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

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.