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…

A colloquium series funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities explored complicity and collaboration during the Holocaust at a community college in New York. Student reactions to this theme were explored to measure their understanding of this atrocity. Twenty-three student participants of this colloquium submitted to in-depth, in-person…

This study investigates ideas about the messages of the Holocaust understood by middle school students in Jewish day schools. Findings explore the conceptualizations students have of the Holocaust as a particular Jewish experience, and in what ways they apply its lessons both particularly and universally. Students in two North American Jewish day…

The current study investigates the impact of using an Instructional Model of Historical Empathy to teach the Holocaust on students' ability to contextualize historical events, recognize perspectives, and affectively connect to victims of the Holocaust. A three-day instructional unit was designed that incorporates primary sources from a variety of…

While virtual reality (VR) technology can provide students with first-hand and situational learning experiences, limited studies have integrated VR in a K-12 classroom, resulting in the lack of understanding of the benefits and challenges of VR use in classroom settings. To examine the impact of VR on student learning, this study employed a…

The fact that Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) also includes historical consciousness is known, but this dimension of ICC has so far been largely unexplored. This article aims to show that virtual cooperation between universities from two different countries can promote not only ICC but also critical historical thinking. Using…

Recognizing the need to prepare elementary education teacher-candidates to implement state-mandated curriculum, a Genocide Studies Unit was developed. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Unit in building preservice teachers' knowledge-base and efficacy levels with a mind toward preparing teachers to implement difficult content more…

The recent rise of anti-Semitic acts and general lack of Holocaust knowledge highlights the need to integrate Holocaust education across disciplines. An undergraduate criminology class at Queensborough Community College (QCC-CUNY) was aligned with an on-campus Holocaust center exhibit, 'Conspiracy of Goodness', focused on rescuing behaviors of the…

Over the course of the 2015-2016 academic year, 12th-grade students at a Jewish high school in Canada participated in a research study that assessed how they integrated morally complex narratives in Israel's past into their own relationship with the country. This article presents material based on how students reacted to learning that some Jewish…

There is good reason to believe that anti-Semitism is rife in Muslim communities across the world. Consequently, one might expect that teaching the Holocaust in schools with a substantial Muslim presence would prove a difficult and stressful experience. In this article, I draw on a diverse body of literature to argue for a more nuanced approach to…

This study explores the applicability of psychoanalytic trauma-centered perspectives and social psychological intergroup comparison perspectives to difficult histories of the Israeli context. The study describes 2 test cases of difficult histories in the Jewish-Israeli context at the levels of curriculum policy, teachers, and learners. The first…

It is common practice to invite survivors of the Holocaust to speak about their experiences to pupils in schools and colleges. Systematic reflection on the value of working with survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides and on how to make the most of doing so is rarer, however. In this article Andrew Preston reports how his school has worked…

Rachel Foster reports here on research that she conducted into how students engage with academic texts. Unhappy with the usual range of texts that students encounter, often truncated and "simplified" in the name of accessibility, she designed a scheme of work which sought to find out how her students responded to academic texts, and how these…

Against the background of the pedagogization and internationalization of Holocaust memory discourse, this contribution focuses on the specific conditions of history classes on National Socialism and the Holocaust in Germany. Using a case study, this article shows both how the meanings of these subjects are communicatively negotiated in history…

As the education for citizenship agenda continues to impact on schools in the UK and with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) in conjunction with the Scottish Government introducing its Lessons From Auschwitz (LFA) project for students and teachers in Scotland, this article focuses on the Scottish context and investigates the school processes by…