With regard to Holocaust education, there is a lack of uniform definitions and concepts (Netter, 2022; Becher, 2018; Deckwerth & Leuchter, 2021). However, the debate about an early first beginning with the Holocaust in primary school teaching refers in particular to the relevance of expanding it to include a decidedly Jewish perspective by dealing with Jewish biographies during the Nazi era (Mkayton, 2011).
Various studies show that both adolescents and young adults have little knowledge and a rather defensive attitude towards the Holocaust and National Socialism (ComRes, 2018). The topic of the Holocaust and National Socialism is relatively late on the curriculum in German schools, although children are confronted with information about the Holocaust and anti-Semitic prejudices much earlier (Mkayton, 2018; Plank, 2020). In addition to the late school preparation of the topic, the current findings (German-Israeli Textbook Commission, 2015) also show that the examination of the Holocaust is often limited to the historical context and the perspective of the perpetrators. At the same time, it can be seen that at German universities, especially in the professionalisation of teachers, there are only a small number of seminars on the Holocaust (Tuckel, 2016; Kahle & Nägel, 2016).
Overall, it can be concluded that there is a need for seminars on Holocaust education that are explicitly designed for primary school teacher students and their professional field of action in the context of primary school. Therefore, seminars are offered at the university locations of Passau and Erlangen-Nuremberg that are designed to sensitise primary school teacher students to interdisciplinary Holocaust education in primary school. On the basis of Hansen's (2012, 2017) Profigrafie model, seminar concepts were developed that focus on reflecting on profession-specific and biographical dispositions for thinking and acting with regard to the early first encounter with the Holocaust in primary school.
These seminars are scientifically accompanied in the context of the research project ‘SEHE: Self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes of primary school teacher students towards Holocaust education’ by focusing in particular on the attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs of the students. The effects of the various seminar offers, e.g. compact seminar vs. ongoing seminar, are also to be taken into account.
The following research questions are the focus of the survey:
In order to answer the research questions, the students take part in an online survey before and after the seminar (pre-post design). The students are asked about their attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs using a four-point Likert scale (1 - 4) and about their motivation for attending the seminar using an open-ended sub-question. The scales for measuring attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs are based on items from Deckwerth and Leuchter (2021), which were adapted and summarised. An initial piloting and data collection phase showed that the reliabilities of the scales are good to very good and can be used for the main study after minor adjustments (attitude scale ⍺ = .80; self-efficacy scale ⍺ = .87).
The survey has been conducted since the summer term of 2023, with the data to be collected over several semesters to ensure the representativeness of the sample. In addition, group discussions with the students in the seminars are planned for the further course of action in order to obtain causal explanations of changes in the students' attitudes.
2024:
2023:
2020:
| Responsible | Institut |
|---|---|
| Prof. Dr. Christina Hansen, Dr. Kathrin Eveline Plank - Chair of Education with a focus on Diversity Research and Educational Spaces in Middle Childhood | University of Passau Passau |
Prof. Dr. Sabine Martschinke, Leonora Gerbeshi - Chair of Primary Education with a focus on dealing with Heterogeneity | FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg |
