'Boosting resilience' and 'safeguarding youngsters at risk': Critically examining the European Commission's educational responses to radicalization and violent extremism

Eleni Christodoulou

doi:10.18546/lre.18.1.02

Abstract

Despite the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) being tasked with being a core policy tool of the European Union and helping to shape its research funding agenda on preventing violent extremism, very little is known about how it operates, the practices and activities it engages with and the discourses it mobilizes to do so. This study fills this gap through an in-depth investigation into RAN's working group on education, critically examining the construction and enactment of discourses and practices related to the prevention of violent extremism through education. Combining a critical engagement of organizational practices with a discourse analysis of the various RAN EDU outputs, such as manifestos, policy papers and videos, it offers an examination of the discursive terrain of the European Commission, revealing the normative values and ideological assumptions underpinning it, as well as the subject-positioning of students and teachers involved.

Highlights

As a response to diverse processes of radicalization, evolving forms of violent extremism, and a perception that there is a linear link from the former to the latter, organizations have increasingly been calling for a multilevel approach that utilizes the power of youth and education
Known as ‘PVE-E’ (Preventing Violent Extremism through Education), this approach reflects a wider sociopolitical discursive shift in the international agenda on addressing violent extremism: first, a move from mere security, intelligence and military operations – that is, ‘hard power’ – to ones that utilize ‘soft power’ and focus on winning over hearts and minds; second, a recognition that prevention is more effective than attempts to intervene after an individual has been radicalized, and that this is best done through a holistic approach that places the education sector at the forefront; and third a consideration of young people not just as victims or perpetrators, or mere recipients of these policies, and as agents of positive change
On the level of non-formal education, the European Commission (EC) for instance has funded projects on preventing marginalization and violent radicalization under the European Union (EU) Work Plan for Youth 2016–2018, as well as within the Erasmus + youth programme, SALTO-YOUTH, aimed at both youth workers and policymakers through the active involvement of young people. When it comes to formal education, the lead organization assigned with the mandate of PVE-E is RAN EDU, the Radicalisation Awareness Network’s (RAN) working group on education

Summary

Introduction

As a response to diverse processes of radicalization, evolving forms of violent extremism, and a perception that there is a linear link from the former to the latter, organizations (local, national, regional and international) have increasingly been calling for a multilevel approach that utilizes the power of youth and education. After the working group meetings an ex-post paper is produced, the aim of which is to present lessons learned, and to share expertise, follow-up activities and evidence-based recommendations These are often authored by staff members of RAN CoE (even if they do not have any academic or first-hand expertise as teachers or educators). The analysis of RAN EDU outputs such as manifestos, policy papers, ex-post papers and videos has shown that they remain highly normative, rather than offering practical advice on how educators can replicate certain ‘good’ or ‘best’ practices (both terms are used) or concrete examples that teachers, for instance, can adapt into their everyday classroom interactions This is not something exclusive to RAN but reflects the dominant trend of other international organizations, partly attributed to the lack of definitive empirical research on what works and the thorny issue of attributing success to projects that are preventative in nature (Christodoulou and Szakács, 2018). There seems to be a notion that those children who become extremists are those who have not been taught how to cope with life, so the solution lies in teaching children how to be better able ‘to cope’ with stress and life’s obstacles, and to develop self-regulation skills even from a primary school age (RAN, 2018b), rather than in addressing some of the injustices that led to these obstacles in the first place

Conclusion

Notes on the contributor