**1.1 Why teach the holocaust?**

The importance of establishing a set of formative foundations to guide the selection of strategies and content on the Holocaust has been one of the most evident findings of educational research. The answers to the question *why teach the Holocaust* have been manifold. According to Totten et al. [1], some of them could be specified as why, how, what, when and where the Holocaust took place; examining the nature, purpose and structure of governments; studying human behaviour; and developing awareness of the value of pluralism and diversity in pluralistic societies. The extreme human rights violations of the Jewish Holocaust constitute a central focus for the defence and treatment of democratic principles, and the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflict. The rationality of these justifications or aims lies, in part, in the simplicity of the processes, the geographical reductionism and mono-cultural perspectives perceived by students about the Holocaust [2], or in the general weakness of their knowledge [3].

This multiplicity of responses and the objectives of their teaching have presented divergences between the educational appropriateness of their historical disciplinary purposes, and the emphasis on their readings in the field of citizenship and moral education. Both didactic positions result, consequently, in the division between those who defend the historical disciplinary approach to Holocaust education and those who advocate, as a priority, its moral, civic-social and emotional educational purposes. From this perspective, there seems to be a concern in certain geographical contexts, such as the UK, that 'the Holocaust is regularly identified for its *cross*-curricular potential and/or commonly approached by teachers with reference to *trans*-disciplinary teaching aims' ([4], p. 266) with 'present-oriented' or 'instrumentalising the past' educational consequences.

#### **1.2 Teachers' conceptions of the holocaust and holocaust education**

Secondary school teachers' conceptions of the Holocaust and its teaching have recently been analysed in politically conflictual contexts such as Greek Cypriot [5]. Their results report the presence of both moral and historical orientations in teachers' discourses on Holocaust education. However, 'it is shown that teachers often oscillate between these two orientations rather than 'choosing' one or the other. In other words, one orientation may be foregrounded, while the other is backgrounded and vice versa' (p. 20).

In this vein, Gross's research [6] on the treatment of the traumatic war confrontation in Poland revealed moral, historical and professional motivating factors for teaching and learning about the Holocaust. Similarly, Mann's study [7] addressed French teachers' intergenerational memories of the Holocaust and the Second World War as an influential personal factor in their classroom approach to these contents.

#### **1.3 Students' conceptions of the holocaust and learning about it**

Students' attitudes and behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement with Holocaust-related content, particularly refugee students, have been explored by Kempner [8] for the British case. His results show higher levels of understanding among refugee students and the identification of anti-Semitic manifestations in their contemporary form.

Flennegård's [9] research on Swedish field trips to Holocaust memorial sites has reported their usefulness for the acquisition of Holocaust-related learning content and purposes. Measurement of historical knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust and, specifically, the significance of Auschwitz and the general camp system among British students (*n* = 8000) also show the existence of misinterpretations and misrepresentations around their narratives [10].

Despite its educational recognition and curricular significance, and the presence of not very encouraging educational indicators in the Anglo-Saxon sphere, studies and research from the Ibero-American sphere are non-existent. From the perspective of the pedagogy of teaching collective traumas, and the educational dialogue between historical memory and contemporary social responsibility [11], this research formulates the following research question: What socio-demographic, formative and didactic causes explain the justification of Holocaust and human rights education as an intrinsic part of the curriculum of education for democratic citizenship in Spain?

*What Predictors Explain Holocaust and Human Rights Education in Spain? A Study with… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112553*
