Teaching About Victimization in an Online Environment: Translating in Person Empathy and Support to The Internet

Abstract

With the significant increase in online education, particularly in the field of criminal justice, guidance on migrating instruction from a face-to-face format to an online format is needed. This is especially the case for courses focused on topics with the potential to elicit a strong emotional reaction from students, such as victimology. This article presents a framework for teaching a victimology course that allows for the full discussion of ideas in a manner that is supportive of victims of crime and does not inflict additional harm. It shares tips on what to include on a syllabus, guiding discussion and responding to student disclosures of victimization. In doing so, this contributes to the emerging pedagogy on teaching about trauma and victimization.

Acknowledgements

The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the US Department of Justice. A previous version of this paper was presented at the 18th Annual Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning in October 2012 in Orlando, FL. The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors of this special issue, Drs Bonnie Fisher and Robert Jerin, for their helpful feedback.

Additional information

Funding

Funding. The work of the authors was supported in part by the University of Massachusetts under grant number 2009-VF-GX-K006 (https://ovcttac.gov/educators/) awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice.