Prospective primary school teachers' confidence in teaching disciplinary history

This study explores how confident prospective teachers felt themselves to teach disciplinary history after a course which focused particularly on teaching historical thinking. The data consist of a survey and two essays by 121 respondents, in-depth interviews with 20 students, and follow-up interviews with eight students. The majority of the participants accepted a disciplinary approach as the basis of their future work. However, almost half of the participants felt uncertainty about their preparedness to teach disciplinary history. The article introduces four approaches that draw on the students' attitudes towards disciplinary history instruction.