The discursive constructions of evil and related emotions in Finnish pre-primary education

Emma Kurenlahti; Cathryn van Kessel; Saila Poulter; Jaakko Hilppö; Lasse Lipponen

doi:10.37291/2717638X.202671602

Authors

Emma Kurenlahti University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7288-2159
Cathryn van Kessel Texas Christian University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7450-5963
Saila Poulter University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4687-7313
Jaakko Hilppö University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0236-9517
Lasse Lipponen University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6245-0398

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37291/2717638X.202671602

Keywords:

Evil, Emotions, Pre-primary education, Ideals of education, Affects

Abstract

In this study, we explore how teachers communicate and construct educational ideals concerning evil and emotions to children in the context of Finnish pre-primary education, and how this contributes to the processes of villainification; making out-groups represent evil and/or anti-villainification; contributing to complex understandings of evil. To understand this construction and communication, we focused on a single case that illuminated how two pre-primary education teachers formulated educational ideals concerning evil. For this purpose, we analyzed two data sets by utilizing discourse analysis. The first set consisted of five interviews with the teachers dealing with the topic of evil and education. The second data set included video recordings of two related educational sessions conducted by the teachers with children. The results show that the ideals were constructed and communicated by discursive practices without direct usage of the word “evil”, and these mainly contributed to anti-villainification processes. To prevent a strict binary of good and evil and following polarization in society, more direct exposure of evil is needed in education. In this way, the children can be more aware of the villainification and anti-villainification processes they are involved in through education.

References

Adams, W. C. (2015). Conducting semi-structured interviews. In J. S. Wholey, H. P. Hatry, & K. E. Newcomer (Eds.), Handbook of practical program evaluation (pp. 492–505). Jossey-Bass. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119171386.ch19

Adams, E. C. (2024). “Incapable, uninterested, and ineffective”? Locating villainification narratives in financial education. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 29–44). Teachers College Press.

Adams, E. C., & An, S. (2020). Thinking with theory in a civil rights center. Social Studies Research and Practice, 15(2), 167–182. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/SSRP-01-2020-0001

Adeniji, D., McQueen, M., & van Kessel, C. (2024). Wanda the villain? How WandaVision can aid discussions about enslavement and anti-Black racism. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 111–123). Teachers College Press.

Adler, E., & Clark, R. (2011). An invitation to social research: How it’s done. Cengage Learning.

Alexander, J. C. (2003). The meanings of social life: A cultural sociology. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195160840.001.0001

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Anchor Books.

Brinkmann, S. (2018). The grieving animal: Grief as a foundational emotion. Theory & Psychology, 28(2), 193–207. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354317747051

Carter, N., Bryant-Lukosius, D., DiCenso, A., Blythe, J., & Neville, A. J. (2014). The use of triangulation in qualitative research. Oncology Nursing Forum, 41(5), 545–547. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1188/14.ONF.545-547

Christ, R. C., Haas, B., & Baruch Stier, O. (2024). Will the real villain please stand up? Holocaust education and its hidden transgressors. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 45–62). Teachers College Press.

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.

Fairclough, N. (2001). Language and power (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2011). Case study. In N. K. Denzin, & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (pp. 301–316). Sage.

Havu-Nuutinen, S., & Niikko, A. (2014). Finnish primary school as a learning environment for six-year-old preschool children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22(5), 621–636. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.969084

Helmsing, M. (2014). Virtuous subjects: A critical analysis of the affective substance of social studies education. Theory & Research in Social Education, 42(1), 127–140. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2013.842530

Hjelm, T. (2011). Discourse analysis. In M. Stausberg, & S. Engler (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of research methods in the study of religion (pp. 134–151). Routledge.

Hunter, J. (2000). The death of character: Moral education in an age without good or evil. Basic Books.

Jacobsson, K., & Lindblom, J. (2016). Animal rights activism. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1gsmw9c

Jenks, C. (2005). Childhood (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Jones, B. (2024). Removing the binaries in history curricula and teacher education: Difficult-ish as an antidote to villainification and its partner, “difficult histories.” In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 63–78). Teachers College Press.

Journell, W. (2020). Vice, on the basis of sex, and the liberal imagination: Villainification and heroification in popular political film. Educational Studies, 56(1), 66–82. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2019.1692021

Journell, W. (2024). Heroification, villainification, and political polarization: Implications for thinking politically about U.S. politics. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 13–28). Teachers College Press.

Kurenlahti, E., Hilppö, J., & Lipponen, L. (2025). Re-thinking curricula and “evil” in teacher education during the sustainability crisis. In H. Harju-Luukkainen, S. Garvis, J. Kangas, J. Marôco, M. Maunula, & M. Maunumäki (Eds.), Generating sustainable futures through teacher education: Globally rethinking higher education (pp. 279–293). Springer Nature Singapore. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-3329-6_17

Leonardo, Z., & Zembylas, M. (2013). Whiteness as technology of affect: Implications for educational praxis. Equity & Excellence in Education, 46(1), 150–165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2013.750539

Murris, K. (2016). The Posthuman Child: Educational transformation through philosophy with picturebooks. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718002

Ngai, S. (2004). Ugly feelings. Harvard University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674041523

Reiter, R. M. (2018). Interviews as sites of ideological work. Spanish in Context, 15(1), 54–76. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.00003.mar

Smits, R. M., & Krutka, D. G. (2024). Can technology be evil? Heroes, villains, and the banality of technology. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 127–144). Teachers College Press.

van Kessel, C. (2017). A phenomenographic study of youth conceptualizations of evil: Order-words and the politics of evil. Canadian Journal of Education, 40(4), 576–602.

van Kessel, C. (2019). An education in “evil”: Implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and beyond. Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16605-2

van Kessel, C. (2022). Deindividualizing evil and good in social education. Social Education, 86(5), 347–354.

van Kessel, C., & Crowley, R. M. (2017). Villainification and evil in social studies education. Theory & Research in Social Education, 45(4), 427–455. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2017.1285734

van Kessel, C., & Edmondson, K. (2024). Concluding thoughts. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 213–215). Teachers College Press.

van Kessel, C., & Plots, R. (2019). A textbook study in villainification: The need to renovate our depictions of villains. One World in Dialogue, 5(1), 21–31.

Varga, B. A., & Adams, E. C. (2024). “Hang on, so that thing’s a Loki too?” Mimetic materialities, variants, and villainy. In C. van Kessel, & K. Edmondson (Eds.), Teaching villainification in social studies: Pedagogies to deepen understanding of social evils (pp. 95–110). Teachers College Press.

von Stuckrad, K. (2013). Discursive study of religion: Approaches, definitions, implications. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 25(1), 5–25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341253

Wetherell, M. (2013). Affect and discourse—What’s the problem? From affect as excess to affective/discursive practice. Subjectivity, 6(4), 349–368. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2013.13

Wills, J. S. (2019). “Daniel was racist”: Individualizing racism when teaching about the Civil Rights Movement. Theory & Research in Social Education, 47(3), 396–425. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00933104.2019.1583620

Zembylas, M. (2014). Rethinking race and racism as technologies of affect: Theorizing the implications for anti-racist politics and practice in education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(2), 145–162. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2014.946492

Zembylas, M. (2021). Victimization and villainification as affective technologies in the Cyprus conflict: The case of the “I Don’t Forget” education policy. In E. Klerides, & S. Carney (Eds.), Identities and education: Comparative perspectives in times of crisis (pp. 223–244). Bloomsbury. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350141322.ch-011