What Do Canadian Teens Know About the Holocaust and Antisemitism?

• In Event: Experimental Research About Attitudes Toward Pluralism and Discrimination

Abstract

What do Canadian teens know about the Holocaust and antisemitism? In a preregistered survey experiment, I assess knowledge and beliefs about the Holocaust and antisemitism for over 70,000 Canadian grade 8-12 participants, as well as their teachers, prior to and following a virtual educational treatment. Treatments include traditional lecture and seminar-style learning, as well as innovative digital approaches, such as virtual art galleries, virtual forums with living Holocaust survivors, and interactive virtual sessions with three-dimensional hologram survivor testimonies. This study is timely, as living Holocaust survivor testimony—historically a dominant mode of Holocaust education as it permits the observer to witness the witness—becomes harder to acquire as years progress. I expect my findings to provide insight into how different pedagogical treatments impact students' awareness, knowledge, and behavior, thereby establishing new best practices in genocide education. Notably, I also survey students one year after the educational treatment, in order to better understand the long-term influence of education on beliefs regarding antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

Author

• Alexis Monique Lerner, Western University