Teaching the Holocaust in the Secondary School through an ethical dilemma. An interdisciplinary approach for making students aware of the rise the Neo- Nazizm in Greece as a consequence of the economic crisis (original) (raw)

The recent economic crisis led to the increase in poverty of many Greeks and, as a consequence, to the development of xenophobic tendencies and neo-Nazi movements. Many students adopt neo-Nazi behaviors and harass foreign pupils. Our paper studies the interdisciplinary approach of an ethical dilemma applied in a Greek secondary school with high rates of young neo-Nazi supporters. The aim was to teach the Holocaust so as to make students aware of the historical event, help them relate it to their own lives and explain extreme social phenomena of their society so that they take action against them. For evaluating the procedure, we prepared a pre/post questionnaire which was filled in by the students before and after it. According to the results, the use of the dilemma can function as a pedagogical method for developing issues like interculturality, active citizenship and social responsibility in a secondary school class.