Draft:Parallel Histories

Parallel Histories is an educational charity, established in 2017, that produces educational materials for teachers and students. It promotes the use of a dual-narrative methodology to teach the history of conflicts from different perspectives.

History
The Historical Association identified a reluctance by UK teachers to teach topics perceived as difficult and contested in 2008, for example the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. In 2017, no exam boards offered Britain's role in Mandatory Palestine at GCSE as a syllabus option. Edexcel provides an option to study the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict after 1945, but only 2000 students studied that option out of approximately 250,000 taking GCSE history in 2017.

Parallel Histories began to explore new ways of presenting the Israel-Palestine conflict in UK schools. Michael Davies founded the charity after leading a visit of students from Lancaster Royal Grammar School to Israel and the West Bank. He developed the methodology after speaking with Israeli and Palestinian academics on a research fellowship funded by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

The charity has applied its methodology to other conflicts such as the history of Northern Ireland and controversial historical figures such as Henry Dundas.

Methodology
Parallel Histories uses interactive videos and ebooks to teach the history of a conflict by presenting the historical narratives of different parties of the conflict. As of 2024, over 1100 schools in over 60 countries use Parallel Histories’ resources.

Partnerships
Julian Richer of Richer Sounds is a co-founder along with Michael Davies.

Parallel Histories maintains partnerships with Pearson and Solutions not Sides.

The charity has delivered training through the PTI (Prince's Teaching Institute) and was part of an Erasmus+ programme connecting schools in France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and the UK.

With the Community Relations Council, Parallel Histories marked Good Relations Week 2023 by running debating events in the Northern Ireland Assembly for schools.

Educate Against Hate, a website developed by the Department of Education and the Home Office, has quality-checked Parallel Histories' educational resources and lists them on its website.

It is a member of the Good Business Charter and the Fair Education Alliance.

It has run debating programmes in partnership with the Naval Children’s Charity, PwC , and the veterans’ charity Forward Assist.