Abstract: The research presented in this article was inspired by an interest in analyzing how antisemitism features in civic orientation courses for newly arrived immigrants in Sweden. In Sweden, as elsewhere in Europe, migration policies have changed in recent years emphasizing integration and adaptation to national norms and values, including ideals such as democracy, gender equality, freedom of speech, etc. One novel task assigned to the course organizers and the teachers (referred to as civic orientation communicators) is to address issues of antisemitism among immigrants. The data for this article have been generated through interviews with communicators and leaders of such course activities. Two research questions are explored: First, how antisemitism is interpreted by the interviewees, and, second, what experiences of encountering antisemitic expressions during courses they report. The data have been analysed using Thematic Analysis. The results show that a clear majority of the communicators holds a reductionistic interpretation of antisemitism, limiting it to specific historical events and violence against Jews, rather than viewing it as a type of discourse that is contemporary and continuously reproduced. It is argued that the reductionistic interpretation of antisemitism leads to a situation where antisemitic attitudes and comments are not perceived as antisemitic, nor responded to at an ideological level during the courses.
Abstract: The article examines the challenges of antisemitism-critical education in Germany in the aftermath of the events of October 7, 2023. It highlights how structural deficits, limited professional training, and the constraints of funding frameworks often leave educational practitioners unable to adequately identify or address antisemitism. Empirical evidence demonstrates that schools and youth welfare organizations frequently rely on repressive measures rather than dialogical approaches, which complicates the protection of Jewish students. The article outlines the theoretical foundations of antisemitism-critical education, differentiates it from preventive education paradigms, and discusses its implications for the German educational landscape. It further critically considers the dependence on project-based funding, the predominance of security-oriented logic, and the strong institutional focus on schools. Finally, it argues for an emancipatory approach to antisemitism-focused education in Germany, emphasizing multi-professional collaboration, structural reform, and the creation of learning environments that go beyond a purely preventive framework.
Abstract: Israel-related forms of antisemitism belong to the most widely distributed patterns of this hatred. Despite the broad covering of the Middle East conflict in the German public discourse, this subject is not prominently represented in the education system (teacher training, school books, etc.). To address teachers’ insecurities and make specific didactical offers, a range of pedagogical handouts has been published since the 2000s. However, the didactical characteristics and appropriateness of these materials have not been analyzed on a broader scale. This paper offers a rare documental focus, as it presents the results of work with a research corpus that includes 195 scenarios of civic education on the topics of the Middle East conflict and Israel-related antisemitism, for which the approach of Qualitative Content Analysis has been used. Based on this research, a typology of didactical approaches has been developed, taking into account didactical and content-related dimensions. This typology can be used to precisely identify and address currently existing lacunae in antisemitism-related education. In addition, this paper discusses the specific contributions of educational materials of each type to antisemitism prevention as well as their non-intended effects.
Topics: Holocaust Education, Antisemitism: Education against, Curriculum and Schoolbooks, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Israeli-Arab Conflict, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Islamophobia, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Schools: Non-Jewish, Teachers, Teaching and Pedagogy
Abstract: Depuis le début des années 2000, l’enseignement de la Shoah est perçu en France comme une question socialement vive susceptible de déréguler les pratiques de classe. Cette thèse en sciences de l’éducation étudie l’expérience de l’enseignement de la Shoah des profes-seurs du secondaire en France. En s’appuyant sur 30 entretiens semi-directifs, la recherche montre, de l’intérieur, comment les professeurs interrogés perçoivent cet enseignement, ses difficultés et s’intéresse aux réponses déployées par les interrogés. Les résultats montrent les difficultés provenant du côté des élèves : saturation présumée, antisémitisme, concur-rence des mémoires, mais aussi concurrence entre les savoirs sociaux et le savoir scolaire. Du côté des enseignants, apparaît également la vivacité de la question, divisant davantage qu’elle ne fédère les membres de l’équipe éducative. De plus, l’impact émotionnel sur l’enseignant que la confrontation entre savoir scolaire et savoir social véhiculé par les élèves peut engendrer, accentue les difficultés rencontrées. Les professeurs qui montrent une assu-rance dans cet enseignement révèlent au travers des récits de vie de classe, qu’ils investis-sent pleinement le pôle didactique et le pôle pédagogique de la fonction de professeur. Aller à la rencontre de ce savoir social avec bienveillance et exigence, faire dire mais ne pas lais-ser dire amènent ces professeurs à répondre dans le cadre d’un savoir historique, précis et rigoureux qui refuse la dérive relativiste ou normative (Legardez, 2006). L’énoncé de repères éthiques et citoyens, une vigilance quant à la gestion de l’émotion dans la classe y compris de celle de l’enseignant, participent aussi au cadre construit par les professeurs. Ainsi ces derniers alternent entre le pôle didactique le pôle pédagogique, ce qui leur permet de rentrer dans « le fonctionnement improvisationnel de l’enseignant expert » (Tochon, 1993). L’enseignement de la Shoah dans certaines situations sensibles est assimilé à un combat. Une typologie inspirée des travaux de Jacques Pain (1992) sur la régulation de la violence délinquante par les arts martiaux émerge : combattant stratège, combattant intrépide, com-battant émotif, ou témoin distancié sont les différentes figures enseignantes qui se dégagent de cette recherche.
Abstract: Teaching about the Holocaust is a deeply sensitive and controversial topic in the Republic of Latvia. Due to a Soviet-imposed silence on the topic and the developing nature of democratic education in Latvia, many schools cover this history superficially, if it is covered at all. This study examines a cross-cultural curriculum development project that sought to break the historical silence surrounding the Holocaust in Latvia and provide Latvian teachers with an inviting, defensible, and efficacious curriculum that is both sensitive to societal reluctance to discuss the Holocaust and responsive to the needs of students living in a pluralistic democracy. This ethnographic and descriptive case study draws on multiple interviews with curriculum writers and project personnel, as well as field notes from the 18 month project, and examines how writers arrived at the curricular purposes, aims, goals, and content that would open this closed area. Significant findings include new understandings of the challenges and promises of cross-cultural curriculum deliberation, as well as an analysis of the choices involved in creating a new Holocaust curriculum. These findings suggest numerous implications and considerations for other former Soviet republics and more established democracies grappling with how to develop curricula through just processes while producing materials that foster democratic citizenship.
Abstract: Amsterdam’s National Holocaust Museum is due to open in March 2024. It is the first and only museum to tell the story of the attempt by the Nazis to eradicate Jews from the Netherlands, a history of segregation, persecution, and murder. Yet the story is also one of rescue, survival, and solidarity. One of the museum’s main goals is to engage visitors by involving them in a learning experience, in particular, to encourage young people to study and to develop the skills they need to be able to understand the past, to see how this impacts the present, and to recognize and challenge discrimination and antisemitism today. This article begins by sketching the presentation in the new museum and examines how the museum’s educational facilities (presentation and programs) encourage audiences to think about what they can do to combat discrimination in general, and antisemitism in particular.
Abstract: French students in the third and final year from the Humanities and Social Sciences license degree course traveled to Ukraine and Belorussia between 2017 and 2020, in order to carry out surveys of eyewitnesses to the so-called “Holocaust by Bullets.” The subject-matter stands out in the French scholarly scene, as the Holocaust usually attracts little attention at this level of studies. Students registered in the course hail from license degrees in History, Social Sciences or Geography, and have chosen to attend the course labeled “European Historical Heritage and Citizens’ Thoughts” as a complement to a more classical curriculum, and as a way of enhancing their own university curriculum. The research professors involved have also volunteered to participate as authors of the aforementioned multidisciplinary program, with the aim to raise awareness to research practices on the Holocaust. University professors and teams from the Yahad-in-Unum NGO take turns leading the two-hour weekly sessions. The professors help establish theoretical focus and provide methodological tools, develop lines of investigation on various areas of interest (e.g., mode of operation used in the shootings, collaboration and rescue operations, and neighbors of the crime scene), as well as the context (anti-Semitism, racism, local geopolitics, regional history, culture and society, etc.), while Yahad-in-Unum participants describe actual cases based on records, maps and filmed testimonies. They had the task to provide documents from Soviet and Nazi archives translated from Russian, or from German, and act as translators during fieldwork. Students are encouraged to participate as often as possible and have to prepare analytical reports and presentations following each session, while adopting the position of a researcher.
Abstract: Depuis 2012, l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide des Juifs est étudiée en terminale (série L, ES) dans le cadre du chapitre portant sur « L’historien et les mémoires de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ». Si les enseignants sont sollicités chaque année à l’occasion de journées commémoratives pour transmettre à leurs élèves la mémoire de la Shoah, porteuse d’un enjeu civique, l’introduction dans les programmes de ce sujet d’histoire relève d’une ambition pédagogique qui doit nécessairement s’articuler à la recherche scientifique. Dans cette perspective, cet article fait le point sur les récentes avancées historiographiques concernant l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide des Juifs en France qui permettent d’affiner un découpage chronologique que plusieurs manuels scolaires présentent de façon caricaturale. Il convient ainsi de remplacer le schéma narratif classique polarisé autour de « oubli/mémoire/temps du devoir de mémoire » par une périodisation qui prend en compte les traces -éparses mais significatives- de la mémoire du génocide dans la société française dès les années 1950, ce qui relativise fortement la thèse de son oubli. Les années 1970 et surtout 1980 sont marquées par des mises en récit publiques du génocide qui le situent dans un horizon commun de plus en plus partagé en le référant à des enjeux contemporains (lutte contre le négationnisme et l’antisémitisme, lutte contre l’extrême droite, reconnaissance et réparations dues aux victimes, reconnaissance officielle de la participation active de Vichy, exercice de la justice pour les crimes contre l’humanité). La prise en compte de cette mémoire dans les années 1990 par un État qui reconnait sa responsabilité historique dans le crime génocidaire entraîne de nombreuses actions publiques qui se déclinent sous différentes formes (commémorations, mémoriaux, voyages scolaires). L’Ecole est alors mobilisée comme un acteur privilégié de la transmission de cette mémoire qui est investie d’enjeux éducatifs fondés sur la promotion des valeurs des droits de l’homme et du vivre ensemble.
Abstract: While Holocaust memory underscores the significance of freedom, the actual enactment of freedom varies across different countries, posing a vital question for educating about the Holocaust. How do educators navigate this dissonance? Do they serve as conduits for government perspectives, or do they exercise their teacher autonomy? As part of a comparative study examining shifts in Holocaust memory in Europe from 2020 to 2022, my colleagues and I conducted in-depth interviews with 75 Holocaust educators from Poland, Hungary, Germany, and England, inviting them to share their life stories and professional experiences. This article delves into a recurring theme found within these educators’ narratives: the appreciation of freedom and choice.
To interpret the significance of this theme, I integrate educational theories on ‘difficult history’ and teacher autonomy with theories of psychological reactance and the freedom quotient (FQ). I draw on Isaiah Berlin's concepts of negative and positive liberty to bridge the personal and societal dimensions. The resulting model provides a framework for the study's findings. As expected, teachers from Poland and Hungary felt their negative liberty was constrained, while those from Germany and England reported a greater degree of autonomy. More surprisingly, limited negative liberty led many interviewees from Poland and Hungary to find powerful ways to express their inner freedom. These included resistance to authority, activism within and beyond the classroom, and the application of diverse and creative pedagogical approaches in EaH. The interviews also pointed to a connection between higher levels of negative liberty in Germany and England, and a plurality of content and goals in EaH within these countries. In light of these findings, I offer policy and educational recommendations.
Abstract: Continuity and Change: Ten Years of Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust in England’s secondary schools, published in 2023, explores the development of Holocaust education in the decade following the Centre’s landmark 2009 study Teaching about the Holocaust in English Secondary Schools: An empirical study of national trends, perspectives and practice
The Continuity and Change study examines teachers’ aims, definitions, content, pedagogy, assessment, knowledge, understanding, curriculum planning, challenges encountered and training experiences in 2019/20 and explores how this compares with the situation in 2009. Like its counterpart in 2009, the Continuity and Change study took a mixed methods approach. In total, 1,077 teachers from across England completed a comprehensive survey with 964 of them reporting they had taught about the Holocaust during the previous three years. Interviews were conducted with a subsample of survey respondents to discuss their teaching practice in greater depth. In total, 134 teachers from 45 schools across England took part in either small group or individual interviews.
