Framing the Nation Under Threat: Russian School Narratives and the Social Psychology of Collective Victimhood in Wartime

Hakemuksen tiivistelmä

Authoritarian regimes increasingly weaponize education to shape identity and secure political loyalty, yet Russia’s domestic school system has received little scholarly attention. In the context of the Ukraine war, examining how curricula foster victimhood narratives is essential for understanding how states justify aggression and strengthen polarization. This research is necessary not only academically but also for informing educational and policy responses in Finland, Europe, and beyond. The project examines how Russian school education constructs and disseminates victimhood narratives to foster national unity and secure domestic support amid international disapproval. Through three studies, it explores: (1) how textbooks use selective memory to build victimhood narratives; (2) how they depict Western threat, using Finland as a case; and (3) how video materials in the course “Conversations About Important Things” convey ideology through visual and emotional content. The study contributes theoretically by extending social psychological research on collective victimhood into the educational domain of authoritarian contexts; methodologically by advancing multimodal discourse analysis as a tool for studying ideology in curriculum; and empirically by revealing how propaganda is embedded in everyday schooling during wartime. Beyond academia, it supports constructive dialogue on the role of education in shaping identity, promotes critical reflection on how authoritarian regimes exploit victimhood narratives, and provides insights relevant for educational and policy debates in Finland, across Europe, and globally. In line with focus on bold and socially significant research, this project confronts sensitive issues at the intersection of propaganda, memory, and education. By working directly with Russian-language materials and interpreting them within their cultural context, it brings forward new knowledge that is both academically innovative and socially urgent.