Educational Displacement and Violence Prevention: A Proposal for a Multilevel Model

• In Event: Protesting Violence Across Different Contexts

Proposal

Educational Displacement and Violence Prevention: A Proposal for a Multilevel Model

Theoretical Framework:

Drawing on the thematic guiding questions for CIES 2024, with specific reference to Sub-Theme 2 (Curriculum and Protest), this paper is grounded in examining the relationship between violence in education and ways we can engage in violence prevention through pedagogical innovations. The theoretical framework for this inquiry is grounded in Educational Displacement Theory, a novel model of radicalization emergent from primary research conducted with formerly radicalized youth by the principal author of this submission. When we understand radicalization as a process, as opposed to a single moment, we realize that educators and educational staff have a vital role to play in arresting the pathway of radicalization that a student can be moving gradually through towards violent expression. The first step in this model is Educational Displacement - a sense of invisibility felt by a student due to an invisibility of voice (i.e., when their narrative contributions in the classroom are neglected or left unheard), an invisibility of representation (i.e., when a student does not see themselves represented in any of the learning materials used in the classroom or, as the CIES theme spotlights, when books are banned and deliberately removed from the curriculum), or an invisibility of recognition (i.e., when a student does not feel a sense of belonging through the experience of being recognized as part of the classroom or school community).

In this paper, the authors will propose a multilevel model to understand the way Educational Displacement is affected by subject (individual), school (institutional) and country (macro-environmental) factors. The method for this inquiry is outlined below.

Method

We analyze two cross-country datasets in order to investigate how cross-national differences in values and attitudes towards gender, immigration, and trust as well as the experience of violence impact students’ feelings of Educational Displacement. The data stems from the World Values Survey wave 7 (WVS) as well as the PISA wave 2018. The PISA dataset includes both measures and possible predictors of Educational Displacement on a student and school level. The WVS has often been used to investigate how values and attitudes develop on a country-level (Dimitrova et al., 2016; Koshy et al., 2023; Minkov & Hofstede, 2012). We suggest that these country-level analyses can offer a new perspective on societal predictors of Educational Displacement.

Before we introduce our proposal for a multilevel model, we want to briefly introduce the method of multilevel modeling first. Multilevel modeling can be viewed as an extension of regression analysis, where one is concerned with the relationship between different variables – but other than in traditional regression analysis, subjects are nested within groups. This opens up the possibility of analyzing the data hierarchically. One can not only investigate how predictors at the first, or the subject level, relate to a dependent variable of interest, one can also analyze how certain characteristics of the group that a subject belongs to influence the dependent variable. In our case, individuals will be nested in schools within countries, opening up the possibility of a three-level multilevel model.

We therefore propose a three-level multilevel model with Educational Displacement being the dependent variable at level one: at the first level, we will investigate how individual student predictors like experiences of victimization in terms of bullying and discrimination influence the feeling of Educational Displacement (Hamby et al., 2018). Additionally, we will look at how a student experiences their school and interactions with their teachers in terms of cultural (mis-)representation, diversity, and measures of emotional and academic support from teachers and parents. Research on social belonging has primarily investigated these level one predictors (subject-level) and has shown that a few of them, like experiences of bullying and discrimination, consistently predict Educational Displacement (Allen et al., 2018).

On the second level of our model, we will include the following school-level predictors: amount of funding, level of school equipment and staff, assessment strategies, celebrations of multiple cultures in the school, the presence of a multicultural curriculum at school, average class size, and the availability of extra language courses for non-native speakers.

The WVS data will then be entered at the third level. We will average the following WVS measures per country to be included as the level three predictors in the multilevel model: attitudes towards immigrants and authoritarianism, opinions on issues of gender, level of perceived safety and trust in organizations like schools and political institutions. Additionally, we will investigate how the predictors at different levels interact with each other: it would be possible, for instance, that having an immigration background might not be a predictor of Educational Displacement in and of itself. However, in a country with an overall negative attitude toward immigrants, it might be a significant predictor of Educational Displacement. This distinction, though subtle, is profoundly important as it shifts our emphasis from a facet of identity to the environment in which that identity is perceived and treated as the root cause of Educational Displacement. This will be tested by examining the interactions between level three and level one variables. We will additionally investigate the interactions between certain level two and level one variables, since specific school measures like having a multicultural curriculum at school might increase a student’s resilience even in the face of adverse events such as bullying.

Theoretical and Empirical Promise of the Study:

With the author’s extensive experience engaging with educators across the United States in relation to Educational Displacement Theory and violence prevention, supported by a Federal Innovation Grant ($750,000), this paper will build on the growing body of scholarship at the intersection of radicalization, education, and violence prevention to underline the vital role that educators and schools can play in preventing violence in the U.S. and beyond.

Authors

• Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, Teachers College at Columbia University

• Vik Joshi, Columbia University Teachers College

• Timon M. J. Hruschka, Columbia University Teachers College