Terrorism and politically motivated violence in the recent history of the Basque Country. Descriptive study of what teachers in training know

Abstract

Ever since ETA declared that it would no longer carry out acts of violence, the Basque Country has been involved in a peace process. As part of this process, the Basque government has promoted – through its Adi-adian Educational Module – the experience of listening to victims’ testimonies in order to inform young persons about an important chapter of our recent history. Reflecting an awareness of the importance of addressing socially relevant topics, the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) began to implement the Adi-adian model in a number of its bachelor’s and master’s degrees in teacher training. With a view towards improving the implementation of Adi-adian, a statistical-descriptive study was carried out with a quantitative methodological approach. Using a 25-item questionnaire, the purpose was to measure knowledge of recent historical events, determine the sources of information concerning those events, and gauge the satisfaction of participants as regards the information that they have received about the violent episodes of their recent history. The statistical analysis of the data obtained in this study was conducted using the SPSS Statistics 27 software. Generally speaking, the participating students were found to possess an average to low knowledge of the events that took place during the recent history of the Basque Country. As for the sources of information cited, the family, the media and the school are the most frequently mentioned, while respondents express a generalised dissatisfaction with the information received in this regard.