Holocaust education: global forces shaping curricula integration and implementation

Abstract

The article provides a critical review of the global scholarship on Holocaust education (HE). Despite the growing body of work on this topic, a search through major academic databases by the authors revealed that no such review of the research literature has been published as of yet. The review focuses on three main themes across the research literature: (1) the emergence of HE in (national) school curricula; (2) the relationship between Holocaust memorialization and education; and (3) the potential of HE for teaching about xenophobia, racism, and human rights more broadly. Moreover, the authors offer a rhizomatic framework for consideration, and expand on the numerous factors that have complicated the emergence and integration of HE into school curricula globally: (a) involvement and role of nations with the Holocaust; (b) forms of governance in the years following the Holocaust; (c) societal desire to ‘forget’ the horrors of war and return to the routine of normalcy; (d) particular nations’ history of anti-Semitism; and (e) pedagogical tension around rationale for teaching about the Holocaust. The article also discusses more recent political considerations, such as a nation’s relationship with the State of Israel.

Keywords:

• Holocaust education
• intercultural education
• memorialization
• xenophobia
• human rights education