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Compliant Policy and Multiple Meanings: Conflicting Holocaust Discourses in Estonia

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As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice

Abstract

This chapter uses a sociocultural approach to analyse the formation and implementation of policy around Estonia’s Holocaust Day, a day of both commemoration for victims of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, and education about the Holocaust. It investigates both the multi-level development of the policy in light of external pressure (from foreign advocates and transnational groups including NATO and the Council of Europe) and the ways in which policy as normative discourse was constructed and its meanings negotiated between international sources, the national government, and educators. It draws attention to the multifaceted nature of discourse in a post-authoritarian context where power disparities further complicate an already complex transnational policy environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Education, University of South Carolina, 318 Wardlaw Hall, Columbia, SC, 29208, USA

    E. Doyle Stevick

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  1. E. Doyle Stevick
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Correspondence to E. Doyle Stevick .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Zehavit Gross

  2. College of Education, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA

    E. Doyle Stevick

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Stevick, E.D. (2015). Compliant Policy and Multiple Meanings: Conflicting Holocaust Discourses in Estonia. In: Gross, Z., Stevick, E. (eds) As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15419-0_16

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