World History, Global History, Big History

Abstract The international situation of history didactics as an academic discipline is characterized by the fact that many basic disciplinary concepts often differ considerably: The same or similar terms denote different concepts or vice versa comparable concepts not only have various names but also hold different positions in the respective disciplinary framework. The best example of this is history didactics, which is understood as the practical methodology of history teaching in the Anglophone community and an academic subdiscipline of historical science in Germany. This is a considerable obstacle to international research. Since the school subject of World History is taught in many countries, an international comparison of curricula and textbooks deserves great scholarly interest. Therefore, this article tries to deal with the terminological clarification of the concepts of World History, Global History and Big History for the discipline of history didactics. The four most important reasons behind the need for world history teaching are connected to transnational, anti-Eurocentric, decolonisation- and anthropogenic-focused history teaching. The paper discusses different approaches and relationships between world history and national historical viewpoints with the method of curricula comparison. The study programs assigned to national history are usually not explicitly referred to as ‘national history’, but simply as ‘History’. Tacitly equating the respective national history with ‘history’ as such indirectly makes ‘world history’ appear as the history of the ‘others’ rather than as a comprehensive or integrative concept.