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Session Submission Summary

Educational approaches to preventing violent extremism

Tue, April 16, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Street (Level 0), Regency A

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The objective of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is collaborative and intersectional work towards a peaceful, just, prosperous and sustainable world. The rapid spread of violent extremism across the world in recent years, from radical religious movements to white supremacists, is one of the greatest global challenges facing state actors. In the interconnected and interdependent world we live in, violent extremism is a global, transnational problem that leaves no country immune from its impacts and therefore requires concerted, systematic action on the international level that is at the same time sensitive to local contexts. Measures to address violent extremism have largely focused on offensive approaches (e.g., military intervention and policing), defensive approaches (e.g., border security and intelligence), and communicative approaches (e.g., censorship of violent extremist content and monitoring) utilized by counter-terrorist institutions. Despite the widespread use of these so-called ‘hard’ measures, the persistence of violent extremism activity in recent years and the increase of radicalisation of young people and their subsequent recruitment by terrorist and violent extremist groups arguably proves their ineffectiveness and inadequacy.

Within the framework of Agenda 2030, and in particular Target 4.7, UNESCO has taken a leading role in designing a comprehensive educational approach to preventing violent extremism using ‘soft’ measures. At the core of these 'soft' strategies is quality, equitable, and inclusive education that is "a key tool” for addressing this global challenge as it has a potential to promote universal values, a culture of peace, and respect for human rights, and fight prejudice, ignorance, and indifference (UNESCO, 2015). Equipping young people with global citizenship, critical thinking and media literacy skills, including tolerance, and appreciation of diversity and our common humanity, it is argued, will help them navigate the increasingly complex world and strengthen their commitment to peace (UNESCO, 2017). UNESCO’s policy on PVE-E is conducted under the framework of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) which is under the wider umbrella of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). GCED goals include instilling respect for all people regardless of gender, race, age, ability, and other differences; nurturing a sense of belonging to and solidarity with a common humanity; and developing citizens actively working towards equality and social justice.

A variety of country-level strategies have also been designed and implemented to prevent violent extremism (PVE) through education. The dominant discourse on education as one of the aspects of a broad security tactic to counter terrorism and extremism has focused on the work with 'vulnerable' Arab and Muslim populations that are believed to be predisposed to radicalization to violent extremism (Shirazi, 2017). Interventions designed largely for this group of young people include, for example, the UK Prevent Strategy (2011) and the Swedish Conversation Compass (2015) that aim to identify early signs of radicalization and provide support for affected individuals. In some interventions, Arab and Muslim youth are taught to differentiate between 'good Islam' and 'bad Islam' and challenge the interpretations and messages of the 'bad' version spread by Islamist extremist groups (Holmes, 2017). Other PVE strategies include the provision of positive alternatives to engagement with violent extremist groups for young people at risk of radicalization (Zeiger, 2015), teaching to unconditionally reject violence as a value and a means to solve conflicts and problems (Davydov, 2015), and building resilience to violent extremist ideologies in young people through mindfulness and art therapy (Taylor, 2017).

The aim of the panel is to critically engage with the existing variety of educational approaches involved with the prevention of violent extremism on both the international and local levels. Some of the existing policies have not only failed, but in some instances have proven to be counter-productive, leading to the stigmatisation of communities. The presentations will therefore present both strengths and weaknesses of existing educational strategies and evaluate their contribution within the context of Agenda 2030. We first start with an empirical contribution which provides a mapping of the practices and discourses of international organisations involved with PVE-E, including a discourse analysis of their most important pedagogical guidebooks and texts in order to expose particular understandings and ideological assumptions. The next presentation takes a more applied approach and focuses on one of these central organisations, UNESCO, and will share a framework designed to identify and understand problematic aspects of education (e.g., textbooks, curriculum, and pedagogy) that can lead to radicalisation of young people and/or their engagement with violent extremism and to re-orient education to prevent violent extremism.

The last two presentations will provide country-level analysis of PVE-E policies of particular time-spaces, taking into account the specific historical contexts and sensitivities of each country. Building on studies of the UK’s Prevent Strategy and the imposition of ‘fundamental British values’ the penultimate paper offers an empirical contribution that analyses how US-based global citizenship education programs activate similar logics through a two-year interpretive qualitative research study from the perspectives of national security practitioners and policymakers. The final presentation, a conceptual contribution, is a study on Pakistan, focusing on the curriculum and textbooks for Urdu language and literature, through a textbook analysis of Grades 5 and 8. By looking at the conceptualization of ‘resilience’ on an international level and tracing it to the local context, this presentation provides crucial insights into the limitations of such a framework when located within the confines of the nation-state.

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