In April 2025, Dr. Ian Marder (Associate Professor in Criminology, Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology) published a new article on the teaching of victimology. Published in the open access journal Criminological Encounters, the article forms part of a special issue on the global criminology of war.
Entitled, Who is a victim of what? Societal reactions to harms caused and experienced by children in war as teaching materials for critical victimology, Ian’s article considers how he uses wartime examples in victimological education to help students reflect on the social construction of the label of ‘victim’. Specifically, he uses examples of ‘child soldiers’ and the radicalisation of children to encourage students to reflect on their gut feelings towards the harm people cause and experience, and the implications for whether they warrant the label of victim or offender. Ian argues that criminologists should avoid ‘methodological nationalism’ by making use of international examples in their work, and that academics have a duty to share teaching ideas and make their materials open access so that others around the world can use them, build on them, or reflect on their own approaches. As part of the paper, Ian has also published the slides from this lecture series, which can be found here.
You can read Ian’s article here. Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology delivers a module on this topic, LW380 Victimology, that can be accessed on the final year of the BCL Law and Criminology, Batchelor of Arts, and BA Criminology programmes.