Learning in Polarized Times: Affective Polarization, Social Media, and the Educational Mission of the Humanities

Abstract

This article examines how affective polarization, social media use, and hybrid media diets intersect with the educational mission of the humanities, using Spain as a case study. Drawing on a multimethod design that combines a survey of 735 citizens (62% students in Spanish universities) with sixteen stratified qualitative interviews, we analyze how digitally mediated partisan identities and emotions shape students’ expectations about disagreement, their peer relations, and their engagement with humanities-based learning. Results show that affective polarization is comparatively high and concentrated among younger, highly engaged, and ideologically extreme respondents, who are also intensive users of social and opinion media. Social media use and partisan talk shows jointly foster reinforcing spirals of selective exposure, moralized content, and homophilous interaction that students carry into classrooms, campuses, and other learning spaces, often perceiving political “others” as morally suspect and unsafe to engage with. Qualitative accounts reveal strained relationships, strategic silence, and the personalization of politics, but also emergent practices of reflective news use, emotional self-regulation, and participation in moderated online communities that resemble informal forms of civic and ethical learning. We argue that affective polarization should be conceptualized as a learning-environment problem that directly affects humanities and teacher education, and we outline implications for curricula, classroom climate, and teacher training aimed at cultivating dialogical, critical, and ethically grounded forms of engagement across political difference