Abstract
The author explores what interpretations Finnish upper secondary school students make about the motives and effects of historical apologies. Three categories of interpretation are formed: apologies promote strategic interests of the state; apologies convey moral lessons; apologies are immaterial redress to the victims of transgenerational harm. The last category connects most closely with the question how to promote historical justice, and those interpretations were less easily constructed and accepted than interpretations in the other categories, suggesting they were conceived as less plausible, or less convincing. The author discusses explanations to this, and implications of the findings, asking if ethics of care, rather than ethics of justice, is a fruitful framework for dealing with painful pasts and transgenerational burdens in the history classroom.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Letter Q stands for the interviewer, M for male, F for female, and the number is the student’s number in the focus group material. All excerpts are translated by the author, like also other text documents in Finnish, unless official translation is available.
References
Ahonen, Sirkka. 1997. Historical Consciousness of Finnish Adolescents. In Youth and History: A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political Attitudes Among Adolescents, Volume A, ed. Magne Angvik and Bodo von Borries, 257–261. Hamburg: Koerber-Stiftung.
———. 2012. Coming to Terms with a Dark Past: How Post-conflict Societies Deal with History. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Ammert, Niklas. 2015. History as Knowledge: Ethical Values and Meaning in Encounters with History. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Ammert, Niklas, Silvia Edling, Jan Löfström, and Heather Sharp. 2017. Bridging Historical and Moral Consciousness: Promises and Challenges. Historical Encounters 4 (1): 1–13.
Barbour, Rosaline. 2007. Doing Focus Groups. London: Sage.
Barkan, Elazar. 2001. The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Berg, Marko van den. 2010. Nuorten näkemyksiä Suomen yhteiskunnallisesta kehityksestä [Young people’s views of the social development of Finland]. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Research Centre for Social Studies Education.
Borries, Bodo von. 1997. Political Attitudes and Decisions Based on Historical Experiences and Analyses. In Youth and History: A Comparative European Survey on Historical Consciousness and Political Attitudes Among Adolescents, Volume A, ed. Magne Angvik and Bodo von Borries, 153–180. Hamburg: Koerber-Stiftung.
Chinnery, Ann. 2013. Caring for the Past: On Relationality and Historical Consciousness. Ethics & Education 8 (3): 253–262.
Cunningham, Michael. 2014. States of Apology. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Hakkari, Johanna. 2005. Suomalaisten nuorten historiakulttuuri: Historian kohtaaminen ja käyttö 8-luokkalaisten nuorten arkipäivän elämässä [The history culture of the Finnish young. The reception and use of history in the everyday-life of eight-grade young]. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, University of Helsinki, Department of History.
Löfström, Jan. 2014. How Finnish Upper Secondary Students Conceive Transgenerational Responsibility and Historical Reparations: Implications for the History Curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies 46 (4): 515–539.
Löfström, Jan, and Johanna Hakkari. 2003. Kohti antropologista historiandidaktiikkaa [To anthropological history education]. Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 101 (2): 318–326.
Lukion opetussuunnitelman perusteet2019 [National Core Curriculum for Upper Secondary Schools 2019; no official translation available in March 2020]. Helsinki: Finnish National Agency for Education.
National Core Curriculum for Upper Secondary Schools 2003. Helsinki: Finnish National Board of Education.
Neumann, Klaus, and Janna Thompson. 2015. Introduction: Beyond the Legalist Paradigm. In Historical Justice and Memory, ed. Klaus Neumann and Janna Thompson. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Nobles, Melissa. 2008. The Politics of Official Apologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Psaltis, Charis, Mario Carretero, and Sabina Cehajic-Clancy. 2017. Conflict Transformation and History Teaching: Social Psychological Theory and Its Contributions. In History Education and Conflict Transformation: Social Psychological Theories, History Teaching and Reconciliation, ed. Charis Psaltis, Mario Carretero, and Sabina Cehajic-Clancy, 1–32. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rantala, Jukka, and Najat Ouakrim-Soivio. 2019. Historical Thinking Skills: Finnish History Teachers’ Contentment with Their New Curriculum. International Journal of Research on History Didactics, History Education and History Culture 40: 33–52.
Seixas, Peter. 2004. Introduction. In Theorizing Historical Consciousness, ed. Peter Seixas, 3–20. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Silfver-Kuhalampi, Mia, Jan Löfström and Liisa Myyry. 2021. Moraali ja näkökulmanotto historian opetuksessa nuorten vastauksissa [Morals and perspective-taking in history in young people’s essays]. Psykologia 56 (1), 33–49.
Silvennoinen, Oula. 2013. Finland, the “Vernichtungskrieg” and the Holocaust. In The Holocaust as Active Memory: The Past in the Present, ed. Marie Louise Seeberg, Irene Levin, and Claudia Lenz, 153–164. Farnham: Ashgate.
Suoninen, Annika, Pekka Kupari, and Kari Törmäkangas. 2010. Nuorten yhteiskunnalliset tiedot, osallistuminen ja asenteet: Kansainvälisen ICCS 2009-tutkimuksen päätulokset [Civic knowledge, participation, and attitudes of the young: Main results of the international ICCS 2009 study]. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä: Finnish Institute for Educational Research.
Suutarinen, Sakari. 2002. Tietävillä nuorilla syrjäytyneiden asenteet: Suomalaisten nuorten yhteiskunnallinen ajattelu ja toiminta kansainvälisessä vertailussa. In Tulevaisuuden yhteiskunnan rakentajat: Yhteiskunnallisen opetuksen kansainvälinen tutkimus Suomen näkökulmasta, ed. Viking Brunell and Kari Törmäkangas, 11–60. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, Finnish Institute for Educational Research.
Thompson, Janna. 2002. Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparations and Historical Justice. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Torpey, John. 2006. Making Whole What Has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Torsti, Pilvi. 2012. Suomalaiset ja historia [The Finns and history]. Helsinki: Gaudeamus.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Löfström, J. (2021). Political Good-Will, Moral Lessons, Historical Justice? Upper Secondary School Students on the Motives and Effects of Historical Apologies. In: Keynes, M., Åström Elmersjö, H., Lindmark, D., Norlin, B. (eds) Historical Justice and History Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70412-4_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70412-4_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70411-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70412-4
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)