What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

Preface
103
the war, it is possible to juxtapose this with reference
to historical scholarship which suggests the Allies
knew a great deal about the mass killings as early as
1941 and certainly by 1942.
Thus, while it is fully accepted that the Holocaust
is open to interpretation, the chapters often focus on
evaluating the extent to which students’ knowledge
and understanding of the Holocaust accords with
commonly held historical interpretations, and key
chronological and ‘factual’ information. Nevertheless
it is important to state that the research was also
very interested in how students conceptualised
the past, referenced contested interpretations and
applied critical historical reasoning in attempting to
understand and make sense of the Holocaust.
outbreak of war. This fundamental understanding
would allow students to reflect on the radicalisation
of Nazi policy during the Second World War and
appreciate the shifting geographical scope of the
genocide. As students develop their understanding
further (potentially with age) they might explore the
specific policies, events and actions that led to mass
murder – thereby acquiring a more sophisticated and
nuanced understanding of events.
In overview, while some references in the
chapter are made to what students might know
(and why they might know it), this knowledge and
understanding must be considered in relation to
the progressive development of key ideas, often –
though not always – associated with age.
4. Having regard for what students
might know at different ages
The fourth issue relates to age-appropriateness. One
of the aims of the next three chapters is to provide a
guide to the historical knowledge and understanding
of students across different age ranges. Wherever
possible, historical knowledge of younger students
is compared and contrasted with those of older
students. Sometimes, findings are very focused and
age-specific; at other times, the observations are
more general and cut across age and/or year groups.
In framing the chapters, and in each individual
chapter narrative, knowledge and understanding of
young people is often contrasted with what students
might or ought to know in order for them to assign
meaning to events of the Holocaust. However, it
is emphatically not the case that students of all
ages would be expected to know all aspects of this
knowledge in detail. Rather, the chapters identify key
knowledge that students might acquire over time.
Fundamental to this framing are notions of the
importance of progression over time in learning.
Underpinning this focus on conceptual progression
are two core principles first advanced by the
renowned American psychologist Jerome Bruner
(1960): first, that any ideas, including complex ideas,
can be taught at an appropriate level to students at
any age; second, that initial subject knowledge can
be built on, revisited and extended over time, and
with gradually increasing difficulty.
The acquisition of historical knowledge and
understanding does not rest on a one-size-fits-all
mentality. To the contrary, it is possible for students
to develop deeper understanding over time in a
manner that allows new knowledge to add to and
build on existing knowledge. For example, at a
basic level it might be important for students to
understand that the treatment of Jews prior to 1939
was of a very different complexion to that after the
5. Analysing the impact of having
studied history on older students
Finally, as outlined in Chapter 2, the findings
presented in the next three chapters were based
on responses from 7,952 students who completed
the survey and discussions with 120 students
interviewed in 24 focus groups across 7 schools.
The interviews were conducted with students from
Year 8 to Year 13 and were typically 40 to 50 minutes
in duration.
It is important to note that, while Year 12 and 13
students who completed the survey studied a range
of subjects (and not necessarily history), the 17 and
18 year olds interviewed were all studying history at
A Level. However, at the time of the interviews, none
of them had learned about the Holocaust as part of
their A Level course. The reason for targeting ‘history’
students in Years 12 and 13 was to explore whether
or not young people who had studied history were
more likely to hold more developed and deeper
understanding of the Holocaust than students who
had not. It also provided the opportunity to compare
and contrast Year 12 and 13 survey responses from
a general sample of young people in those years with
the interview responses of those who had specifically
studied history.
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