‘Studying Modern History gives me the chance to say what I think’: learning and teaching history in the age of student-centred learning

AbstractThis article critically interrogates university history students’ ‘learning narratives’ in relation to the rise of ideas about student-centred learning in Australian universities. Drawing on interviews with third-year students, it suggests that we need to more carefully consider how students make choices about their educational activities and the ways in which some transformations in student culture may inadvertently sustain the possibility for students to ‘opt out’ of key learning activities. In short, this article calls for scholar-teachers to historicise our student cohorts carefully and use this understanding to disrupt some of the instrumentalising tendencies of late modern university life.This article has been peer reviewed.