Students constructing empathy through comics: The case of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022 sparked worldwide calls for empathy and solidarity with the Ukrainian people. In Sweden, many artists, authors and activists answered this call with performances, productions and other forms of public demonstrations. The publication of ‘Report from Ukraine’, by two Ukrainian cartoonists, was one such response. The comic follows the authors’ perspective on the lead-up to, and start of, the events of February 2022. In the current article, we look at how Swedish teenagers ( n = 91) in upper secondary school (aged 18–19) explore the message of ‘Report from Ukraine’ and how these students construct and critique ideas around solidarity and otherness through the visual and textual means of the comic. Analysing video observations of 25 small group discussions, the study discusses students’ empathic responses to the comic. The findings reveal how the pupils form an emotional alliance with the Ukrainian characters based on their suffering and the similarities the students draw to their own lives. Furthermore, empathy with Ukraine is also intertwined with antipathy for Russia and the comic’s depiction of Russian soldiers.