Should We Be Cautious of Multiperspectivity? Teaching Sensitive Histories Through Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

This article examines multiperspectivity, an approach in history education that encourages students to consider different perspectives on the past. It focuses on the use of this approach when teaching sensitive histories such as the Holocaust and slavery, where violence and unequal power relations are central. The article argues that using multiple perspectives in these contexts can create three tensions. First, teachers may avoid making moral judgments in an effort to remain neutral. Second, presenting different perspectives side by side may make unequal positions appear equally valid, for example by treating the perspectives of victims and perpetrators as comparable. Third, teaching these histories only as events of the past may overlook the ways in which their consequences continue to affect the present. To address these points, the article suggests three areas for reflection in the forms of normative considerations. Teachers should reconsider what neutrality means in the classroom, use more complex categories of responsibility than the familiar labels of victim, perpetrator, and bystander, and question the idea that societies simply progress beyond past injustices. The article concludes that multiperspectivity remains a valuable approach to history education. However, when it is used to teach sensitive histories, teachers need clearer guidance that acknowledges unequal power relations, distinguishes understanding a perspective from justifying it, and recognizes both historical responsibility and the continuing effects of past injustice.