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You are here: Home / PGCE History at UEA / Significance / Some criteria for determining significance

Some criteria for determining significance

What makes an event or topic worthy of our attention? It is a question worth repeating with pupils as they encounter the demands which the learning of history makes on them.

Why is this topic prescribed, and not that one? What is the basis for the selection of content, whose significance is to be assessed? Geoffrey Partington suggests the following interrelated criteria in answer to this question. It can help to be aware of them, and to bring them into discussions with pupils when discussing ‘Why, and to what extent it matters’.


Partington’s 5 criteria for historical significance

  • Importance-to the people in the past
  • Profundity- how deeply people’s lives have been affected
  • Quantity- how many lives have been affected
  • Durability- for how long have people’s lives been affected
  • Relevance- in terms of the increased understanding of present life

Partington, G. (1980) The idea of an historical education, Slough, NFER: 112-116.

Some exercises designed to explore significance

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