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Education Research

Multi-Year Work Plan on Education Research

How is the Holocaust taught in schools? How do students make sense of this challenging subject? How are people affected by visits to Holocaust memorial sites?

Empirical research on teaching and learning about the Holocaust that tackles these and other questions has grown rapidly over the past fifteen years, a period marked by the professionalization and expansion of the field. In 2013, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) decided to carry out a study to establish a picture of this emerging field of research. A multilingual expert team mandated to collect and review research in fifteen languages identified nearly 400 studies resulting in more than 600 publications. Three years of work resulted in the book "Research in Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust: A Dialogue Beyond Borders", which carries the field beyond anecdotal reflections and moral arguments.

This systematic review includes research conducted in most IHRA Member Countries as well as several non-member countries. The multilingual focus of the project enables cross-cultural analyses and the transfer of knowledge between various regions and countries. The book’s two parts present the research first by language and then by selected themes. This innovative transnational, trans-lingual study reflects IHRA’s core mission: to shape and advance teaching and learning about the Holocaust worldwide.

The second outcome is a set of bibliographies in fifteen languages. These bibliographies comprise references to empirical research on teaching and learning about the Holocaust. They also include abstracts or summaries of most of publications. Each bibliography includes research from a single language or related group of languages (both geographically related or linguistically related).

Project Results

Steering Committee on Education Research:

  • Monique Eckmann (Chair) - Switzerland
  • Cecilie Stockholm-Banke - Denmark
  • Deborah Dwork - United States of America
  • Wolf Kaiser - Germany
  • Eyal Kaminka - Israel
  • Paul Salmons - United Kingdom

Editorial board and research team:

  • Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs
  • ​Monique Eckmann
  • Magdalena H. Gross
  • Zehavit Gross
  • Oscar Österberg
  • Marta Simó
  • Doyle Stevick
  • Mikhail Tyaglyy