Holocaust Education 25 Years On Challenges, Issues, Opportunities

The year 2016 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of statutory teaching and learning about the Holocaust in English state-maintained schools, which was introduced with the first English National Curriculum in 1991. The year 2016 also saw the publication of the largest empirical research study on Holocaust education outcomes – the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education’s What Do Students Know and Understand About the Holocaust? This book presents a systematic reflection on the outcomes of this quarter-century of Holocaust education in England and the Centre’s wider work to reflect on the forms and the limitations of children’s knowledge about the Holocaust and of English Holocaust education resources. These papers are then contextualised in two ways: through papers that situate English Holocaust education historiographically and in England’s wider Holocaust culture; and through papers from America, Switzerland, and Germany that place the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education’s findings in a wider and comparative perspective. Overall, the book presents unique empirical insights into teaching and learning processes and outcomes in Holocaust education and enables these to be theorised and explored systematically. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History.

Introduction - Holocaust education 25 years on: challenges, issues, opportunities Andy Pearce and Arthur Chapman 1. The Holocaust in the National Curriculum after 25 years Andy Pearce 2. Why teach or learn about the Holocaust? Teaching aims and student knowledge in English secondary schools Alice Pettigrew 3. Understanding what young people know: methodological and theoretical challenges in researching young people’s knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust Arthur Chapman and Rebecca Hale 4. Portrayals of the Holocaust in English history textbooks, 1991–2016: continuities, challenges and concerns Stuart Foster and Eleni Karayianni 5. Britain’s promise to forget: some historiographical reflections on What Do Students Know and Understand about the Holocaust? Tom Lawson 6. The Holocaust in the British imagination: the official mind and beyond, 1945 to the present Tony Kushner 7. A critical assessment of a landmark study Debórah Dwork 8. Teaching the Holocaust and National Socialism in Austria: politics of memory, history classes, and empirical insights Christoph Kühberger 9. Learning and teaching about the Shoah: retrospect and prospect Bodo von Borries

Andy Pearce is Senior Lecturer in Holocaust and History Education at University College London, UK. He is the author of Holocaust Consciousness in Contemporary Britain (Routledge, 2014) and the editor of Remembering the Holocaust in Educational Settings (Routledge, 2018). He has collaborated with numerous institutions and provided consultancy for the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission. Arthur Chapman is Senior Lecturer in History Education at University College London, UK, where he researches history in education and Holocaust education. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Historical Association, a member of the editorial board of the Curriculum Journal, a series editor of the International Review of History Education, and an associate editor of the London Review of Education.