Teaching and learning about the Holocaust and genocide

The answers to the question ‘why should we teach and learn about the Holocaust’ are manifold. Some of them could be situated in the context of historical teaching more generally: the why, how, what, when and where the Holocaust took place. Others, in the examination of the nature, purpose and structure of governments, or in the study of human behaviour, which underwrite—or discourage—genocidal practices. Finally, there are the perspectives that address the development of awareness of the value of diversity in a pluralistic society from the defence and treatment of democratic principles.

Although the Holocaust is usually regarded as a key event associated with the Second World War, recent research shows the need and opportunity to define it more explicitly in the context of education about democratic citizenship. The extreme violation of human rights epitomised by the Jewish Holocaust constitutes a nuclear axis in the defence and treatment of democratic principles and of the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflicts. It can also serve as a didactic and ethical model to teach about other genocides and massacres, as well as the processes of collective memorialisation or denial associated with such processes.

There is a significant divergence between teaching the Holocaust from a historical knowledge perspective, and from a perspective that emphasises citizenship and moral education. Both didactic positions result, consequently, in a division between those who defend the historical-disciplinary approach to the teaching of the Holocaust and those who advocate, as a priority, its moral, civic-social and emotional educational purposes.

This Collection hopes to bridge this gap. From the perspective of the pedagogy of teaching collective trauma, while encouraging a much-needed dialogue between historical memory and contemporary social responsibility in teaching, the Collection proposes the following research questions:

• Do initial and in-service teacher training constitute representative explanatory axes of Holocaust education and its explicit linkage to human rights education? Which sociodemographic, formative and didactic characteristics of teachers explain the teaching of the Holocaust as an intrinsic curricular part of education for democratic citizenship?
• Which available instruments have empirical evidence of sufficient validity and reliability to guarantee the accuracy of the analysis of the development and historical understanding of the Holocaust and other collective massacres in students?
• How can the teaching of the Holocaust and other genocides from a cross-cutting, transdisciplinary didactic perspective be grounded in such a way as to prevent its interested or ideological instrumentalisation in certain political contexts?
• Which didactic tools and models work best for teaching students to regard “Others” or “the othered” from a perspective that precludes their objectification and dehumanisation? How can such teaching counteract strategies (by cultural institutions such as mass media or political agents) that reproduce “othering” of enemies or minorities through discourses of denial, relativisation, or normalisation?
• Which instruments and teaching programs could make it possible to procure the teaching and learning of a democratic memory? In line with the so-called 'Spanish Holocaust', which conflicts has the teaching of the Spanish Civil War and Francoist repression encountered?

We welcome a wide range of perspectives, including specialised and interdisciplinary articles on educational research and innovation based on the application of rigorous quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodological designs, whose results represent a valuable contribution to the teaching of collective traumas and genocides from a historical and ethical perspective, particularly, but not exclusively, the Holocaust.

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 4.