What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

80
Encountering representations of the Holocaust
Figure 4.11 Student responses to survey question 77, ‘If you have seen any films or television
programmes about the Holocaust, please tick the ones you have seen’ (percentage by year group)
100
90
80
Percentage of students
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year 10 Year 11 Year 12 Year 13
■ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas ■ Schindler’s List ■ The Pianist ■ Defiance ■ TV documentary ■ Other
identified as Muslim and two of the in-depth focusgroup
interviews on students’ attitudes towards
learning about the Holocaust were conducted
in schools with an intake of almost exclusively
Muslim students. Data from these focus groups is
considered in further detail as part of the discussion
that follows below.
Do students appear to value learning about
the Holocaust?
A clear majority of all students who took part in the
research reported very positive attitudes towards
learning about the Holocaust. Among those who
took part in focus-group interviews, many emphasised
that they considered the Holocaust a singularly
‘interesting’ and/or ‘important’ part of their studies,
describing it as, for example, their ‘favourite topic’
(Patricia, Year 9, SW2), ‘a key event in history’ (Miles,
Year 12, EE2) and ‘really interest[ing] even if [you] are
not interested in history’ (Samreen, Year 12, LON).
Significantly, 83 per cent of those who completed
the survey agreed that all students should learn
about the Holocaust in school – and while 10.2 per
cent of students were uncertain, only 6.9 per cent
disagreed. By comparison, 89 per cent disagreed
with the statement, ‘Too much time in school is spent
learning about the Holocaust’. This position was also
firmly rejected by the students who took part in focus
groups, even in schools where up to a whole term’s
worth of history classes were devoted to the subject
with additional coverage in other curriculum areas
and school assemblies.
The survey also asked students if they would like
to learn more about the Holocaust and 68.6 per cent
answered that they would. Those who had already
learned about the Holocaust in school were even
more likely to indicate they wanted to learn more
about the subject than those who had not (70.3
per cent of students compared to 64.5 per cent).
Rather than offering evidence of students’ sense
of ‘saturation’, ‘fatigue’ or ‘disinterest’ in relation to
the Holocaust, these results suggest high levels
of continued student engagement across all
students groups.
One survey participant offered a lone voice of
dissent in the free-text response to question 30