Books by Alice Pettigrew
This research study was conducted by the UCL
Centre for Holocaust Education, an integral part of
... more This research study was conducted by the UCL
Centre for Holocaust Education, an integral part of
UCL’s Institute of Education – currently ranked as the
world’s leading university for education.
It is the world’s largest ever study of its kind,
drawing on the contributions of more than 9,500
students across all years of secondary school in
England (i.e. 11 to 18 year olds). This report presents
analysis of survey responses from 7,952 students
and focus group interviews with 244 students.
The primary aim of the research was to provide a
detailed national portrait of students’ knowledge
and understanding of the Holocaust. The research
also focused on students’ attitudes towards learning
about the Holocaust and their encounters with this
history, both in and outside of school. Ultimately, the
research sought to establish an empirical basis from
which considerations of the most effective ways to
improve teaching and learning about the Holocaust
could be made.
Papers by Alice Pettigrew
Holocaust Education, 2020
This research was commissioned by The Pears Foundation and the Department for Children, Schools ... more This research was commissioned by The Pears Foundation and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The aims were to examine when, where, how and why the Holocaust is taught in state-maintained secondary schools in England, and to inform the design and delivery of a continuing professional development (CPD) programme for teachers who teach about the Holocaust. A two-phase mixed methodology was employed. This comprised an online survey which was completed by 2,108 respondents and follow-up interviews with 68 teachers in 24 different schools throughout England. The research reveals that teachers adopt a diverse set of approaches to this challenging and complex subject. In the report, teachers’ perceptions, perspectives and practice are presented and a range of challenges and issues encountered by teachers across the country are explicitly identified. The research shows that, although most teachers believe that it is important to teach about the Holocaust, v...
Holocaust Education, 2020
This research report has been written under the auspices of the University College London (UCL) C... more This research report has been written under the auspices of the University College London (UCL) Centre for Holocaust Education. The Centre is part of the UCL Institute of Education – currently the world’s leading university for education – and is comprised of a team of researchers and educators from a variety of different disciplinary fields. The Centre works in partnership with the Pears Foundation who, together with the Department for Education, have co-funded its operation since it was first established in 2008. A centrally important principle of all activity based at the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education is that, wherever possible, classroom practice should be informed by academic scholarship and relevant empirical research. In 2009, Centre staff published an extensive national study of secondary school teachers’ experience of and attitudes towards teaching about the Holocaust (Pettigrew et al. 2009). This new report builds on that earlier work by critically examining English s...
Education Studies: An Issues-based Approach
Holocaust Studies, 2019
This paper presents data drawn from a recent empirical study involving more than 8,000 English se... more This paper presents data drawn from a recent empirical study involving more than 8,000 English secondary school students (aged 11-18) who took part in either a survey or focus group interview. It critically examines the significance of Auschwitz and the wider camp system within young people's knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust. The paper reflects upon the tension between, on the one hand, academic historians' requirements of clarity, differentiation and the recognition of both complexity and nuance in making sense of this past, and, on the other, the imprecision, abstraction and/or confusion often associated with, and characteristic of, dominant, Auschwitz-centric narratives of the Holocaust. In doing so, it identifies a number of important yet ostensibly widely shared misinterpretations, mistakes and misconceptions reflected in English school students' engagement with this history.
Holocaust Studies, 2017
This paper explores relationships between teaching aims and student knowledge and understanding o... more This paper explores relationships between teaching aims and student knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust in discussion of selected findings from two large-scale empirical studies conducted in English secondary schools. It draws on the work of educational theorists Gert Biesta and Michael Young in order to extend and expand upon the dominant, dichotomising discourse of "historical versus non-historical" approaches within which much existing Holocaust education literature has previously been framed. Following Young, the paper asks: What forms of knowledge of the Holocaust are most "powerful" in terms of facilitating student understanding? And further: Which teaching aims are best suited to ensuring all students have access to these?
This thesis presents ethnographic and interpretative case-study material from 'Kingsland'... more This thesis presents ethnographic and interpretative case-study material from 'Kingsland' Secondary School- an inner-city, multi-ethnic, English comprehensive to examine the articulation of 'ethnicity', 'race' and 'nation' in young people's lives. It is framed by twenty-first century challenges to official discourses of national citizenship and by governmental 'Re-imagining Britishness' and 'Community Cohesion' agendas as they impact upon, and can themselves be informed with reference to, the experiences of students and their teachers in school. I question those methodological or analytic frameworks which reproduce 'race', 'ethnicity' and/or 'nation' as categorical entities and instead emphasise process and positionality, using a working definition of 'identity' as 'theorising of self. Kingsland students were invited to reflect upon their own apprehension of the material and discursive structures...
Sociological Research Online, 2012
This paper is drawn from ethnographic participant-observation data and interview materials collec... more This paper is drawn from ethnographic participant-observation data and interview materials collected between September 2004 and July 2005 in 'Kingsland', an inner-city, multiethnic comprehensive secondary school in the South West of England. It explores the complex and often contradictory ways in which young people negotiate and reflect on notions of identity and difference in relation to social and pedagogical vocabularies
Uploads
Books by Alice Pettigrew
Centre for Holocaust Education, an integral part of
UCL’s Institute of Education – currently ranked as the
world’s leading university for education.
It is the world’s largest ever study of its kind,
drawing on the contributions of more than 9,500
students across all years of secondary school in
England (i.e. 11 to 18 year olds). This report presents
analysis of survey responses from 7,952 students
and focus group interviews with 244 students.
The primary aim of the research was to provide a
detailed national portrait of students’ knowledge
and understanding of the Holocaust. The research
also focused on students’ attitudes towards learning
about the Holocaust and their encounters with this
history, both in and outside of school. Ultimately, the
research sought to establish an empirical basis from
which considerations of the most effective ways to
improve teaching and learning about the Holocaust
could be made.
Papers by Alice Pettigrew
Centre for Holocaust Education, an integral part of
UCL’s Institute of Education – currently ranked as the
world’s leading university for education.
It is the world’s largest ever study of its kind,
drawing on the contributions of more than 9,500
students across all years of secondary school in
England (i.e. 11 to 18 year olds). This report presents
analysis of survey responses from 7,952 students
and focus group interviews with 244 students.
The primary aim of the research was to provide a
detailed national portrait of students’ knowledge
and understanding of the Holocaust. The research
also focused on students’ attitudes towards learning
about the Holocaust and their encounters with this
history, both in and outside of school. Ultimately, the
research sought to establish an empirical basis from
which considerations of the most effective ways to
improve teaching and learning about the Holocaust
could be made.