History and Social Studies Education for Democratic Life: Critical Thinking Against Misinformation and Hate Speech

Manuscript Summary deadline: 15 December 2026Manuscript deadline: 30 June 2027Extended deadline: 31 July 2027The 21st century has witnessed the proliferation of digital environments that have profoundly transformed how knowledge is accessed, produced, and circulated. Social media, digital platforms, and algorithmic systems have intensified the spread of misinformation and the amplification of hate speech, directly undermining democratic coexistence and respect for diversity. Education systems face the challenge of incorporating these transformations into curricular, pedagogical, and teacher education frameworks - particularly within history and the broader field of social studies education.Recent educational research and EU policy frameworks have highlighted the importance of critical media literacy in addressing these challenges. Yet there remains a need for integrated approaches that connect teaching and learning processes, curriculum design, the analysis of educational materials, teaching practice, and the digital ecosystems through which learning increasingly takes place.This Research Topic addresses the role that history and social studies education play in fostering critical and social thinking, and the educational community’s democratic engagement in the face of growing misinformation and hate speech. In a context marked by the rapid circulation of polarised narratives, exclusionary identities, and manipulated content, there is an urgent need to strengthen critical media literacy as a key competence for democratic participation - and to promote an epistemological culture capable of challenging simplistic interpretations of the past and present.This Research Topic brings together research exploring how history and social studies education can prepare people to critically interpret public discourse, resist misinformation, and counter the normalisation of hate speech, while promoting innovative educational approaches that develop critical thinking as a tool for addressing contemporary social challenges. It welcomes work attentive to how race, ethnicity, and other markers of identity shape both the narratives under study and the communities that education serves - including those who live within a society without holding formal citizenship.Submissions are invited across primary, secondary, and higher education, organised around four themes: • Teaching and learning: studies on the development of historical, social, and critical thinking, media literacy, and democratic competencies in contexts of misinformation and hate speech, across formal and non-formal educational settings. • Teacher education: research on initial and continuing professional development of teachers navigating information crises, diversity, and pedagogical approaches aimed at countering hate speech. • Teaching materials, curriculum, and educational policies: analyses of textbooks, design and validation of instruments, curricula, and policy frameworks, focusing on exclusionary narratives, identity representation, collective memory, race, ethnicity, and gender. • Contemporary digital ecosystems: research on emerging technologies - including artificial intelligence, big data, social media, video games, and digital platforms - and their impact on information circulation, identity construction, and social narratives. Topic editors: Alejandro López-García, José Monteagudo-Fernández, Rafael Guerrero Elecalde Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83585/history-and-social-studies-education-for-democratic-life-critical-thinking-against-misinformation-and-hate-speech