Holocaust education and critical citizenship in an American fifth grade: Expanding repertoires of meanings, language and action

Abstract

This classroom ethnography examines fifth-grade children engaging in a year-long study of rights, respect, and responsibility, culminating in a focused study of tolerance and intolerance organised around literature regarding the Holocaust. The chapter illustrates how children built upon academic and social practices established from the first days of school to expand their repertoire of meanings, language, and actions of (in)tolerance, gaining more complex understandings of the social, political, and moral implications of the Holocaust. This approach included empathy-building, a focus on rescue and resistance and the bystander response, building a knowledge base about the Holocaust, stories of individual experiences, and opportunities to make personal connections. Students in this bilingual class also developed individual and social actions addressing injustice in their own communities. The study highlights the importance of long-term engagements, a layered curriculum that supports children in building understandings over time, and varied opportunities for making meaning together. The chapter argues that this classroom experience supported students as critically engaged citizens and community members.