“It doesn’t harm anybody”: Can commemoration controversy enable students’ ethical understanding of history?

Abstract

The present study aims to better understand how students make narrative and ethical sense of the relationships between the past, present, and future by focusing on a controversial commemoration. This study seeks to bridge cultural psychological research on historical representation and the narrative mediation of collective memory with approaches in history education. Analysing a group discussion in which 18-year-old students with different political orientations engage with questions about the yearly commemorative celebration of the Conquest of Granada in Spain, we find that they are able to critically reflect on the nationalist narrative and the concept of Reconquest behind the celebration. However, their understanding of the ethical implications of the celebration is limited, suggesting that they need more practice and guidance to be able to understand what is controversial about it, the different perspectives involved, and to establish connections between past and present that ultimately enable responsible commemoration.