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  • Oral History and Education: Theories, Dilemmas and Practices ed. by Kristina R. Llewellyn, Nicholas Ng-A-Fook
  • Ruth Wainman
Oral History and Education: Theories, Dilemmas and Practices. By Kristina R. Llewellyn and Nicholas Ng-A-Fook (eds.). New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017. 388 pp. Hardcover, $109.00.

Oral History and Education is based on a collection of essays stemming from a two-day workshop at the University of Ottawa in 2015. The diversity of the workshop is evident in the book, which brings together a myriad of educators, historians, researchers, and museum curators to share their thoughts and insights about using oral history in the classroom and beyond. The book is divided into three main sections, each of which tackles many issues relating to oral history and education—principally in Canada, but also in Australia, North and South America, and Germany. Part 1 concentrates on the conceptual and theoretical approaches that have developed around using oral history to support efforts to achieve social justice; part 2 tackles the methodological and pedagogical challenges those using oral history in education face; part 3 concludes with practical examples of oral histories used to teach and aid curriculum development in schools.

The opening chapter of part 1 sets the tone for the rest of the section by establishing oral history as a peace-building pedagogy. In chapter 2, the authors argue that oral history can play an important role in supporting peace education in Canada by stimulating democratic participation, deep listening, and students’ critical consciousness. Chapter 3 pursues a similar theme by turning to oral history work undertaken in Cyprus to raise students’ historical consciousness of past conflict in the country. Yet, as the two following chapters show, it is the conscious-raising potential of oral history that can serve to reconcile relational divides between indigenous and nonindigenous communities—an issue mostly addressed in the context of the colonizing impact of Canada’s educational system between Inuit and non-Inuit people.

As is highlighted in chapters 6 and 7, given the potential of oral history to promote greater dialogue between different groups of people in society, the use of oral history in science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM) education marks a commendable effort to consider the role of oral history outside of the humanities. We are reminded that oral history helps to place human [End Page 184] experience back at the center of events, as the authors consider how interviews can be used to reorientate students’ assumptions about the objectivity of science. These last two chapters of part 1 make the additional point that oral history can aid feminist pedagogies. This is examined in light of an oral history project based on women who experienced abortion prior to the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in the United States (chapter 6) and the use of oral history for promoting greater diversity in male-dominated subjects such as science (chapter 7). The more radical purpose of oral history in these instances can also help educators to advance social justice for minority groups.

Part 2 of the book turns to various examples illustrating how students have actively engaged with oral histories in teaching, including through museum research projects in the United States (chapter 8) and family-based oral histories in Flemish schools (chapter 9). Chapter 10, however, poses the more pressing question of how to establish a nationally accredited oral history program to provide consistency in oral history teaching. The ethical and cultural challenges of conducting interviews among indigenous communities and outsiders is a theme that continues to be explored in chapters 11 and 12. In chapter 11, emphasis is placed on ensuring that oral history can be “culturally sustaining” by taking into account ideas about positionality, the collaborative nature of interviewing, and providing responsible access to the finished product.

The last section of the book provides educators with an opportunity to reflect on their teaching practices. There is little doubt that educators believe that oral history is generally beneficial for facilitating students’ historical thinking. However, many of the authors remain sensitive to the moral complexities of interviewing, as seen in chapters that address oral history studies arising from conflict in Colombia (chapter 16...

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