Hate speech and totalitarian populism in high school students.

Abstract

Right-wing populism in Spain has placed at the center of its discourse messages that question policies for the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors. In this way, it has polarized public debate, generating currents of opinion that give rise to hate speech such as xenophobia, based on duality: undermining our rights and freedoms in order to grant them to others. The article deals with a case study in which we analyze the opinions of high school students, with the aim of finding out the emotional links that bring them closer to, or distance them from, totalitarian populist rhetoric. This will allow us to approach how subjectivities are created in them that guide their way of thinking and interpreting relevant social problems such as immigration. The analysis of these narratives will help us to become aware of the mechanisms that they bring into play to mobilize feelings and emotions among the adolescent population and to advance in how we can deconstruct in the classroom the logic of populist hate speeches through democratic deliberation.