Challenging Silences: Democratic Citizenship Education and Historical Memory in Poland and Guatemala

Abstract

This paper draws upon data from two youth‐focused, ethnographically informed inquiries—one in Poland, the other in Guatemala—to describe how historical memory can conflict with both state historical narratives and with globalized approaches to democratic citizenship education. This analysis helps us to better understand the ways that, in post‐conflict societies, schools function as spaces in which overlapping claims of community, nation, and world frame the development of youth citizenship and belonging.