Leadership and citizenship: embedding teaching and learning about the Holocaust (TLH) in Scottish schools

In all countries, the crowded school curriculum means that topics or areas have to stake a claim for inclusion. This is even more challenging where topics such as the Holocaust is not mandatory in the curriculum and is reliant on teachers and schools that choose to teach it (Cowan & Maitles, 2010, 2015). This applies to Scotland where the Scottish Government funded, national Schools’ programme Vision Schools Scotland supports Holocaust teaching and accredits schools that demonstrate good practice in this teaching. Providing evidence of encouraging responsible citizenship through issues raised in teaching and learning about the Holocaust (TLH) is one requirement of this programme. Findings from secondary schools in England (Pearce et al., 2020) that only a small minority of 11–16 year olds appeared to have any understanding that Jews had been victims of persecution in Europe for two millennia, and that many students perceived Hitler as the man who began ‘antisemitism’, further support teaching Citizenship through TLH. Drawing on findings from research in Scotland (n=16 schools), this paper provides insight into ways in which Citizenship Education (CE) is developed though TLH and raises questions about antisemitism education in schools. This paper additionally demonstrates that TLH is not exclusively delivered by teachers of History, and that the range of continued support in TLH from the school’s Senior Management is significant.