Patterns of genocide: can we educate Year 9 in genocide prevention?

Alison Stephen, who has wrestled for many years with the challenges of teaching emotional and controversial history within a multiethnic school setting, relished the opportunity to link her school's teaching of the Holocaust with a comparative study of other genocides. As she reports, her aim was not create a hierarchy of suffering or significance but to expand her students' knowledge and understanding and to equip them with a framework within which to analyse patterns of similarity and difference. Her article offers an invaluable guide to the processes of planning, both by alerting readers to the rich and varied resources available on-line, and by illustrating the power of collaboration - within a school setting, between a school and its local community, and across the wider history education community. The account that she presents of a short scheme of work in history and of a Year 9 ‘Global Awareness Day' reveals how history departments can contribute powerfully to multi-disciplinary initiatives while respecting the distinctive insights offered by a historical perspective...