Youth Matters
Youth, Empathy, and Holocaust Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mark Brennan
Empathy and compassion are radical ideas today. While some might see weakness, we see opportunity, moral positives, and a novel inroad to transformative educational interventions. Such interventions are particularly impactful for youth. Among the many settings where empathy education can be impactful is in the areas of holocaust and genocide education through museums and tolerance venues. Research shows that empathy education can increase cultural understanding; improve academic performance and school engagement; reduce hate crimes/antisocial behaviour; and increase positive civic engagement. Activated empathy is also seen as promoting engaged actions to counter hate speech, intolerance, and violent extremism. Nonetheless, educational programs focusing on empathy are often lacking in museum and commemorative settings. This paper examines various models of empathy education available worldwide to determine the policy and practice lever(s) for holocaust/genocide education through this lens. Included are best practices for program content, delivery methods, and evaluation/assessment. From these, implications for research, programs, and policy are presented.
Making Children and Childhood Visible: Collections and Representations in Four Chilean Museums
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniela Marsal
In general terms, children and childhood’s representations in museum have been scarce, both in exhibitions and its collections. This study presents ways in which children and childhood have been represented in museums, through a review of their objects on display and in the deposit. With this we hope to account for the different images and constructions that are made of childhood and children, in relation to the material and how these objects speak today about them. It examines, as well, two theories about the absence of children and childhood’s cultural material in museums. First, there are not that many objects, as a result of the collections they preserve. The second, the permanence of an imaginary where childhood is undermined and undervalued as social protagonists. This investigation based on four museum collections in Chile, will tension these theories by examining approaches to objects revealing other possible representations of children and childhood in museums.
