Kirkland, Catrina;
(2023)
How do Key Stage 3 students make sense of the Holocaust when they learn about it in their history lessons?
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This research examined the meaning which Key Stage 3 students (aged 12-14) draw from their history lessons on the Holocaust. It was a case study on multiple sites, which was informed by the approaches of ethnography. It involved participant observation of six Key Stage 3 classes across four schools in London and the Midlands. The research examined the nature and origins of the ideas about the Holocaust which the students held at the start of their history lessons on the topic. It explored the relationship between these ideas and those the students held at the end of these lessons. It then analysed how the students responded to depictions of the Holocaust which challenged their initial perceptions of who was involved, and what happened, when, where and why. This study found that, before learning about it in their history lessons, most students held some ideas about the Holocaust, but that these were commonly simplistic and fragmented. The students largely presented Hitler as personally responsible for what took place. They also referred almost exclusively to events carried out in concentration camps and not in other sites of persecution. The research found that these notions were largely drawn from their learning about the topic whilst in primary school, or from a familiarity with the stories of Anne Frank or The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Finally, the research suggested that many students held similar ideas at the beginning and at the end of their history lessons on the topic. Consequently, this thesis concludes with recommendations on how educators might support students in developing more nuanced and historically informed understandings of the Holocaust.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | How do Key Stage 3 students make sense of the Holocaust when they learn about it in their history lessons? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10165664 |
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