The third and final conference of the international networking project Making Histories took place from 17 to 20 November 2025 in Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute, Braunschweig, Germany 

It brought together researchers from different parts of the world to reflect on the actors, visibilities, and practices involved in the construction of history.

The event was structured around two main thematic strands. The first focused on representations and negotiations of contested and difficult pasts in both formal and informal history education. This section fostered dialogue on the challenges societies face when addressing controversial memories and highlighted the value of exchanging perspectives across diverse educational and social contexts.

The second strand centered on the construction of gender in differently mediated histories, including museums, schools, and digital media. Panels and discussions featured leading scholars in Gender Studies and History and opened up critical reflection on gender roles in circulating images of the past, the omission of certain historical actors from hegemonic narratives, and the varied practices through which these narratives are engaged, questioned, and reworked in different spaces.

Throughout the conference, participants engaged with key questions such as how contested pasts relate to one another, what researchers working in different societal contexts can learn from each other, and how formal and informal history educators can benefit from mutual exchange. Particular attention was given to how gender identities shape the making of history, how Western gender constructions are reproduced or challenged in historical accounts, and how gender intersects with racialized and class-based constructions of “the Other.”

Overall, the conference underscored the importance of integrating a gender perspective into historical research and education, and concluded with a rich exchange of ideas that contributes to rethinking how history is researched, taught, and communicated in societies marked by diverse and contested memories.