The Tenses of Historical Consciousness: The Impact of Memory Work Within the Colombian Education Community

1.1 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

Historical thought and knowledge exist outside of history as a scientific discipline. This is evidenced by the various forms of expression that human beings have found to grasp the understanding of their existence over time.^[9] Four concepts helped us approach the questions mentioned above: historical consciousness, historical culture, memory media, and channel. We understand historical consciousness as the way in which people individually and collectively relate to the past and assign to it a meaning that helps them orient themselves in the present and to the future.^[10] Historical consciousness tangibly and visibly manifests itself in the historical culture of a particular group. Historical culture is comprised of all practices that evoke the past in our present^[11] and offer of interpretations. In other words, historical culture is the space in which places, formal and non-formal historiographical practices, creative processes and dialogues about the past, understood in its broadest possible sense, intersect and are translated into a narrative to become history. For this reason, historical culture cannot be thought of without memory media, that is, the means that transmit these narratives.^[12] For a memory medium to function as such, it needs a channel, a path that allows it to travel. The channels can be formal and institutionalized, such as school, museums, or the aforementioned CNMH, but they can also be informal channels, such as family, a group of friends, or the internet, through which different memory media can converge. Channels can be dynamic, i.e. they allow memory media to reach people easily, or static when there is not much traffic on their roads.

1.2 School as a Field of Tension

School is an ideal place to observe the tensions that form when the different channels meet and compete. On the one hand, it is the space where social expectations about what young people need to know as competent citizens are shaped. On the other hand, it serves as the arena where institutional knowledge clashes with collective and individual narratives conveyed through informal learning channels.

Indeed, the great explorations of historical consciousness were carried out with young people. Seminal studies such as Youth and History ^[13] provided a comparative analysis of the historical perceptions and attitudes of young Europeans after the end of the Cold War. Bodo von Borries and Andreas Körber repeated the study a few years later in Germany, showing how young people’s perceptions changed and how they were influenced by contemporary political issues and trends.^[14] In her research on South African university students, Ursula van Beek analyzed the state of historical consciousness in the context of societies in transition with active memory policies that aim at social reconciliation.^[15] In the Latin American context, Luis Fernando Cerri and Gonzalo de Amézola conducted comparative research on historical consciousness of high school students and their relation to national history in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, all of which are countries that used the instrument of truth commissions to confront their traumatic past.^[16] For North America, the members of “The Past’s Collective” analyzed different aspects of Canadians’ relationship with their past.^[17]

1.3 The Situation in Colombia

School as a space where interpretations of the past are negotiated has aroused growing interest in recent years.^[18] The adaptation of these studies to the Colombian context acquires relevance for several reasons. In its confrontation with a past marked by conflicts and traumas, Colombia presents a unique case at the global level, given that the memorial processes began at a time when that past still resonated as a present for many Colombians. Young people are often confronted with past experiences or close family memories that do not go back more than a generation. In addition, Colombia does not have a unified school system, but rather a wide variety of public, private, and concession schools, each with very different conditions depending on their socioeconomic profile and geographical location. Narratives about the recent past, if addressed at all, can vary widely due to the autonomy educational institutions have in designing their curricula, selecting textbooks, and choosing other teaching materials. This autonomy, particularly prominent in the area of social sciences, which includes the subject of history, is justified precisely by the diversity of conditions present in the Colombian territory.^[19]

2.1 Students’ General Relation to the Past

In the second section of the questionnaire, we explored what imaginaries students associate with the term ‘past’ in general, which past interests them the most, and how they experience that past in their daily lives. It is important to note that in order not to bias the students’ answers, we did not differentiate between past and history in the survey. Instead, we explained that by the term ‘past’ we were referring to any event, whether individual, family, national, or global that has taken place in the past.

To find out their imaginaries about the past, we started by asking students to write down two terms that they related to the word ‘past’ (Figure 2).

Figure 2:

Word clouds with the answer to the question: “Write down two words that come to mind when you hear the word past.” Question 13 of the questionnaire. Graphic by the authors.

The students related about 160 different words to the idea of the past, which showed us a wide range of perceptions and a somewhat personalized idea of what the past means to each student. However, the most frequently mentioned terms were history, memories, and memory. These words are not particularly surprising at first glance as they are easily related to the passage of time, along with other terms that also focus on the very specific experience of time, such as past, before, ancient, future, or simply time.

However, these connotations of time, in combination with other terms, highlight the variety of ways in which students relate to the past: the past is learning, wisdom, something real, something that really happened (reality, facts). Its events can be clearly named, either as a historical process, with the names of national historical figures or social actors: slavery, Simón Bolívar, La Violencia, ^[25] drug trafficking, the Medellín cartel, the guerrillas, the conflict, the war. But the past is also made up of experiences that arrive more or less formed to the present (legacy, tradition) and that trigger feelings of belonging (roots, identity, origin) as well as forgetting. The past for some students has an emotional charge (nostalgia, sadness, happiness, pain, regret) and is related to family (family, childhood, grandparents). For others, it is adventure, emancipation, books, freedom and for others it has a negative connotation (death, darkness, oppression, blood, suffering, tragedy) that contrasts with the idea of peace and reconciliation that it has for others (forgiving, resilience, respect).

Of these imaginaries, three aspects are of special interest for the general results of the entire questionnaire. First, the students highlight the guiding function of historical narratives (learning, legacy, experience). This is an aspect that was also highlighted in the interviews, as in the following example where a student explains why she chose the term memory:

[...] I think it’s important to keep the word memory in mind. I think it’s very important to continue with what the future is, that is, like that phrase that people always say “a person who doesn’t know his history, he’s condemned to repeat it.” I relate it a lot to that, so I find it quite interesting to base ourselves on certain facts and know how the roots and bases of our history, in this case our country. It’s to be able to continue and do things well. (R.G.)

Second, as evident from the quote above, they relate the term past to the national context, since the events they named all belong to Colombian history. Finally, references to family history establish a link to their own individual past, as one student who chose the term grandparents explains:

[...] Well, grandparents, because we know that grandparents are already old, they are like the past and they are like the first relationship we have with the past, so they kind of tell us stories and so on and since it is from different times, yes, it is a very close relationship that we have directly with the past. (S.A.)

Their imaginaries about the past aligned with their responses to the question where we asked them to rate the importance of the past in general, the past of Colombia, the past of the city where they live, and the past of their own family (Figure 3). Although it turned out that almost all young people find these different pasts very important or important, they ranked the past of their own family as the highest scoring answer, followed by the past of Colombia. This first indication of the family’s central position in relation to the past is also supported by the results presented below.^[26]

Figure 3:

How important is the past to you? Students who answered “very important.” Question 14 of the questionnaire. All data are given in percentages.²⁶ Graphic by the authors.

To better identify what stood out to them about the past, we asked which historical era they would like to learn more about. In contrast to their preference for national history, students mostly named topics with a focus on European history (77 % of the students). There may be several reasons for this inclination towards international issues. On the one hand, the use of the term ‘historical era’ in the question influenced the way students interpreted it, as they connected it to the periods they had learned about in school, such as antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, etc. On the other hand, although it is possible that the use of the term ‘historical era’ in the question generated a bias, it must be taken into account that Europe is a point of reference in many teaching materials for teaching social sciences.^[27] This is an aspect that was also discussed in the interviews we conducted with the teachers. In this regard, a teacher told us that:

[...] When you talk about history, you usually go straight to wars or presidents (...). Let’s say, if I ask my nieces and nephews right now if they know any indigenous culture or if they know the indigenous laws of the country, they don’t, they’re not going to say that they do. But let’s say, if I ask them if they know World War II, World War I, they do. (Interview with a schoolteacher in Barranquilla).

It can be suspected that the input young people receive in class also makes it more likely that they will be inclined towards international issues. In this same question, only 23 % of the students showed interest in topics of national history. The variety of national themes ranged from historical eras such as the pre-Hispanic period (10 students), Independence (6 students), Violence (7 students), armed conflict (14 students), or even the history of the time when their own parents were young (9 students).

Finally, in this section we investigated how students experience this past in their daily lives. To do so, we asked them to tell us about a situation or activity in which they had known something about the past. All but four students offered an answer. The largest number of students (62 %) reported situations or activities that were related to family histories and 20 % to the national history of Colombia; 5 % mentioned events of the past at the international level. These results confirm that the most tangible past in the daily life of students is their own family past. In this question, we also asked them where the situation or activity had taken place. According to their answers, their own home ranked first, followed by the grandparents’ house; school ranked third. In a few cases, other places such as the hospital, the park, the shopping mall, the museum, and the activity of travelling were mentioned.

In short, the imaginaries that students have of the past go through a wide variety of ideas and emotions. In these imaginaries, the idea of the passage of time, the orienting function of the past, and the relationship to the past through family and national history stand out. This corresponds to the statement that the past that matters most to them is the family past, followed by the national past. The answers about how they experience this past in their daily lives also confirm that the family past is the most important. These results contradict the findings that their interest in historical eras focuses on international history, particularly European history, and that their curiosity for national history is rather low.

2.2 Channels and Media of Learning About the Past

The third and fourth sections of the questionnaire focused on the channels and media through which students learn about the past in general and in particular about the Colombian armed conflict. In this context, we inquired about their perception of the level of trust they have in these channels and media. Subsequently, we explored their perception of the contribution of these channels and media to the understanding of the past and the concrete learnings they acquire through them.

In general, the most important channels for the students, where they have the greatest contact with the past in general, are the informal channels of family and internet, while school is the formal channel they access most, and museums the least. Regarding the internet, 81 % of the students said they used it to search for information about the past. This is a very important channel because it is the space in which most different memory media currently converge. On the internet, students read texts ranging from articles from collaborative encyclopedias such as Wikipedia or Ecured,^[28] digital newspapers, academic articles, or cultural websites such as the website from the Banco de la República, which was cited several times. At the same time, it is through the internet that they watch informative videos, especially on YouTube, as well as documentaries, series, films, or specialized history programs such as History Channel, which students also mentioned several times.

When it comes to memory media, photographs (93 %) are in first place, followed by different types of audiovisual productions (90 %). In third place are books (84 %), of which 75 % of the young people who said they approached the past through books do so mainly because of a school assignment and 40 % on their own initiative.^[29] Visits to places related to the past hold the fourth position (59 %).

It is worth noting that a typical situation relating to the past, which the students frequently mentioned in the questionnaire, was conversations with grandparents or aunts and uncles. In the interviews, they provided us with more information:

[...] on several occasions I have asked [my great-grandmother] about different topics, like about school or her social or family life. How her father was regarding being macho. At that time, something has indeed changed from then to now. Let’s say, she told me that back then girls in general were only for the house, for sweeping, for cooking. So, I related to her that those times have changed now. And so, on several occasions, I have had the opportunity to ask her about different topics. (N.N.)

During the interviews, we noticed that the transmission of knowledge about the past can also happen from children to parents. The following quote illustrates this point more clearly:

[...] so I prefer to research on my own and only through the internet, because the books I have access to are not precisely about Colombian history, but rather about world history, so they hardly touch on that topic. And well, so that I can tell her, for example, to my mom. It’s not like she really knows much either. So over time, I got used to searching on my own for more information on any historical or social topic that caught my attention, and if necessary, later discuss that topic with my mom explaining what I found. (O.N.)

Subsequently, with the question “How much do you believe in the information of the past when you receive it through...” we sought to examine the reliability that students give to the following channels and media as presented in Figure 4.

Figure 4:

How much do you believe in the information of the past when you…? Question 28 of the questionnaire. All data are given in percentages. Graphic by the authors.

There is evidence of greater trust in those media and channels that have an institutionalized character, as in the case of school textbooks, in which almost 90 % of students trust a lot or somewhat in the information provided through this medium. With a 75 % approval rating, museums are also perceived as highly reliable in in providing information, even though more than 16 % of students admit not to have visited one. The family also plays an important role, with 83 % trusting the stories passed down in the family. In contrast, students take a more critical stance towards information obtained on the internet with 66 % approval and through entertainment media such as television shows and movies with 47 % approval.

The trust students have in the different media and channels does not necessarily translate into an understanding of the past, that is, into generating a meaningful history. This aspect was explored with the following question (Figure 5): “How much did each of the following activities that you have done help you understand something about the past?” Students had to choose between “it helped me a lot,” “it helped me somewhat,” “it helped me little,” “it didn’t help me,” or “I didn’t do this activity.”

Figure 5:

Did the activity of (...) help you understand the past? Question 55 of the questionnaire. All data are given in percentages. Graphic by the authors.

Interestingly, the response to this question indicates that the activity that most helped students to understand aspects of the past was watching series and movies, with 88 %, followed by searching the internet, with 83 %. These two activities, however, are the least trusted by students when transmitting information about the past (see Figure 4). The situation is different with museums: although students trust the information received in museums, only 60.9 % think that they contribute to an understanding of the past.

This result suggests that students could be assessing this aspect without necessarily relying on their own experience. When looking closely at how many young people said they had never visited a museum, an interesting fact emerges: in Figure 4, 16.29 % declare that they have never been to a museum, while in Figure 5 it is 19.32 %. When asked directly if they have ever visited a museum (not necessarily historical), more than a quarter of young people (27.27 %, that is 72 students) say no.^[30] When asked about how often they have been to a museum, 34.47 % said they have been there many or some times.^[31] Paradoxically, more than half of the students who said they had never been to a museum also say that they trust a lot or somewhat the information offered by this institution (39 out of 72, that is 54.17 %).

Therefore, it is possible that students answered the question about the trust they have in the different channels and media mainly by considering their institutional authority and social acceptance. The results regarding the internet and entertainment media corroborate this assumption. Students are aware that a series is fictional and that the internet is full of fake news, so they do not count them as reliable sources.

However, the ability to explain historical contexts does not depend on the degree of veracity of the medium, but rather on its narrative capacity to establish meaning-generating relationships between historical events, characters, or processes. The high approval ratings of other narrative mediums, such as books, also support this idea.

Activities such as reading books (including textbooks) and talking to family members, which generated high confidence, also contributed to understanding of the past. In the following statement, a student highlights the importance of talking to his father to better understand the past:

[...] I consider that these [talks with my father] help me more because my father tells me many stories that he lived through. Therefore, what he had to go through, and well, thanks to that, I consider that learning from a testimony is easier than sometimes from a book or a movie. (O.J.)

About 80 % of students consider that talking to family members helped them a lot or somewhat to understand the past and more than 81 % think the same about books.

In summary, it can be observed that the greatest authority regarding the veracity of information lies with the institutionalized media and channels. Only the family stands out as a reliable informal channel. However, those media and channels that favor an audiovisual narrative approach generate a greater understanding of the past.

2.3 Learning Situations About the Colombian Armed Conflict

To examine the extent to which students have ‘traveled’ through the institutional channel of the National Center for Historical Memory, we analyzed the learning paths related to the Colombian armed conflict. To this end, we inquired through which channels and means young people had learned specifically about the Colombian armed conflict and in which of these they felt it was the one that had helped them to understand it better.

In relation to this topic, we asked three questions: first, whether the students had heard about the Colombian armed conflict; second, in what situation they had heard something about the armed conflict; and third, which of these situations had provided them with a deeper understanding of it. We knew that while it is a topic of interest only to some students, we expected it to be a familiar topic to everyone. However, four students (1.5 %) said they had not heard of the Colombian armed conflict.^[32] For the second question in which we asked in what situations they had heard about the Colombian armed conflict, students could select more than one option (see Figure 6). The first thing to be noticed in the results is that apparently the conflict is a topic present on many channels and media. Within the group of 260 students who had heard about the Colombian armed conflict, for the largest percentage of them (93.18 %), school is the first channel through which they heard and obtained information about the conflict, generally in the following situations: dealing with the topic in class, having conversations in class with the teacher, through pedagogical outings, and by doing homework.^[33]

Figure 6:

In what situation have you heard anything about the armed conflict? Students could select more than one option. Question No. 25 of the questionnaire. Graphic by the authors.

The second channel through which the students learned about the armed conflict was the family (79.55 %) and the first medium was the news. The fact that 88 % of young people chose the news shows that it is not only a topic of the past but also of current media coverage.

According to several students, everyday family gatherings, such as mealtime, provide an opportunity to talk with parents or grandparents about news and events from the past. On many occasions, the scope of these conversations focused on family history, but sometimes family history was connected to national history as the following quotes from some of the interviews indicate:

[...] my father lived with my mom in a conflict zone for a while, in a place called Llorente, which is in Tumaco. They lived there for a while because that’s where cocaine is cultivated. So (…) they tell me. My dad worked, this was not many years ago, I wasn’t even born yet. They tell me that armed groups would come there, to their houses, and start talking, and they were even afraid that they might take my mom or dad away. And sometimes there were confrontations between the army and the guerrillas, and they were in the middle of the gunfire. Between the confrontations. So, they told me that they had to hide under the beds while everything was happening, and that was a horrible situation because they had to live through it and they were never at peace in those areas. (Z.S.)

[…] in the area where we live, which is Caquetá, perhaps not now, but in the past, you could feel more of the armed conflict. So, well, my parents, my grandparents, all the people who, through oral tradition, tell each other about all the events or things that happened in attacks and everything. (O.A.)

Other situations in which students talked about the past of the Colombian armed conflict were trips to historical sites or places of family interest (farms or towns of origin):

With my parents (…) we always traveled by car. (…) [My dad] started to tell me stories slowly about where we were passing through, and he could tell me stories like, for example, here nearby in [Puerto Berría] it was a very hot zone and that (…) then they stationed the battalion and that even so (…) it’s boring because of such and such, and well, I heard many things that really stuck with me. (Z.N.)

Indeed, the families of those students from regions geographically far from the urban centers have been in more contact with experiences directly related to the Colombian armed conflict, which is not surprising considering the rural nature of the conflict. However, in all schools half of the students on average also heard about the Colombian armed conflict by “talking to people who lived experiences close to the conflict” (see question 25), which indicates that the experience of the conflict is present in all the regions where the educational institutions that participated in the study are located, reaching a good part of the students.

Figure 7 presents the results of the question about the channels and media that students considered to have taught them the most about the Colombian armed conflict. School stands out as the first place of learning for students from five of the six schools.^[34] The family is in second place, but the percentage of students who said they understood something about the conflict within their families is only 18.5 % of the total number of participants. The third channel is the testimony of people who experienced the conflict first-hand, but this was far behind the percentage of students who selected school.^[35] As we mentioned, the news, which was selected by all the students as the first channel through which they had heard about the conflict, ranked as the most important channel for contributing to the understanding of the conflict only in the school located in La Florida.

Figure 7:

Which situation has taught you the most about the Colombian conflict? Question No. 26 of the questionnaire. Graphic by the authors.

When inquiring with some students through interviews on this point, some of their answers may explain the above results. Regarding the news, one student explained:

(...) our social studies teacher says that the news doesn’t show reality much, but rather shows more chilling news than what really matters. And that’s why the teacher tells us it’s better to read newspapers, ask our parents, because sometimes the news, to get viewers (…) only show things that are not so (…) important. (N.S.)

The distrust that this student manifests in relation to the news coincides with the little confidence that young people have in general in television as a transmission channel of the past (see Figure 4). Critical voices were also heard in the interviews when it came to stories told by relatives. One student questioned the extent to which a relative’s account of the armed conflict can be a reliable channel of information, since their testimony can be biased by precisely the same experience:

[…] some of our relatives participated in those conflicts, in those wars. But sometimes what they say (…), well, sometimes it’s not very true, but then one thinks that the people were involved in that and well, they participated and everything, so then they have more knowledge than other people. (A.M.)

But even the school is not free of suspicion. The following student explains:

(…) at school (…) it’s like they don’t really inform from certain perspectives, because (…) teachers must be discreet when commenting on certain things. Because of things, let’s say, school policies that cannot be on the side of a certain party, so, let’s say, that prevents complete information from being passed on. (R.G.)

This student touches on the real problem that teachers quickly feel exposed to accusations of indoctrination if they address controversial topics in the classroom.^[36]

In short, it can be concluded that the situation of systematic learning, as it exists in school, contributes more to the understanding of a subject as complex as the armed conflict. This vindicates the school as an important scenario that generates confidence in students about what they learn there, because despite the difficulties that teachers report in dealing with the challenge of teaching about the Colombian armed conflict,^[37] the subject is clearly addressed in schools –but not necessarily in the social sciences or history classes.^[38]

We were also interested in how students faced different versions or interpretations of the conflict when confronted with them. To this end, we addressed the controversy that exists around the truth of the conflict by asking an open-ended question about what students would do to know with greater certainty what happened in the Colombian armed conflict. Most students answered that they would consult reliable sources, such as books, archives, or experts (10.6 %), various sources (26.51 %), or testimonies (33.33 %). Almost a third (28.03 %), however, gave an answer that shows that they do not know how to include several perspectives in a historical narrative. Likewise, many students do not seem to have a clear criterion of what a reliable source is, since they mention internet and media, channels in which in another question in the same questionnaire they expressed not having much confidence in as a possibility to obtain additional information. Although this was not the objective of the question, 48 students (18.18 %) included in their answer what they consider to be the origin of the Colombian armed conflict. Of these, 34 had no idea and 14 only a very vague idea of the causes.

After having analyzed the different learning situations about the conflict considering the channels and media, it is noteworthy that only two students, not even 1 % of the total group, stated that they had consulted material from the National Centre for Historical Memory (CNMH) through the internet. Here are the words of one of them:

I started to become interested in researching about peace processes, illegal armed groups, drug trafficking, etc. In that search, I found this website that is very useful. It has many books with information about the internal armed conflict. (Questionnaire No. 261).

This finding indicates that more than a decade after the 2012 study pointed out the limited reach of the CNMH among a broad audience, the CNMH still faces challenges in consolidating itself as a channel of learning about the past of the Colombian armed conflict for the student population. As students view school as the most trusted channel for learning about this topic, it is crucial that all efforts to overcome these obstacles focus on collaborating with educational institutions and to identify the factors that hinder this process.

2.4 The Tenses of Historical Consciousness

So far, we have seen that students have acknowledged in their answers that they are in some way exposed to the recent past in many areas of their daily lives. In this sense, we wondered to what extent this circumstance affects the historical consciousness of the students. To explore how complex historical consciousness is, which is understood in its broadest sense as the relationship that students have with the past, we included in the questionnaire an open question about the reality of the country that allowed young people to answer using or not using a historical argument. The question we asked was: “Why do you think there are very rich families and very poor families in Colombia?” This question can be answered based on both past events and the current situation, but it is also a question that addresses one of the underlying causes of the conflict, namely great social inequality. This also opened a window for us to examine the place of the past of the Colombian armed conflict in the students’ historical consciousness.

The question of social inequality definitely strikes a chord in Colombian society. This was demonstrated by the strong reactions of some parents of a school with a high socioeconomic background who demanded that the school withdraw the school’s participation in our study after the students had already answered the questionnaire. Presumably, these parents felt that this question was challenging themselves, their way of life, and their social standing. These are the same parents who labeled us as “guerrillas.” However, the students who participated in the questionnaire and answered the question did not consider it an imposition, but rather made an effort to answer it.

Why did these parents react so strongly? The following incident may shed light on why parents from higher social strata chose not to allow their children to participate in our research: Before administering the questionnaires, we conducted informative meetings with students, teachers, and parents, if necessary, as was the case in the aforementioned school. A notable detail from this meeting was the explicit rejection of the term historical memory (memoria histórica) by some parents during our presentation. When we stated that our initial goal was to assess the effectiveness of the reports and pedagogical materials from the National Center of Historical Memory in reaching students, one parent reacted negatively. This parent declared that he would not allow his son to participate in the Truth Commission (Comisión de la verdad).^[39] We observed that this parent had mistakenly associated the CNMH with the Truth Commission. We promptly clarified that our research was not connected to the Truth Commission, nor did we work for the National Center of Historical Memory.

This incident implies a gap in understanding about the institutions addressing the history of the Colombian armed conflict. It also points to a stigmatization of the term ‘historical memory’ among some parents from upper-class schools. These parents view the discussion of the armed conflict’s memory as a leftist ideological issue. We hypothesize this perception arises because some victims of the armed conflict, particularly those from higher social strata like businessmen, cattle ranchers, and notable political figures, feel overlooked. These individuals represent a privileged minority whose children attend high social stratum schools.

Therefore, we suggest that there is a correlation between the construction of the armed conflict’s historical memory and social class. In other words, social inequality also shapes how Colombians engage with their past.

We categorized the answers to the open question “Why do you think there are very rich families and very poor families in Colombia?” into four levels based on the use of a historical argument. Something we noted were the conjugations of verbs in different tenses that the young people used in their answers. That is why we decided to use the metaphor of the conjugation of verbs in some tenses to propose different complexities of historical consciousness. In this order of ideas, we determine a “historical consciousness conjugated in the present tense” in those responses that were argued from the conditions of the present.

For those responses that revealed a vague idea that the reasons for inequality can be found in the past, we classified them as “a historical consciousness in the simple past.” Answers with more complete explanations of the historical causes of inequality were labeled as “historical consciousness in the continuous past” and “historical consciousness in the complex past.” These answers are distinguished from each other regarding the detail with which the historical arguments were presented in the answers. The more details they offered for the historical arguments, the more we classified them as “historical consciousness in the complex past.” It is important to note that the historical accuracy of the response had no role in the categorization.

The responses categorized as “historical consciousness conjugated in the present tense” identify corruption as the driver of social inequality, as can be seen in the following example: “because there is corruption, money is not distributed properly, and absurd salaries are concentrated in exaggerated jobs” (Questionnaire No. 264). Another argument refers to the lack of opportunities and participation: “I personally believe that it is a question of inequality of opportunities. Many people have the opportunity and ability to access education, food, and a decent and quality health system; but many others lack the possibility” (Questionnaire No. 7). Not specified in this statement is the origin of opportunities that some have, and others do not. The third example also points to a political system that allows a strong clientelism: “Due to the social and economic inequality that exists in the country, since the rulers only support a certain part of the population. In addition to this, decent jobs in Colombia are very few and not everyone has access to them.” (Questionnaire No. 226). In that line of thought, this group of students explain social inequality by corruption, lack of opportunities and participation, and a clientelist political system. However, in their answers they do not offer an explanation of the origin of these three phenomena.

In the responses categorized as “historical consciousness conjugated in the simple past,” the answers go beyond presentist views and reveal a vague imaginary that the conditions of the past may influence the circumstances of the present. Above all, they explain in more detail the origin of the inequality of opportunities. In the following example, a student explains that the wealth of some people is attributed to the substantial resources of their parents: “Because some get what they get from their parents, from their previous ones who were well off financially and others because they earn it with their struggle and poor because some do not have the opportunity to get ahead or because some do not want to” (Questionnaire No. 54). This explanation also points to an agency of its own, that is, the possibility of achieving social ascent by one’s own means, by struggling. This argument is intertwined with the explanation of why there is poverty, namely that there are people who do not want to get ahead. Poverty is therefore a state that depends on the individual himself. In the same vein goes the argument of the next answer: “For me there are two points from which explanations can be drawn, the first would be inheritances and family legacies and another would be how ingenious people have been when building companies and their present.” (Questionnaire No. 20). Again, the inherited origin of opportunities is highlighted, but at the same time the importance of working to achieve a favorable economic situation is also emphasized.

While in the previous two examples there is still an emphasis on attitudes and agencies in the present, the examples that we categorize as a “historical consciousness conjugated in the continuous past” base their argument on historical structural conditions and above all on conditions external to the family:

In Colombia, the basis of poverty is the inequality that has been occurring since ancient times. In Colombia, the church has contributed a lot to this, given that religious education is a very biased and prejudiced education, therefore, we have in most of the population people with that mentality, people without critical capacity and a herd of indoctrinated servants and kneeling before oppression (.). (Italics ours. Questionnaire No. 37)

The time span in this example goes beyond the family framework. Arguments in the simple past are mainly oriented towards the situation of the parents to explain the origin of prosperity. On the contrary, here, the time limit refers to a much more distant past: “since ancient times.” In addition, the church is identified as an institution and social actor that has deliberately contributed to the reproduction and perpetuation of inequalities by not allowing the development of critical thinking.

In the following example, the reference to a distant past is again present:

There are richer families and others who are very poor because of inequality and the system that has been used today. Since ancient times, such as when the Spaniards took all the indigenous people and colonized them and had to do everything they ordered, there are factors that allowed some to have more, for some work not done by them and for others to work for something that did not belong to them but that was theirs. (Italics ours. Questionnaire No. 36)

In this scenario, an argument that considers historical structures can be observed. The origin of inequality lies in the colonial structures implemented by the Spaniards.

In the category that we propose as “historical consciousness conjugated in the complex past,” we finally classify those explanations that tried to locate the causes of social inequality at a precise historical moment and that related the causes and their consequences in a detailed way. It is important to note that we were not interested in whether the explanation was correct, but what level of complexity it showed. In the example below, the student identifies La Violencia as an important moment that influenced social inequality and mentions two causes, namely access to land and forced displacement; the latter being a consequence of La Violencia:

I think it’s due to the great inequality that exists in Colombia when it comes to the distribution of land and benefits. In addition, this poverty is also due to major events that occurred during the time of La Violencia, as there were generally many forced displacements which caused hunger and poverty. (Italics ours. Questionnaire No. 33)

The following answer points to colonial structures and their permanence even after independence and consequently unequal political participation as the main cause of social inequality:

I think that goes back to when the Spaniards were here, even after independence there were the criollos or families that were important to the Spanish government and to whom they gave power. Obviously today there must be rich families who were poor in the past, but I think that the fact of being rich and being poor has been going on for a long time (...). (Italics ours. Questionnaire No.12)

Finally, the third example is one of the most complex explanations we received. The student describes in detail how colonial structures influenced social imaginaries, created unequal access to education, and limited political participation, leading to social inequality:

Because of a condition that we have maintained since colonial times. The Spaniards and their control were creating various ‘social strata’ based on racial closeness (literally, the lightness of their skin) that further divided the country, without losing control, but leaving a divided and mostly illiterate territory. When they left after independence, only a minority, the literate, could give their opinion or read, and therefore lead. An oligarchy independent of Spain was formed with famous bloodlines, gradually rising in position to the point that many still exist today, and without losing their wealth. Meanwhile, the rest and most of the country, although it began to become literate, fell victim to the government’s lack of attention, so they fell into poverty, which also coincides with the demographic explosions at the end of each century. Poor families only grew poorer and grown, while rich families only perpetuated their power. (Italics ours. Questionnaire No.34)

In general, it was observed that only a small part of the students provided answers with a historical argument to the question about the origin of rich and poor families, as shown in Figure 8:

Figure 8:

Responses categorized according to “the tenses of historical consciousness.” All data are given in percentage. Graphic by the authors.

More than half (54.3 %) of the students gave an answer that looked for the causes of social inequality only in the present. 42.2 % had a vague idea of the relationship between historical and current conditions and only 3.4 %, equivalent to nine students, offered an extensive and detailed historical argument.

This last group of nine students is heterogeneous: they came from all the schools that participated in the research, their ages ranged between 14 and 16 years old and they were in grades 9, 10, and 11. Therefore, it is not possible to establish a clear relationship between their place of origin, the classes received at school, and the development of historical consciousness. Furthermore, it is impossible to identify another decisive factor that applies to all nine students. Instead, the group exhibits a wide range of channels and media that allow them to receive information about the past. They all have access to the internet, have a computer, and own a cell phone. In three homes there is even a subscription to a newspaper. Seven indicate that telling stories as a family is an activity they do often or somewhat frequently. Six talk at home about the situation in the country and the world, and three say they have gone to a museum or theater with their relatives. When asked in what situation they knew something about the past, they mostly mention situations and activities promoted by the school, such as homework for social studies class, but almost all these situations occurred at home. The following statement shows how a school assignment led one of these nine students to inquire about his family history:

I was still little; I was about 7 years old. In my previous school I had been asked to tell my story from the time I was born until then and by asking my mom I found out that when I was born no one went with my mom to the hospital because they were watching an ‘important’ Junior match^[40] of Barranquilla. (Questionnaire No. 41)

In a different situation, another student of this group of nine was able to relate Colombian history to his family’s history:

I was doing some projects at my school about a book by Gabriel García Márquez and I was doing a synthesis about that book and I found out about various situations about the state of my family when they arrived in Bogotá, how my grandmother and great-grandmother had to get ahead on their own, in addition to that they told me about the childhood they had, which led me to think about what their attitudes are like now, as well as the way they act. (Questionnaire No. 187)

These answers allow us to reflect that even when the encounter with the past was initially a school task, these students had a family member they could ask for more information. They were able to start a conversation about the past and, in some cases, understand how the country’s history relates to their past.

Therefore, the interaction of various factors contributes to students developing a more complex historical consciousness, understanding this complexity as the quality of connecting the history of the individual present experiences with more distant times and scales beyond the familiar. School as a place of systematic learning and a motivating factor that has an impact on other areas, e.g. through homework, is essential. However, an equally important role is played by those who are available for dialogue, who can answer questions and explain contexts, and, above all, who can break down a rather abstract topic on a personal level and explain the individual implications.