Responding to racism and violence in current events: Tackling disinformation

Teaching about conflict and war provides support for educators.

Schools may also wish to consider the role that disinformation and online content can play in influencing behaviours, increasing fear, and amplifying prejudice. It is important that children and young people understand where to source news content and have the skills to evaluate its reliability.

You decide is a political literacy resource that helps with the teaching of controversial issues. There is information on techniques which can be used to help children and young people to improve their political literacy.

The fake news resource provides suggestions of how to help learners from first to third level to understand how fake news may affect them.

All of these resources are also available in Gaelic.

Source checker

Source Checker is an interactive online game provided by ABC Education. It teaches primary school children how to recognise bias and disinformation, and how to identify reliable sources of information online. It can be used during classroom learning to facilitate discussions. For secondary settings, Bad News is an online role-play game for teenagers which develops their skills in recognising disinformation and manipulative online content. Both are recommended for use in schools and education settings by Time for Inclusive Education through its Digital Discourse Initiative.

The BBC has a wealth of relevant resources in this area, including:

• Fake News teaching resources (BBC)
• What is fake news and how do I spot it (BBC)

Disrupt Disinformation - Let’s Change the Story is also a resource for this.

Additional resources for use in schools and education settings are available through the Digital Discourse Initiative platform. This includes a learning wheel and tools for teaching digital literacy skills to children and young people.

It may be useful for learners to consider some of the issues around the sharing and availability of information in past conflicts.

1. How does the media and live reporting affect opinions?

2. How does the emphasis on some conflicts rather than others in the media affect public opinion?

This could connect to existing or forthcoming social studies learning regarding democracy, citizenship, and media ethics.

As part of the expansion of its Digital Discourse Initiative programme, Time for Inclusive Education has opened a waiting list for learner workshops on information manipulation, prejudicial conspiracy narratives, and being responsible online. Workshops will be available for primary and secondary settings and are designed to develop learners' critical media literacy skills.