge, linking it to an ethical imperative recognized in the non-repetition of these events or, as it is known in Latin America so that Never Again (^{Mèlich, 2004}; ^{Nicholls, 2013}). In this sense, it is also relevant to note that the emergence of recent history puts in tension aspects of historiography itself, such as, for example, the conception of time, the work of the historian and his or her relationship with the past that is the object of study, the link between history and memory, as well as the types of historiographical sources and their possibility of construction from the present (^{Franco; Lvovich, 2017}; ^{LaCapra, 2009}).

Concerning the curriculum, this concept is perceived as a key societal construct within educational policies, which mirrors choices regarding knowledge, it is selection, and valuation, as well as the forms of socialization and individuation that are authorised by power groups (^{Apple, 2018}; Pagés; Marolla, 2018; ^{Soto, 2013}; ^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}). States’ decisions regarding the educational structure of society comprehends through its historical contexts and political power struggles, both nationally and globally. Therefore, the curriculum is not neutral (^{Soto, 2013}) but responds to explicit or implicit definitions of those who conduct public policies (^{Apple, 2018}; ^{Plá, 2016}).

In this sense, the process by which recent history acquires visibility and pedagogical value for educational policies, finally integrated into the curriculum, is marked by the democratic breakdown of the coup d’état of September 11, 1973, as well as by the return to democracy in 1990 (^{Pagés; Marolla, 2018}; ^{Reyes, 2013}; ^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}).

In Chile, the period of military-civil dictatorship established a new model of citizen and society based, at first, on patriotic and Catholic values, to later consolidate a system ideologically based on neoliberalism (^{CEP, 2016}), the Political Constitution of Chile in 1980 institutionalized it (^{Republic of Chile, 1981}). In this context, people understand education as a private commodity within a global-scale economic market, where freedom is the supreme value, understood within an economic liberalism of individual and consumerist character. This results in a conception of justice based on the equality of meritocratic opportunities, thus exacerbating inequalities in socialization dynamics that recognize competition as a form of relationship between people. In this way, the market grants the ability to regulate both the economy and society, political and cultural life (^{CEP, 2016}). With the return to democracy, there is a form change but not substance. This means that the country is cemented in a democratic state with the recognition of rights for citizenship but maintaining the basic neoliberal system and its constitutional support (^{Castro-Paredes, 2012}; ^{Aguilera, 2015}).

This allowed the building of an idea of liberal citizenship, with primacy of civil and political rights, where, although the violation of human rights occurred during the dictatorship is recognized by the State, these are considered conflictive and controversial issues due to their measured or scarce public debate, product of the social legacy of the shock of a long period of violence and state terrorism (^{Reyes, 2013}; ^{Jofre et al., 2015a}; ^2015b; ^{Jofre; Stein, 2019}; ^{Jofre; Kolstrein, 2013}).

Subsequently, as the governments developed in return to democracy, the demands for a new conception of more conscious, critical, and participatory citizenship had a broad increase reflected in social mobilizations. Initially, these mobilizations originated in student movements, which became increasingly represented at the social level regarding participation, demands, and citizen support. As a result, Chile has experienced critical moments since October 18, 2019, and today, it actively participates in a constituent process that aims to modify the foundations of the system established during the dictatorship and consolidated in the following years.

In this sense, the demand that the State poses towards schools and teachers to train students in citizenship and recent history is within this contextual and historical framework as a possibility to respond to social questioning and, in turn, maintain the model of citizen and liberal society through it (^{Pagés; Marolla, 2018}; ^{Soto, 2013}; ^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}). In this sense, the State has responded to social demands from a non-critical perspective (^{Soto, 2013}), which, although it raises the possibility of addressing new topics within the school, these are within the ideological parameters present in educational policies that express a specific type of citizen and society within the framework of the neoliberal system. In this way, the model’s conservative and reproductive practice that assumes its problematics within its margins continues (^{Ferrada; Villena; del Pino, 2018}; ^{Aguilera, 2015}; ^{Soto, 2013}).

Understanding this is connected to what we expressed above regarding the curriculum as a social and political construction since the selection and organization of knowledge are part of the social and political disputes developed to build a type of citizenship and society. Part of this disputed knowledge corresponds to history. In this sense, the selection and organization of what we intend to teach in this subject are based on defining the past to be remembered. Therefore, the events, sources, historical actors, or memories incorporated into teaching depend on the interests and questions that arise from those who recall the past from the present.

In this context, the incorporation of recent history in school education is characterized by the memories and questioning of a society marked by the historical events experienced between 1973 and 1990, being this period one of those that make up the recent history of Chile.

Concerning this, ^{Leonora Reyes (2013)} points out that this historical period is addressed in the curricular bases from seventh grade to second middle school (^{MINEDUC, 2015}), indicating that the teaching of the events lived in dictatorship should allow students to recognize that human rights were violated and that there was the suppression of the rule of law. To this end, the curricular orientation in its approach leaves the teachers’ hands to decide on the depth with which the reflection on the period and its teaching is carried out. Teachers must make this decision depending on how traumatic or problematic their approach in the classroom is, which leaves a wide margin on what happens concerning its teaching. At the same time, these curricular bases point out that, for this period, teachers must generate the pedagogical instances for students to analyze the social transformations caused by the establishment of a new economic and institutional order in Chile, focusing the teaching on the consolidation of a State built after the dictatorship. To this end, the emphasis is placed on valuing the national reconciliation process as constructing a new historical identity in Chile.

^{Pagés and Marolla (2018)} argue that these curricular orientations regarding the recent history of Chile do not problematize the past from a critical perspective but, rather, tend to make dissent invisible in order to highlight a national reconciliation based on the impossibility of discussing what happened and its remembrances from the present. ^{Villalón-Gálvez and Zamorano-Vargas (2018)} agree that the critical perspective is absent in the curricular incorporation of recent history since a practical perspective is more strongly identified with aspects that persist from the traditional perspective. This means that history teaching focuses on allowing students to understand the present from the study of the past, but without involving reflection and action (^{Freire, 2015}) that would allow them to transform the social present they live in.

Therefore, understanding that there is the presence of a liberal citizenship model in educational policies that may limit the critical approach to recent history from macro-politics, these do not close the possibilities of social transformation since teachers, from micro-politics, generate a convergence of diverse knowledge that link them as professionals and citizens in an integral way, opening possibilities of action with significant challenges in their educational work.

Recent History from a Critical Perspective and the Challenges for Teachers

Teachers’ decision-making complexity in their classroom work underscores the need to consider educational policies as crucial. This is because the knowledge about the curriculum or study plan that they possess offers general teaching guidelines that teachers then interrelate with other knowledge and that allow them to build a professional knowledge of a situated and particular character concerning their educational context (^{Loughran et al., 2012}; ^{Monte-Sano; Budano, 2013}; ^{Tuithof et al., 2021}; ^{Diaz; CofréMardones, 2014}).

In this sense, the teaching of recent history has implied that teachers must question their knowledge of the historical discipline since this historiographical field is new and integrates changes in the conception of history (^{Franco; Levin, 2007}; ^{Soto, 2007}) that will be addressed later in this discussion. This, linked to the description above on incorporating recent history in educational policies, generates changes in the micro-political practice developed in classrooms, evident in the teaching objectives that may arise from the teachers’ knowledge beyond the guidelines delivered by the national curricula.

Consequently, the change in historical reasoning generated from the emergence of recent history presents three relevant aspects to consider, which correspond to contemporaneity, historical sources, and disciplinary conception. Teachers can link this to their orientation based on the content’s objectives, proposed by ^{Tuithof et al. (2021)} for the approach to history in general.

For this essay, we have selected those objectives that present a closer link with the teaching of recent history, specifically with the three aspects identified for analysis: contemporaneity, historical sources, and disciplinary concepts. The objectives correspond to cultural background, historical reasoning, vision over time, entertainment, multiperspectivity, moral lessons, understanding of current events, and academic preparation (^{Tuithof et al., 2021}).

First, those who perform this action characterize recent history by the contemporaneity of the events experienced and studied. That is to say, historians or history teachers deal with historical events that they, in turn, are living as social actors (^{Franco; Levín, 2007}; ^{Gamboa, 2004}). This generates disciplinary debate because historiography has posed the need for temporal distancing concerning the past, estimating a time of 30 to 50 years of separation to achieve the objectivity and neutrality that gave it its scientific recognition. This problem has been assumed by recent history from the methodological self-awareness of the researcher, assuming his attention to possible biases.

On the other hand, this contemporaneity implies the presence of witnesses or living actors who give testimony of their experiences through the work of memory (^{Jelin, 2002}; ²⁰²⁰), which involves the concept of historical empathy as the approach and emotional understanding of the events studied (^{Cunningham, 2007}). At the same time, contemporaneity involves historians and history teachers in the historical understanding of the political and social commitments of their citizenship exercise.

Concerning this first characteristic of recent history, the objectives regarding the teaching of recent history by teachers (^{Tuithof et al., 2021}) can be linked explicitly to historical reasoning, from the development of new ways of thinking historically that link human beings as part of the history studied and as active actors in these processes. Also, we identify a vision over time that enhances the notion of the past as a trace or heritage that becomes latent in the present. This, in turn, generates that the past that is approached makes sense insofar as it allows explaining the present of those who study it. The contemporaneity of recent history also has a sense of action and transformation from citizenship due to the political and social commitments of historians, teachers, and students. Finally, another recognizable objective concerning this characteristic of recent history is that of moral or ethical lessons, which is closely related to the study of historical events that deal with the limiting experiences of humanity, such as genocides, wars, and state terrorism, since by asking how this could happen, they make an educational commitment associated with avoiding the historical repetition of the traumatic past.

The second characteristic of recent history corresponds to expanding what is considered valid as historical sources (^{Gamboa, 2004}). Traditionally, historiography has validated written documentary sources established as proof of the past. However, recent history has incorporated oral history sources, recognizing the possibilities posed by the existence of witnesses or living actors and the problematic issues raised as a result of the contingent political implications that generate prohibition due to political interests, intentional elimination of evidence or limitations due to judicial uses (^{Franco; Lvovich, 2017}).

When relating this second characteristic with the objectives of teaching recent history from the teaching staff (^{Tuithof et al., 2021}), multiperspectivity is recognized as a sense currently relieved in education, recognizing more than one voice, vision, or perspective of history, making reference to the subjectivities and intersubjectivities of living experiences and in permanent social resignification. At this point, historical empathy stands out as understanding the meanings socially given to the past from the lived experiences and the context that circumscribes them. This is because, when considering multiple perspectives on historical events, people must empathize with the diverse contexts that mediate the understanding and diverse resignification from each experience. An example of this is the 1973 coup d’état. This event is remembered in different ways depending on the contexts of each person and the memories that have been built and transmitted about it, which involves feelings and emotions according to those meanings of the past. That is to say, perspectivity highlights that individuals can experience the same historical event in different ways, remember, and feel in different ways, which changes the notion of a single official history, opening the possibility of considering that societies do not agree on everything, and this merits learning to live democratically with diverse visions of the past, the present, and the future.

Finally, the third characteristic of recent history corresponds to the disciplinary conception, which is related to an open, flexible, inconclusive, and permanently under-construction history, which incorporates the visions and historical narratives of groups that had been excluded from the history constructed by the national States (^{Cuesta, 2007}). This implies a traditional view of history that appeals mainly to the role exercised by the States and, in this sense, to the historiography that has sustained its national narrative transmitted through education (^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}).

Regarding the educational objectives of teaching recent history and its change in the disciplinary conception, historical reasoning is recognized as a critical point in which the way of thinking about history ceases to be focused on a group of society, the elite or dominant group, to incorporate other social actors. In the same way, it becomes a history under construction, interwoven with the citizen and participatory processes themselves, which give meanings to the past from memory. Therefore, the objective of perspectivity and understanding of the present is also within this new historical conception.

Although we can establish that the three characteristics of recent history selected for analysis in this essay are recognizable and correspond to various teaching objectives identified by ^{Tuithof et al. (2021)}, the latter pose complexity in their school application and generate tensions in teachers’ orientations. This is because, in the Chilean case, the presence of recent history in educational policies has been circumscribed to the presence of contents that temporarily are conceived as proximate, that involve a controversial perspective and recognize in the objectives the understanding of the present from a practical perspective, but do not touch or modify the model of citizen or society that the educational system has enhanced (^{Pagés; Marolla, 2018}; ^{Magendzo-Kolstrein; Toledo-Jofré, 2015}; ^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}). The liberal citizenship model (^{Magendzo; Pavez, 2021}).

In this regard, ^{Villalón-Gálvez and Zamorano-Vargas (2018)} mention that incorporating recent history in Chile can be understood within three perspectives of history teaching according to the curricular analysis.

The first perspective is the traditional one that aims to maintain social structures through the construction of unique and national narratives built and legitimized by the State in the curriculum and that conceives teachers as technical executors and students as people capable of memorizing the selected contents (Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018). Within this perspective, it is possible to situate the historical conception configured and validated during the Chilean dictatorship, which maintains some elements still rooted in the social imaginary. An example of this is the permanent discussion on the role of teachers and their passive relationship concerning the curriculum.

Some experiences show that teachers are not mere technical executors since they demand more significant participation in curricular decision-making within co-construction processes; however, the State continues to make this possibility invisible (^{Ferrada, 2012}; ^{Ferrada et al., 2018}). This perspective makes the system remain intact within society, which is why its validity can be observed in Chile, from the historical analysis of student movements demanding structural changes since the Penguin Revolution, without achieving that state reforms touch the heart of the system, nor its central issues of inequality and social injustice (^{Castro-Paredes, 2012}; ^{Aguilera, 2015}).

The second perspective, called practical, emphasizes that students can understand reality, developing skills that allow them to act in society (^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}). This perspective is predominantly observed in the teaching of history raised in the Chilean curriculum at present because the attention reflected in the teaching objectives is placed on the understanding of the present in order to develop life in a democracy based on individual freedom focused on economic welfare and academic preparation aimed at the labor incorporation of students. This perspective of history teaching generates a static vision of knowledge because, although it allows understanding the lived context and incorporation into it, it does not emphasize the potential for social transformation. This is due to the conception of liberal citizenship that prevails.

The third perspective is called critical and takes from the practical perspective the relevance that students understand their history and the world in which they live, but with the intention that their citizenship and participatory skills point to the transformation of reality from critical thinking (^{Villalón-Gálvez; Zamorano-Vargas, 2018}). The literature has identified that scholars and educators do not commonly apply this perspective in curricular analysis. This indicates that schools do not uniformly apply the purposes of history teaching proposed by the curriculum. This can be explained by the constructions of specific teaching objectives according to the teachers’ knowledge and experiences, highlighting the teaching work in the classroom beyond the curricular definitions from the State and the dominant groups.

Therefore, teachers are faced with the challenge of making educational decisions based on each teacher’s different beliefs and knowledge about the content they teach, in this case, recent history, from a particular model of citizenship promoted by educational policies. These factors also influence how we construct coherence in the historical reasoning through which we teach history. This situation raises professional and citizenship dilemmas in the teaching staff, assuming a responsibility regarding the citizenship training of society, a controversial aspect in itself.

Final Considerations

The emergence of recent history as a historiographic field has implied contributions to the investigation of the past. These contributions have been exemplified concisely in three characteristics, without ignoring the existence of others. These consist, first, of the contemporaneity of those who study or teach history, implying possible biases, the presence of living actors, and political-social commitments concerning the past that is the object of study. Secondly, the expansion of historical sources from the documentary and written to the oral and audiovisual as in the case of oral history. Thirdly, changes in the conception of history involve an open, inconclusive, and permanently under-construction vision of historical interpretations and narratives. This accompanies incorporating new social actors as protagonists in studying the past and the historical constructions they undertake.

This has been linked to the beliefs and knowledge of teachers when teaching a specific content of history, recognizing that the objectives of teaching history not only depend on the disciplinary and pedagogical vision but also on the conceptions of citizenship that are built in the exercise as active citizens, as well as the historical context in which teachers develop.

In this sense, it recognizes the historical process experienced in Chile since the coup d’état of September 11, 1973, through the return to democracy and the current constituent process resulting from recent social movements. It is important to note that history teachers face complex challenges related to the contradictions inherent in social change. This is because the State, which is in charge of the design of educational policies, understands the incorporation of recent history and a curricular perspective from the controversy, maintaining in its basis a model of citizenship and liberal society within the neoliberalism established during the civil-military dictatorship and consolidated in later governments. This implies that the representation of history may maintain traditional aspects within the practical perspective of its teaching, limiting the presence of recent history to the understanding of the present without the direct and transforming participation of citizens.

In conclusion, this essay encourages discussion and research on incorporating recent history in school education from a contextual and historical perspective. This means that educational policies at a macro-political level develop the approach to recent history in schools. They recognize a gradual process involving both the practical and traditional perspectives in teaching. This goes hand in hand with the historical processes in Chile and the resignifications of the past, being the State the one who defines curricularly what past should be taught and with it what citizens seek to be formed. In this sense, it is pointed out that the curriculum is a political and social construction; therefore, it is not neutral.

However, through classroom practice, micropolitics is proposed as a possible space of resignifications, knowledge, and practices concerning recent history that can be varied and multiple. In this regard, the diversity of beliefs and knowledge of teachers is a possibility of development towards a critical perspective of both the teaching of recent history and the conception of citizenship; this, from the study of the objectives and meanings that teachers give to the teaching of recent history in the current context of society, expanding the curricular vision of the understanding of the present towards the possibilities of social transformation from the citizens themselves.