I set out to understand how memorial site educators conceptualize Holocaust education and how notions of history, memory, and place shape their ideas. I explored the teachings of four veteran memorial site educators at a site of memory of the Holocaust in Germany. The analysis was grounded in theories of collective memory broadly (Assmann, 2010;…

We encounter information about the past in everyday life through films, books and complex historical sources -- such as historic sites or eyewitness accounts. Investigations of how visitors and learners engage with these complex historical sources have mainly focused on the 'something special' of the encounter on the one hand and on the clear…

Memorials and monuments represent a society's view of its own history and the conclusions we collectively wish to draw about its meaning. In America in recent years, public clashes over the presence of contested public memorials--including and especially monuments dedicated to the Confederate cause in the United States Civil War--have led to…

When preparing students for study abroad, understanding the religious dimension of the target country/culture is generally viewed as essential for cultural competency training. What is generally left unexamined is the civil religious culture that might be operative. This essay first provides an introduction to the concept as it was introduced by…

Getting students interested in events that are distant in time and space is an ongoing challenge in education. In this article, the authors demonstrate how learning at the sites where historical events happened abroad engages undergraduate students by reducing the effects of time and distance. Using student quotations gathered during three…

The first year of the government's First World War Centenary Battlefield Tours Programme is now under way, allowing increasing numbers of students from across Britain to visit Western Front battle sites. As its Programme Director, Jerome Freeman has sought to encourage teachers to make these visits meaningful and historically rigorous. He tackles…

Museums have the capacity to enhance social cohesion, which is the product of a trusting, connected community. History museums and historic sites, in particular, can serve communities by stimulating dialogue on difficult issues, accurately representing all the people of a nation, and creating forums for discussion among groups with disparate…

This report summarizes in tabular form the results of national studies that were conducted in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom to identify the job skills and knowledge required of persons employed in the fields of rehabilitation and conservation of historic buildings. Presented in chapter 1 is a comparative analysis of the…