What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

18
Introduction
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the inclusion of 978 British adult respondents
within a seven-nation comparative study
undertaken on behalf of the American Jewish
Committee (Smith 2005)
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a survey of 1,200 English secondary school
students conducted for the London Jewish
Cultural Centre in 2009.
Focus on knowledge and understanding
Among all 125 research studies referenced, only a
small minority were explicitly focused on knowledge
and/or understanding of the Holocaust. In addition
to those already listed, these included Gray (2014a),
Shamai et al. (2004), Ivanova (2004) and Lazar et
al. (2004). More commonly, a measurement for
‘knowledge’ was included as a potential variable
to be examined alongside and/or correlated with
others including:
■■
levels of antisemitism (for example,
Gordon et al. 2004)
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attitudes towards others (Shamai et al. 2004)
■■
attitudes to ‘diversity’ (Jedwab 2010)
■■
dimensions of identity (Auron et al. 1994).
Several studies focused exclusively on issues related
to the impact of teaching and/or learning about the
Holocaust upon attitudes and/or beliefs (for example,
Rosen and Salomon 2011; Rutland 2010; Cowan
and Maitless 2007; Burke 2003).
Only a small minority of studies framed their
research primarily in terms of ‘understanding’
(see for example Lazar et al. 2004, 2009; Ivanova
2004), but both knowledge and understanding
were highlighted within those studies whose explicit
focus was teaching and/or learning in schools
(for example Richardson 2012; Meliza 2011 and
Clements 2007).
Measurement of ‘knowledge’ and its
rationale
Among those studies with an explicit focus on
knowledge content, the most common methodology
employed, especially among the larger-scale
studies, was a multiple-choice survey instrument
(see, for example, Lange 2008; Romi and Lev 2007;
Kavadias 2004; Smith 2005; Gordon et al. 2004;
Shamai et al. 2004). Significantly, in all except two
of these studies, answers given by individuals to
knowledge-based multiple-choice questions were
combined, for analysis, to create a single, aggregate
score to represent their knowledge across all the
questions and subjects covered. In other words,
these researchers appeared to be interested only
in comparing total levels of knowledge rather than
specific content.
Critically, there was seldom any explicit discussion
of the rationale behind the inclusion of individual
questions. Notable exceptions were Gray (2014a)
and Lange (2008). This is an important distinction in
the focus and framing of the Centre for Holocaust
Education’s research. In our own reporting, where
knowledge-related survey data is presented, it is
prefaced by a clear explanation and commentary on
why this specific knowledge-content was considered
an important dimension of the research.
It is also notable that only two other studies
(Bischoping 1996 and Bar-On et al. 1993) combined
a large-scale quantitative analysis with in-depth qualitative
work. As a consequence, the contextualised
and problematised framing of ‘knowledge’ with which
we opened the current chapter is missing from much
of this research (for a similar criticism, see Jedwab
2010 and Bischoping 1998).
Alternative methods used to examine knowledge
and, in particular, understanding, included invitations
for respondents to provide free-text descriptions
of – or associations with – the Holocaust (see,
for example, Lazar et al. 2009; Ivanova 2004;
Bischoping 1996). The practicalities of robustly
analysing free-text, qualitative responses meant that
these studies tended to be much smaller in terms of
scale than those reliant on questions that could be
answered through multiple choice.
Limitations of the current study and
intentions for future research
Many of the most informative insights and
conceptually rich analyses offered within previous
studies were drawn from long-term ethnographic
fieldwork and other qualitative research involving
much smaller numbers of students, teachers
or schools (see, for example, Richardson 2012;
Meseth and Proske 2010; Misco 2008; Schweber
2008a, 2008b). This is clearly the most appropriate
methodology to use in studies explicitly designed to
fully probe and critically consider the socially situated
and context-dependent manners in which meaning
of and from the Holocaust is made.
Our own remit was to offer a nationwide analysis
of student knowledge and understanding so it
was neither possible, nor appropriate, to employ
such long-term and tightly focused ethnographic
techniques. However, we consider that a number of
the findings and arguments advanced in the following
chapters could offer an instructive basis from
which to build future, smaller-scale but embedded
classroom studies of this sort.
We also acknowledge the very important
contributions made by scholars whose focus is
not on historical-content knowledge but who offer
alternative disciplinary framings or focus upon the