Critical literacy and democratic education to prevent the reproduction of ethnic and gender prejudice in the fantastic literature for children and adolescents

Abstract

From the beginning of time until today, stories narrated, written, or represented by adults for the youngest communicated functional information essential to survival and keys of interpretation of reality, but also, they often represented worlds, contexts, and social realities not inclusive of every human diversity. The fantastic genre, fairy tales or fantasy, capable more than others for its imaginative openness to represent an inclusive world, seems not to do so, helping to reproduce gender and ethnic prejudices in young readers and viewers even today. The paper aims to explore this evidence to underline the necessity of an educational intentionality able to prevent this risk and support the development of free personal identities that respect diversity by the means of specific critical literacy paths.