Anti-Bias Education Approaches to Visual Storytelling using Avatar:The Last Airbender

Abstract

EFL classrooms are expected to teach language skills while fostering critical thinking and socio-cultural awareness through media. This study explores how multimodal youth media can support anti-bias learning in secondary classrooms, addressing the limited application of anti-bias education to fictional visual narratives. The study develops the Anti-Bias Media Analysis Framework by synthesises existing anti-bias frameworks (Derman-Sparks, 1989; Chiariello et al. 2022) and critical media literacy theories into a practical classroom-ready analytical tool guiding students from observation to reflection and action.

Applied to Avatar: The Last Airbender, focusing on the protagonist Zuko’s character arc, it demonstrates how issues of identity, injustice, and moral transformation can be critically explored. This work shows how the framework fosters anti-bias competences and critical media literacy, while outlining guiding principles and activities for classroom use across different media.