What is it about?
This article explains how teachers can help students learn about violent and racialized histories truthfully, correct common myths, reduce defensiveness, and support more honest dialogue, understanding, and repair. It highlights practical ways to frame difficult lessons with evidence and care.
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Why is it important?
Educators are increasingly asked to teach painful and contested histories in ways that are truthful, careful, and constructive. This article connects classroom approaches to correcting misconceptions, showing how teachers can challenge harmful historical myths without shaming students. It offers practical guidance for supporting dialogue, understanding, and repair.
Perspectives
As an educational psychologist who studies achievement motivation and conceptual change, I want to provide educators with practical tools for supporting meaningful learning and addressing misconceptions. Although conceptual change research has often focused on science and STEM learning, I believe approaches such as refutational teaching can also help students rethink harmful or incomplete narratives in social studies and history. At a time when misinformation about violent histories continues to spread, I hope this article helps peace psychology audiences see refutational teaching as a useful strategy for challenging misinformation while supporting dialogue, dignity, and understanding.
Marcus Johnson
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Framing violent histories for reconciliation: A conceptual change perspective on refutational teaching in peace education., Peace and Conflict Journal of Peace Psychology, May 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/pac0000843.
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