What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

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Introduction 19 relationship between encounters with the Holocaust and individuals’ spiritual, moral and/or civic learning as well as their affective and attitudinal response (see, for example, Clements 2007; Cowan and Maitles 2005, 2007; Burke 2003; Short 2001; Carrington and Short 1997). Our own initial research design, outlined in Chapter 2, did include exploration of a number of attitudinal measures. However, given the complexity of this additional data and the huge volume of material already interrogated within the following chapters, we considered it would be more appropriate, and more responsible, to examine and publish this material in a separate research report. There is one final important point to make about the Centre for Holocaust Education’s report in relation to previous empirical studies, and within the field of teaching and learning about the Holocaust in broader terms. Many of the 125 studies cited above were either explicitly or implicitly focused upon the evaluation of a specific educational programme or were concerned to demonstrate in various ways the ‘impact’ of what was being taught and learned. It must be emphasised that neither the current report, nor the research from which it is drawn were intended to serve as a commentary on existing education provision about the Holocaust in England’s secondary schools. Instead, the research was designed and carried out in order to provide a robust yet nuanced overview of the form and content of existing knowledge and understanding among the nation’s 11 to 18 year olds. As such, we offer our findings and analyses as a tool to be drawn upon – though perhaps not fully digested in just one sitting – by teachers, teacher-educators, policymakers, non-governmental organisations and other researchers working in this and related fields. How is the report structured? In order to guide the reader through the following pages, this report has been organised into four sections: ■■ Part I ‘Introductions’ includes this opening chapter and a second chapter which details the full research methodology employed. ■■ Part II, ‘Conceptions and encounters’ includes Chapters 3 and 4 and provides a commentary on students’ general awareness of the Holocaust, and their experience of and attitudes towards encountering this subject both within and outside of schools. ■■ Part III is the longest section of this report. It comprises three chapters prefaced by their own short introductory text, each of which critically examines the form and content of student knowledge and understanding of specific aspects of this history. Chapter 5 asks what students know and understand about different victim groups targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators, Chapter 6 focuses on perpetration and issues of responsibility, while Chapter 7 considers students’ understanding of when and where the Holocaust happened and the role that the British government and British people played. ■■ Chapter 8 constitutes the final ‘Recommendations’ section of this report and offers reflection on how the research might best be used to inform and plan teaching and learning of the Holocaust in England’s secondary schools and, potentially, further afield. Chapters 1 to 7 are each structured around a series of key framing questions which also function as subheads listed at the start of each chapter to facilitate a modular approach to digesting the full report. Each chapter begins with a brief list of some of its central findings and arguments and ends with a short summary. A full version of the survey instrument used with students is reproduced as Appendix 1 of this report. It is hoped that this will act as a point of reference to help clarify and contextualise the many findings discussed in the following chapters. It is also intended that parts of the survey could act as a tool for teachers in order to gauge their own students’ prior knowledge and perspectives, and plan teaching accordingly. Summary ■■ This chapter argued that learning is not reducible to knowledge-acquisition and that, as a consequence, the current study is concerned to do more than simply catalogue what students appear to know. ■■ The chapter also argued that specific knowledgecontent does matter, especially with regard to the forms of understanding it allows or impedes. It is the position of the Centre for Holocaust Education that secure historical knowledge is an important basis from which powerful understandings of – and from – the Holocaust can ultimately be drawn, and it is for this reason that a disciplinary historical focus is given to many of the subsequent chapters in this report. www.ioe.ac.uk/holocaust
20 Introduction ■■ The chapter described and provided evidence of a strong commitment to ensuring a central position for the Holocaust in the English education system. This has been reflected in all five versions of the National Curriculum followed in state-maintained secondary schools since 1991. It has also been articulated through the establishment and focus of work around the UK’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day and, most recently, through the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission. Previous research from the Centre for Holocaust Education affirmed this same support and commitment among teachers from England’s secondary schools. ■■ In spite of – arguably because of – the high rhetorical importance placed upon the subject by teachers, politicians and policymakers, the chapter also noted that clear and explicit articulations of why the Holocaust is educationally important are seldom made. As a consequence, many teachers can be left uncertain as to what content to include or to prioritise within often limited curriculum time. ■■ Following Cole (1999), Bell (2003) and Langer (1995a), the chapter suggested that it is important to distinguish between the Holocaust as history, and the mythic Holocaust that is represented and/ or ‘remembered’ within wider popular culture and political debate. ■■ Knowledge and understanding are both socially situated phenomena. What students know about the Holocaust and what they then do with that knowledge are both impacted upon by wider sociocultural frames. In the context of contemporary Britain, the chapter argued that such framings are commonly characterised by an emphasis on ‘memory’ and ‘commemoration’ over critical and confronting engagements with the complexity of this history. ■■ In preparation for this study, a database of more than 350 broadly related academic references were collated and, within these, 125 original empirical studies were identified. Review of the previous existing literature confirmed that the Centre for Holocaust Education’s research is unprecedented in terms of both scope and scale; built on the survey responses of almost 8,000 secondary school students and qualitative focusgroup interview with a further 244 in schools across England, this is both the largest and most detailed study of its kind.
Page 1 and 2: CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION What
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Page 5 and 6: iv About the UCL Centre for Holocau
Page 7 and 8: vi Foreword by Sir Peter Bazalgette
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Page 17 and 18: Olivia Hemingway, 2014
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Page 21 and 22: 10 Introduction the fate of the Jew
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102 Preface often socially construc
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106 Who were the victims? students
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108 Who were the victims? Figure 5.
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128 Who were the victims? unending
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Appendix 1: The Survey 225 Appendix
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Appendix 1: The Survey 227 How do y
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Appendix 1: The Survey 231 Explorin
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Appendix 1: The Survey 233 Do you r
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Appendix 1: The Survey 235 42. Who
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Appendix 1: The Survey 237 The Nazi
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Appendix 1: The Survey 241 71. If y
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Appendix 1: The Survey 245 87. Have
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Appendix 2: Attitudinal scales used
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Appendix 3: Coding frameworks for f
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Appendix 3: Coding frameworks for f
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Appendix 4: Schools that participat
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Appendix 6: Multiple regression ana
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References 259 Assmann, A. (2010)
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References 261 Carr, E.H. (1964) Wh
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References 263 Emler, N. and Ohana,
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References 265 Howitt, D. and Crame
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References 267 Levstik, L.S. (2000)
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References 269 Resnick, L.B. (1989)
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References 271 Snyder, T. (2009)
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References 273 Yeager, E., Anderson
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Centre for Holocaust Education UCL
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