Berg, M.;
Stolare, M.;
(2024)
School trips to historical sites: students’ cognitive, affective and physical experiences from visits to Auschwitz.
History Education Research Journal
, 21
(1)
, Article 3. 10.14324/HERJ.21.1.03.
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Abstract
History can be experienced in many ways, including visits to historical sites. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly common for Swedish schools to organise trips for their students to historical sites; in this case, to concentration camps. This article analyses how cognitive, affective and physical experiences frame students’ interpretations of historical sites, and discusses how visits to historical sites might contribute to history education. The research questions we examine are as follows: What forms of experience did the students express, and how did these forms relate to each other? What implications might these expressed experiences pose for how teachers organise their teaching, including trips to Holocaust memorial sites? This article analyses seminars that comprised part of the examinable work in a course that involved a study trip to Auschwitz concentration camp. Empirical data were analysed using a model in which cognitive, affective and physical experiences were identified and described. The results demonstrate how cognitive, affective and physical responses interact with students’ experiences. Students described how the school trip contributed to their understanding of what is and is not possible to know, and to their will to influence society. Thus, the results indicate that physical encounters with historical sites can create new opportunities for students’ learning of history and the meaning making that comes from it.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | School trips to historical sites: students’ cognitive, affective and physical experiences from visits to Auschwitz |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/HERJ.21.1.03 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/HERJ.21.1.03 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2024, Mikael Berg and Martin Stolare. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | historical sites, study trips, teaching and learning about the Holocaust, cognitive, affective and physical experiences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10191866 |
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