Israeli High School Graduates＇ Knowledge of the Holocaust： A Case Study

作     者：Nitza Davidovitch Amir Haskel Esther Wagner Shaked Jacobson-Meyzles Liraz Bahamam 

出 版 物：《Journal of Philosophy Study》 (哲学研究（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2017年第7卷第4期

页      面：169-183页

学科分类：01[哲学] 

主　　题：Holocaust undergraduate students knowledge Israel high school graduates 

摘      要：In November 2015, the Israeli Ministry of Education declared that the matriculation exam in history would no longer include the Holocaust, and instead students would be required to write a research paper. Following this decision, we wished to test the level of knowledge concerning the Holocaust among undergraduate students （excluding those who study contemporary history, which includes Holocaust studies）. For this purpose, 145 participants were sampled, students at four Israeli academic institutions： two universities and two colleges. The research question referred to remembering information about the Holocaust and the study took into account students＇ different personal, family, and academic background （having participated in the journey to Poland or not, having relatives who had died or survived the Holocaust, being religious or secular）. The knowledge survey refers to terms from four areas： people, historical events during the Holocaust era, organizations that operated in that period, and places and methods of killing. In general, the level of knowledge was found to be very low （general knowledge score： 42.6 of 100）. No significant differences were found in scores by religion or participation in the journey to Poland, aside from knowledge about places and methods of killing, where we found a significant difference between those who participated in the journey to Poland and those who did not. In addition, no significant differences were found between participants whose relatives had died in or had survived the Holocaust, or by either the number of years since high school graduation or gender. From the respondents＇ answers, it appears that high school studies play an essential role as the main perceived source of knowledge （90.4% referred to school as a main or additional knowledge source）. When asked about the new exam format, the majority （52.1%） replied that they would prefer writing a research paper to taking an exam. The low level of knowledge that we found ra