Teaching Villainification in Social Studies: Pedagogies to Deepen Understanding of Social Evils

Villainification and antivillainification are explored in a collection of essays by scholars from the US, Canada, and Australia, covering topics such as U.S. politics, financial education, Holocaust education, difficult histories, apocalypse fiction, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, technology use, LGBTQ school experiences, rape culture, geographies of invasion, and the female body. The book offers thoughtful and powerful insights for teaching about historical wrongdoing in more nuanced ways, addressing the responsibility we all have to create a better world.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 31 January 2024
Publisher: Teachers' College Press

Villainification and antivillainification are two concepts that have gained significant attention in social studies curriculum and popular culture. Villainification involves identifying an individual or a small group of individuals as the sole source of a larger evil, while antivillainification considers the messy space in between individual and group culpability in order to help students develop a sense of responsibility to each other as humans in communities on this planet. This collection of essays examines topics related to U.S. politics, financial education, Holocaust education, difficult histories, apocalypse fiction, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, technology use, LGBTQ school experiences, rape culture, geographies of invasion, and the female body. By pushing the field of social studies to develop a more nuanced understanding of the villains of the past and present, these inquiries offer thoughtful and powerful insights for teaching about historical wrongdoing in more nuanced ways. They also invite educators to become more thoughtful about not only curriculum but also the world around us, helping readers to more deeply understand how easily forms of banal evil can touch our lives within and beyond the classroom, and what we might do about it. Additionally, the book examines how systemic forces can influence "average" individuals to cause or contribute to great societal harm, and includes teacher-friendly engagements with theory, using examples from middle and high school classrooms. It offers a wide range of contexts related to social studies education, including civics, economics, geography, and history.

Weight: 272g
Dimension: 229 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780807769683