The Dutch perpetrated in both the Holocaust and chattel slavery. However, Dutch cultural memory does not significantly recognize Dutch perpetration in these sensitive histories. This article explores the interplay between cultural memory and history education as a potential explanation for this oversight, by specifically focusing on the…

Purpose: The key purpose of this paper is to explore how teachers' historical constructions of race and racism may reify whiteness in Dutch classrooms. How has whiteness contributed to how teachers understand and teach race and (historical) racism in white educational spaces in the years 1968-2017? Design/methodology/approach: Interview data are…

History has been in the centre of political interest over the last two decades; claimed as a vehicle to strengthen social cohesion, especially among future citizens. At the same time an acknowledgement of episodes such as slavery and colonialism are asked for. This article investigates the tension that results with those two appeals to history in…

This study reports five Dutch expert history teachers' approaches to multiperspectivity in lessons on three topics varying in moral sensitivity (i.e., the Dutch Revolt, Slavery, and the Holocaust) and their underlying considerations for addressing subjects' perspectives in different temporal layers. The lessons were observed and videorecorded, and…

Using an analytical framework based on the concept of historical distance, this article explores how Dutch history teachers and educators navigate between the past and the present when making curriculum decisions on the sensitive topic of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery. Four history teachers and 2 museum educators were selected on the…

The current heritage fascination signals the omnipresence of the Present. Recently it has spawned a distinct type of teaching and learning: "heritage education". In this article we argue that, despite its presentist connotations, heritage education offers interesting opportunities for understanding the foreignness of the past, a…

The history and heritage of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade are sensitive topics in The Netherlands. Little is known about the ways in which students attribute significance to what is presented as heritage, particularly sensitive heritage. Using theories on historical significance, we explored how students attributed significance to the…

In scholarship on the Holocaust and the history of slavery, historians and other academics have, over the years, developed both abstract concepts and concrete activities. Teachers and developers of educational materials have translated complex events into digestible entities fit for use within and outside the classroom, often including new…