Scales, borders and territories in history education researches: between empirical world and theoretical world

The issue of the relationship between researchers and those they study is an issue for history education as well as for social sciences in general. We deal here with this issue based on the proposals of the historian and sociologist. A. Abbott, according to whom the empirical evidence of intermediary institutions (like classroom and groups of working pupils, as far as history education is concerned) is not sufficiently in a developed in a theoretical sense. Theoretical shyness and confusion between real-world and scientific standards seem to combine in research practices to prevent a scientific field from becoming autonomous from the empirical world of teaching and learning, and from the academic field of research in history. Some ideas emerge to overcome the problem.