Addressing legacies of past injustice is a central concern for transitional justice. It has most commonly been attempted through a 'truth-telling' approach; it is assumed that if the truth of past injustices is made known, then justice can be acted upon within contemporary society. 'Truth telling'--and disciplinary approaches to learning about…

In post-conflict societies marked by strong negative stereotypes or delicate and sometimes unstable political contexts, teaching both knowledge and understanding of conflicting historical narratives has become a matter of educational urgency. Conversely, a framework for effective teacher training that prepares teachers to activate and facilitate…

This article reflects on tensions arising in multiple perspectives approaches as they are deployed in response to histories of atrocity and conflict. We call attention to the ways that multiple perspectives intersect with the challenges posed by competing memories of violence and questions of responsibility. Focusing on a peace education programme…

We propose a new framework for understanding post-conflict history education based on ethnographic fieldwork in the same South African school two decades apart. We explore how and why teachers engage with the legacies of conflict in 1998 and 2019 by investigating how they draw boundaries around 1) time, what the conflict period is and how stark…

Recently, the Canadian government has initiated a wide range of actions and gestures aimed at reconciling historical injustices including the state's relationship with Indigenous peoples and nations. Reforming K-12 education to adequately teach Canada's difficult past has been a key priority in this movement, leading to curriculum change across…

Michael Pitblado and Agnieszka Chalas, history teacher and art teacher respectively, describe how and why they responded to a call by Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to engage students with difficult aspects of Canada's past, including the forced cultural assimilation of Indigenous peoples through the Indian Residential School System.…

In this article, I provide a critical reading of the now-removed statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. I bring together my own experience visiting the statue with understandings from Indigenous scholarship and public pedagogy theorizing to think about commemorations as public pedagogies that are foremost…

In recent years, a number of nation states have signed peace protocols and entered processes of peace and reconciliation. This has led to an increasing pool of literature on history education in these divided and diverse societies emerging from violent conflict. This article provides a review of the latest developments in this field which focuses…

The aim of this article is to examine the frameworks that educators use, especially how they conclude teaching and learning about genocide, and to suggest readings and other sources for use. The narrative arc that educators establish by choosing where to begin and where to end is a powerful indicator of their course goals and teaching rationales.…

This study examined the role of history education for nation building in Ethiopia, Germany Rwanda, South Africa, Switzerland, and USA using a comparative research method. Student textbooks and syllabi were the main data sources. Document review was the principal data-gathering tool and the data was analysed qualitatively. Findings revealed that…

The 2015 final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015a) states that educational institutions are part of the problem of systemic colonialism that persists across the country. Racism against Indigenous peoples is apparent across Canada, as in the United States, Australia, and elsewhere. In this context, we share our…

The present paper focuses on the "emotional regimes" that may be invoked, molded or used in history education engagements with the past as part of reconciliation processes. In the first part, the paper examines briefly how emotions are related to the process of reconciliation and discusses the ways in which emotional regimes grow out of…

Historians collect and verify evidence and then interpret it in an acceptable way. A general consensus is that history does not present us with an absolute truth -- the most we can hope for is historians' reliable, evidentially based interpretations of the historical topic. History not viewed as interpretation has long raised alarm bells in…

Sometimes, things don't go to plan. Current events come into the classroom, especially the history classroom. How should students' responses to current affairs be dealt with there? How should students' desire to voice their opinions be handled if their opinion is unpopular. What if the student is simply wrong? How far can moral relativism be…

The Kurdistan Regional Government has implemented a wide range of reforms in Iraqi Kurdistan's education system since its establishment in 2003. This qualitative study utilises critical discourse analysis to investigate the content of History Education (HE) textbooks (grades five to eight) and to assess how far peace education values and…