ince the 9/11 attacks, Western democratic societies have
been trying to respond to terrorist attacks (OECD, 2018a). Research on
radicalization (Coolsaet, 2019) shows that its development is a
complex process, arising from varied and interrelated causes and encompasses
both individual (Schwartz, 2018) and structural aspects (Nemr & Savage,
2019). No profile can be made of radicalized individuals, although they do
share some common characteristics such as: the Islamic religion, a complex
socio-economic situation and the loss of cultural identity. A variety of
factors come together in their radicalization, such as the pressure of
modernization, the economic, cultural, social and political breakdown, the
prolongation of some conflicts, the need for belonging and security, or the
growing frustration of young people living in hostile foreign societies with
little possibility of a future (Motti-Stefanidi & Salmela-Aro,
2018).
Immigration from Muslim countries, together with the
arrival of more than one million refugees from mainly Muslim countries on
Europe's shores in the course of 2015 (Frontex Agency, 2016), gave rise to a
controversial and heated debate in Europe about "newcomers" that had
major repercussions in the political, social and economic spheres. The press at
the time dubbed it a new "crisis for Europe”. However, hostility towards
Muslim immigrants is not exclusive to countries with a higher percentage of
Euro-skeptics or that has been affected by terrorism and immigration, but also
extends to Eastern European countries (Strabac et al., 2014).
Violent events have caused a strong
social and media commotion and are considered a threat to security and to the
values of freedom, citizenship and tolerance. Most of the attacks have been
carried out by so-called "domestic or internal fighters"
belonging to the second generation of Muslim immigrants who are socially
stagnant even though they were born in the midst of European liberalism. As a
result, suspicions and prejudices towards both the immigrant population as well
as the refugees and asylum seekers have increased among the original
population. Recent research shows increased hostilities and radicalization (Koo, 2018). The enmities are
known to be mutual, and a similar psychology is evident in both the Muslim and non-Muslim communities and in both the native and
non-native populations. The other is perceived negatively as being different
and is seen as a threat to one's own values and way of life (Obaidi et al., 2018).
As a reaction to the attacks,
the fight against radicalization has gained prominence on the agenda of
international institutions and complements to the United Nations Plan of
Action. Many of the most relevant international organizations have held
conferences, symposia and resources and guidelines on the Prevention of Violent
Extremism through Education (PVE-E).
The European Union's anti-terrorism policy
has evolved from a reactive stance to a comprehensive and multidisciplinary
strategy that includes seven action areas in which educational elements are
particularly relevant as preventive factors to facilitate integration. Europe
adopts a plan (European Commission, 2016) that
includes three main groups: a) preventive actions for socio-economic and
educational improvement; b) repressive actions against radicalization and c)
actions for the rehabilitation of radicalized individuals.
The Paris bombing in 2015 was a significant event that
led to a meeting of European education ministers
and the adoption of the "Paris Declaration" (Eurydice, 2016). The
“Declaration” defined common EU objectives and the implementation of
initiatives to prevent radicalization of youth through education. Within this
framework, Europe has become a paradigm and "laboratory" of
integration and European socio-educational policies have become a fundamental
pillar in the search for integration and social cohesion. The EU's efforts
include the Strategic Framework 2020, which outlines the challenges, objectives
and proposals for measures for education and training at across the EU. In
2015, the criteria for the period 2010-2020 were validated and the following
priorities were indicated: the need to promote equality and integration, the
transmission of shared European values, intercultural skills and active
citizenship. Added later were measures to prevent social exclusion, bullying, dropping
out of school and attention to the first signs of radicalization. Recently, the European institutions addressed with
concern measures to prevent violent radicalization in the member states of the
European Union (European Commission, 2020).
Developing a global perspective in students
of the 21st century that allows them to participate in an interconnected world,
to understand different perspectives, to learn to dialogue, to value other
cultures and to benefit from interculturality has become objectives of world
educational policy. As a result, international organizations encourage
intercultural education and the development of civic skills.
The OECD (2018a) Programme for International Student Assessment
(PISA) proposes to evaluate global competence and assess how education systems
are leading young people toward a diverse, peaceful society. The interest of
this test lies in the fact that it is used to identify key competences in
15-year-old students, competencies that, in the future, will allow them to
solve problems in their adult life. PISA
was created to provide policy makers with the factors associated with
educational success. However, PISA has become a mechanism for decision-making
and global governance, with a marked neoliberal tendency, which uses its
recommendations to guide national educational policy reforms (Hopfenbeck et al.,
2018; Robertson, 2021).
The conceptual framework of PISA (Council of
Europe, 2016a, 2016b) reflects how Europe
plays host to identities, beliefs, worldviews, perspectives and cultures
that not only differ but sometimes are strongly opposed to one another (Marttinen et al., 2018). The Council of Europe takes up this concern, prompted by the
terrorist attacks by young radicalized Europeans, and proposes strengthening
investment in education so that citizenship is not restricted to national
boundaries, and so that the coexistence of cultures is seen as something
positive, and young people searching for an identity or susceptible to
radicalization find a balance between opposing dilemmas - equity and freedom,
autonomy and community, innovation and continuity. In short, the aim is for
education and coexistence to take outweigh radicalization and fanaticism.
Based on the competence model defined by
the DeSeCo project and the guidelines set out by international institutions,
the OECD has drawn up a global strategy: The Future of Education and Skills:
OECD Education 2030 Framework (OECD, 2018b) to define what
learning is needed in the coming decades for societies with social and cultural
diversity and for societies that are changing so rapidly and profoundly. In
addition to the above categories, there is another category that brings
together "transformation skills" that address the need for future
generations to be responsible, innovative and able to reconcile tensions and
alternatives.
PISA 2018 assesses the three traditional
core domains (reading, mathematics and science) as well as a new learning
objective: global competence, which it defines as: "the ability to analyze
global and intercultural issues, from the perspective of respect for human
rights, to interact with people from different cultures, to take action for the
common good and sustainable development" (OECD, 2018a, p. 4).
However, critics have voiced concern of the conceptual framework of global
competence, pointing to the absence of diverse cultural perspectives as
expected from an international comparison test (Grotlüschen, 2018; Sälzer & Roczen,
2018), the dominant liberal and Western approach (Auld & Morris,
2019) and the lack of consensus in the design of the
conceptual model and the items and descriptors of global competence (Simpson & Dervin,
2019).
The main objective of this article is to
analyze the presence of the attitudes of global PISA competence in the plans
for preventing radicalization, which are part of the European Strategy for
Combating Radicalisation and Terrorist Recruitment of ten
European countries. The descriptors of this competence are deemed to be the
defining features of democratic and intercultural competent citizenship and
should be chosen by educators as a proactive measure of integration (OECD, 2018a). In
addition, the most salient features of each plan to prevent radicalization are
described as they relate to youth and education. The presence or absence of
these variables in these plans, together with a critical analysis of them,
allows a comparative analysis to be made and conclusions to be drawn for the
improvement of policies favoring integration from the educational point of view.
Method
Objectives
This research analyzes how European plans to prevent
radicalization include the attitudes that make up the global competence
assessed by PISA 2018. The conceptual framework of global competence was
defined from an extensive process led by the Council of Europe that started
with 101 conceptual schemes of global, intercultural and civic competence that
were broken down into 55 clusters of competences and finally simplified into 20
competences (Council of Europe, 2016a, 2016b).
Early on in this research, it was found
that including the 20 descriptors of global competence in our analysis made it
difficult to understand and interpret them graphically, so it was decided to
keep the research on the attitudes compared to the skills and knowledge that
have been included in the school curriculum for years. This selection was made
for the following reasons. Firstly, attitudes and values are related, they have
unity, and sometimes values are even integrated within attitudes. Secondly, we
believe that there is a strong correlation between attitudes and the
construction of an intercultural and inclusive European citizenship (Cala et al., 2018).
Finally, this research aims to fill the gap detected by researchers in this
field who find there is little research on the relationship between education
and radicalization and, especially, on attitudes because they are not addressed
in intervention programs (Burde et al., 2015). For Davies (2018) there
is still too little information and too insufficient evidence on the real
impact that the different activities that make up the plans for preventing
radicalization are having in the field of education. Therefore, the following
six attitudes have been studied: openness, respect, civic awareness,
responsibility, self-efficacy, and tolerance- (Council of Europe,
2016a, 2016b), which the OECD includes in the
OECD PISA program (OECD, 2018a) and are described
in table 1 below (Council of
Europe, 2016a, p. 12).
Sample
The body of analysis is made up of the government plans
to combat radicalization in ten European countries: Spain, Sweden, Germany,
Denmark, the
Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom and Finland (Table
2). The selection of these 10 countries was based on all of them being European
countries, having developed plans of prevention of the radicalization in the
same time period (between 2015 to 2020) and having suffered terrorist attacks
with mortal victims in their national territory. The
plans were initially published in the local languages of the countries. For the
study, we had to unify them in a language recognizable by the lexicographical
analysis software, so they were translated into English. They are presented
chronologically because it is assumed that the earlier ones may have served as
a reference for the latter ones.
Table 1.
Description of the analyzed attitudes
|
Attitudes
|
|
Openness to
cultural otherness and to other beliefs, world views and practices
Openness is an
attitude towards people who are perceived to have different cultural
affiliations from oneself or towards beliefs, world views and practices which
differ from one’s own. Openness entails broad mindedness to facilitate
personal relationships with others.
Respect
Respect is an
esteem for someone or something. It´s an intrinsic value. Having respect for
other people who are perceived to have different cultural affiliations or
different beliefs, opinions or practices from one’s own is vital.
Civic-mindedness
Civic-mindedness
is an attitude towards a community or social group to which one belongs that
is larger than one’s immediate circle of family and friends. It involves a
sense of belonging to that community, an awareness of other people in the
community, an awareness of the effects of one’s actions on those people and
solidarity.
Responsability
Responsibility
is being reflective about one’s actions and how to act in a morally
appropriate way, conscientiously performing those actions.
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy
is an attitude towards the self. It involves a positive belief in one’s own
ability to undertake the actions that are required to achieve particular
goals, and confidence that one can understand issues, select appropriate
methods for accomplishing tasks and navigate obstacles successfully.
Tolerance
Tolerance of
ambiguity is an attitude towards situations which are uncertain and subject
to multiple conflicting interpretations. It involves evaluating these kinds
of situations positively.
|
Source. Council of
Europe, 2016a, p. 12.
Table 2.
Radicalization prevention plans analyzed
|
Year of publication
|
Government program (original language)
|
Country
|
|
2015
|
Plan estratégico nacional de lucha
contra la radicalización violenta
|
Spain
|
|
2015
|
Prevent, preempt
and protect. The Swedish Counter-terrorism Strategy
|
Sweden
|
|
2016
|
Federal Government strategy to prevent extremism and
promote democracy
|
Germany
|
|
2016
|
Preventing and countering extremism and radicalisation.
National action plan
|
Denmark
|
|
2016
|
National Counterterrorism Strategy for 2016-2020
|
The Netherlands
|
|
2017
|
The Austrian Strategy for the Prevention and
Countering of Violent Extremism and De-radicalisation
|
Austria
|
|
2018
|
Le Salafisme en Belgique. Mécanismes et réalité
|
Belgium
|
|
2018
|
Prévenir Pour Protéger. Plan national de prévention de la
radicalisation
|
France
|
|
2018
|
The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering
Terrorism
|
The United Kingdom
|
|
2020
|
National Action Plan for the prevention of violent
radicalization and extremism 2019-2023
|
Finland
|
Instrument
The research used the methodology and tools of a textual
or lexicographical analysis. To encourage rigor, networks were analyzed using
clustering techniques (Leydesdorff & Persson, 2010). Text
statistics software was used that applies multidimensional exploratory analysis
methods on linguistic data. For this purpose, the software analyzes the texts
in the logic of searching for similarities and tracing matches in the texts for
the same graphic shapes, whether words or lexems (Reinert, 1986, 1990). In
this way, the different lexical worlds of discourse are grouped and classified
in a descending hierarchical way to identify the general semantics of the
narration. The resulting textometry, known as logometry or textual statistics,
is the current form of lexicometry. This methodology
is justified because it proposes statistical calculations for the study of a
corpus of digitized texts and thus allows the study of multivariate texts. Use
of this methodology is suitable for comparative studies, as is the case with
this research. The software generates a great amount of relational information,
so the Kamada-Kawai pruning algorithm was used to make relevant points more
visible (Kamada-Kawai, 1989). Furthermore, starting off with
the six attitudes of this study, templates of textual discourse analysis were
generated to determine their presence explicitly or implicitly in the selected
radicalization prevention plans.
Data Collection and Analysis Procedure
It is important to note that the results generated by the
software are too many to read. It produced 800 co-occurrences. Co-occurrence is
understood as the relationship of lexical units within a text corpus, which
necessarily have complementary terms as a semantic field. As this is a data
mining analysis, the first 80 co-occurrences have been selected to elaborate
the color images, which visually respond to the objective of this research:
check the reflection of competences in all the plans for the prevention of
radicalization.
Each graph is a set of words that are
related by their nearness to the object of study. The image carries a thread,
with colored clusters branching off it, each based on relational data analysis.
The thickness of the links also provides valuable information because it
determines the importance of their relationship. The keywords are in the nodes
of the graphs and represent the co-occurrence between them. The size of the
words shows their value within the co-occurrence network. The colors of the
different clusters are random and only serve to make it easier to visualize the
differentiation between the blocks of common word groups.
Results
The analysis tool has produced the graph shown in Figure
1 that visualizes the network of similarities among the ten plans analyzed and,
consequently, allows us to conclude the main characteristics followed by the
strategy to prevent radicalization in the ten countries analyzed.
Figure 1.
Network
of common co-words in the prevention plans analyzed
Source. Produced by
the authors of this study with the methodology used in Azqueta &
Merino-Arribas (2022)
Iramuteq visualizes graphically the
similarity that exists in the official documents and clearly highlights that
the threat is the matching metadata in all the official documents analysed. The
network is grouped into five clusters. Closely linked to the threat, a second
aspect that appears in all the documents stands out «security», which can be
seen in the purple cluster. It follows that gobernments put surveillance, both
police and citizen, to prevent radicalization. However, the references to
actions that directly imply prevention versus surveillance are located in the
distant clusters and far from the center, as in the yellow cluster. This would
indicate that its role is still embryonic and marginal. Although the documents
are qualified as preventive, the analysis shows that they place a considerable
emphasis on security and that their message to citizens is geared towards security
and protection. According to the analysis of this study, that investigates
whether education is a relevant element in the prevention of violent
radicalization, it should be noted that the term «education» is sporadic. The
other two clusters (purple and red), further away from the middle and unrelated
to each other, show another common aspect to the European plans to prevent
radicalism: security. Emphasis is placed on cooperation between international
intelligence departments, as well as on alerting to technology used by
terrorists. It is concluded that education and school are not very relevant
aspects: they occupy scattered and decentralized positions (not in sections of
mediation and matching) and are small in size.
Table 3 summarizes a comparison between the
plans of the ten European countries detailing the fulfillment or lack of
fulfillment of the attitudes reflected in global competence in the plans
examined.
From a critical perspective, it should be
noted that the attitude of self-efficacy; understood as confidence in oneself,
the capacity to take on goals and overcome obstacles; and the civic-mindedness;
understood as an attitude
towards a community or social group to which one belongs; are
under-represented in the plans analyzed. However, the attitudes with the
highest rating are responsibility and tolerance. However, the first appeal is
to the attitude of responsibility which is present in all the plans under
consideration. Some governments urge citizens to be responsible for detecting
risk factors, such as the request to health care workers, social workers and
educators. Secondly, to tolerance and its opposite, intolerance, in
the case of Belgium, to refer to intolerance to radical Salafism, which is
present in all the plans except the French and Finish plans, which do not
include this democratic attitude.
Table 3.
Inclusion of the attitudes in the
Prevention Plans analyzed
|
|
OPENNESS
|
RESPECT
|
CIVIC-MINDEDNESS
|
RESPONSABILITY
|
SELF-EFFICACY
|
TOLERANCE
|
|
Spain
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
Sweden
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
Germany
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
Denmark
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
Netherlands
|
X
|
|
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
Austria
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
Belgium
|
|
|
|
X
|
|
|
|
France
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
United Kingdom
|
X
|
|
X
|
X
|
|
X
|
|
Finland
|
|
X
|
X
|
X
|
|
|
Source. Produced by the authors of this study
With regard to the analysis of each plan,
the following considerations are noteworthy.
The Spanish regulations (Spanish Government,
2015) are the pioneers and as such, they are generic,
markedly policing and focused on public safety. The regulations distinguish
three areas of action: internal, external (outside Spain) and cyberspace. They
suggest the townships be the ones to control and share information on risk
groups. Spain chooses to produce local risk maps that identify dangerous
micro-scenarios. The Spanish government's plan makes no explicit reference to
the education system, although it considers it to be a cooperating actor.
Education is included in this plan in a residual, generic way, focusing on
social awareness and training in democratic values.
Sweden (Government Office of
Sweden, 2015) points out that radicalization is a
complete phenomenon that is carried out through social relationships where
young people end up joining extremist groups through frieds, family or social
leaders.
Germany (Federal Goverment,
2016) has a National Program for the Prevention of Islamic
Extremism, which stands out for its focus on prevention. The term citizenship
does not appear in the plan, despite the fact that the document is entitled
"Preventing extremism and promoting democracy". It emphasizes the
education of young people since most of the radicalized people in this country
are between 18 and 24 years old and 20% between 12 and 17 years old; so it
gives an important role to the school and the family. These two words are among
the 20 most cited terms in the plan's top word ranking. In addition, religion
is the third most frequently cited term among a total of the 800 most often
repeated words. The German government is urging that the universities should be
the ones to train teachers, social workers or Islamic religious leaders in the
Islamic religion.
Denmark (Danish Ministry of Immigration,
Integration and Housing, 2016) has launched the
Aarhus Model, after the country's second largest city, which is noteworthy for
its preventive nature in which education and school play a major role and whose
main objective is to dissuade young people from radicalization. It defines
violent extremism as opposition to fundamental democratic values. The measures
are in line with the European policy for an inclusive and responsible
citizenship in which young people play a clearly leading role. This Model also
accepts those who repent and facilitates reintegration into society, if they
have not committed crimes. Denmark focuses on an extensive network (parents,
teachers, police, social workers, youth association staff or volunteers) to
alert them if they see signs of radicalization in any young people in their
environment. The Danish plan adds a compulsory subject to the curriculum, one
dedicated to human rights in addition to proposing radicalization prevention
materials for activities in schools. In addition, it has a National Corps of
professional mentors and parent coaches to work with families at risk of radicalization.
The program imposes eligibility requirements on leaders of religious
communities (priests, imams, preachers) who must take a compulsory course in
Danish family law if they wish to be licensed to perform marriages. In
addition, they must sign that they respect Danish laws on freedom of expression
and religion, gender equality and women's rights.
The Netherlands (National Coordinator
for Security and Counterterrorism, 2016) is the only plan
analyzed that mentions at the same level preventive, repressive and curative
measures in an approach seen as comprehensive. It presented its first program
in 2004, following the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by young
jihadists born and educated in the Netherlands. The intelligence service is
actively involved in the plan and envisages three areas of action: prevention,
targeting of people with extremist ideas and intervention. The Netherlands uses
education, as well as social services and health centers, to detect worrying
behavior. Although it does not have a national counter-radicalization policy,
in the field of education it has undergone a change in direction in its
education and immigration policy by no longer financing education in one's own
language and culture for the children of immigrants and no longer providing
free compensatory activities for underprivileged children and those of
non-native origin in the Early Childhood Education Intervention Program. The
main term throughout the Dutch program is "threat".
Austria
(Federal Ministry of
the Interior of Austria, 2017) focuses attention on young people with an
immigrant background and associates them with increased terrorist activity. For
this reason, it increases health care and education for immigrant youth as a
measure to counteract their joining extremist ideologies. Thus, the Austrian
authorities consider that the causes of radicalization are mixed and require
considering both personal and structural aspects.
Belgium (Veiligheid van de staat. Vei Sûrete
de l'Etat, 2018) puts the focus on Salafism, understood as
a fundamentalist doctrine of Sunni Islam, with a growing political projection
and which is considered susceptible to becoming a social problem due to its
hostility to Western and democratic values. Since 2011, Belgium has become an
exporter of terrorists who have joined the ranks of Daesh. In particular, it
criticizes the intolerance of Salafism. Belgium records only one of the
attitudes in this study, responsibility, and leaves the rest outside its scope.
In the field of education, the Belgian Ministry of Education offers resources
and training programs for teachers and students. In addition, it has made a
telephone number available to citizens to report possible cases of
radicalization.
France (Gouvernement
Republique Française, 2018) presents its plan three years
after the Paris attacks (2015). The French government proposes a defensive
approach to republican values, with special mention of secularism as a basic
principle of the educational system. It is a weak plan from the point of view
of prevention. Its program includes 60 measures, some of which are repressive
in nature. The regulations aim at early detection since extremists may be among
its citizens. France details how to detect cases of radicalization in schools
by giving a prevention guide to teachers and school principals. It protects
against the risk of radicalization by teaching digital literacy and moral and
civic citizenship. There is no mention of integration or diversity in their
plan. The focus is on detection, where school and family are key allies.
The United Kingdom (Her Majesty's
Government of United Kingdom, 2018), an icon for its
social and cultural diversity, with a Muslim community made up of second and
third generation immigrants, does not catalog diversity as a strength. The UK
has intensified its policy against terrorism since the Manchester bombing
(2017). Its plan calls for collaboration among all social classes and with the
rest of the countries, through Interpol. The anti-terrorism law came into force
in 2015. It underscores the legal responsibility of schools, universities, and
teachers to be vigilant so that young people are not inclined towards
radicalization. From this perspective, education, local authorities, social
care, health professionals, and prison officers are key in the detection
processes and have a duty to monitor and prevent. Securitization is imposed,
especially of the education and health systems, focused on the collaboration of
citizens. Consequently, it has had some effects, such as one known as
"Britishness" for the schools to promote British identity on (Matthews, 2016).
Criticism of this policy is widespread and varied: they point to the political
inability to propose alternatives and the fear of the consequences of not
alerting the authorities (Revell & Bryan, 2016); it
causes ethical dilemmas for both teachers (Lumb, 2018) and
health professionals who see confidentiality and trust undermined (Middleton, 2016) and
the elimination, in some cases, of the right to freedom of speech in schools or
universities (Open Society Justice Initiative, 2016). It is also
criticized as a threat to policies that address
racism, promote equality, and support community cohesion (Jerome et al., 2019). From
a critical realist perspective, it is an increased feeling of suspicion and
fear for some groups, especially young Muslims (Walker, 2019a) and from a left
perspective, the 'values' promoted through education under Prevent bear a
disturbing resemblance to the pattern of fascist propaganda criticized by
Adorno (Ward, 2018).
Finland (Ministry of the
Interior, 2020) is the only State that focuses on the
importance of education, especially education in the early stages of schooling
because it favours the inclusion of minors with an immigrant background in
society. In addition, it reinforces the educational policy in the country,
social welfare and the improvement of employment to attend to adolescents who
could be attracted to radicalization. Finland has created interdisciplinary
working groups that bring together the State security forces, schools and
families.
Discussion and Conclusions
The methodology developed here is efficient. It
represents the plans for preventing radicalization in a graphic and logical
way, according to the competences analyzed. Overall, the analysis shows that,
despite the interest of European countries in giving a relevant role to
education as a preventive measure, in practice, the plans do not include
features that define a democratic and interculturally competent citizenship. At the same
time, European policies are not aligned and integrated around shared values.
Some issues are evident:
Firstly, policy is overly focused on the threat of
terrorism, which prioritizes police intervention, with only a secondary and
residual emphasis on education as a preventive measure. In all the plans, the
term "radicalization" is continuously present while the term
"education" takes a secondary role, thus making it clear that its
role is still incipient and scarce. In most countries, efforts are aimed
primarily towards the use of "hard" prevention strategies (Sjøen & Jore, 2019) that sometimes
produce effects contrary to their initial objective, both on the part of some
groups, especially young people, who are under suspicion, as well as by some
communities - especially Muslims - who feel stigmatized. And even, it may be that violence is being promoted rather than
prevented by government efforts to counter ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’ (Walker, 2019b). The
education wasn´t included because the security aspects outweigh the preventive
ones. Moreover, there is a lack of coordination on the institutional level, and
it implies a significant inversion of efforts and human and economic resources.
Secondly, there is a trend in many European countries
towards a securitization of education systems. Security-based counter-terrorism
measures give way to more elaborate strategies that include mobilizing local actors to help detect extremist behavior and take
early action accordingly. In some countries such as France or the United
Kingdom, schools and universities are obliged to be vigilant so that young
people do not lean towards radicalization. Education, social care, health
professionals, and even the neighborhood all have a duty to watch and prevent.
The Prevent Duty implementation is a ‘securitisation’ of education (Busher & Jerome,
2020). Likewise, risk indicators to be observed by teachers
are proposed and an attempt is made to detect cases of radicalization in schools
with a prevention guide aimed at school directors and teachers. This practice
has extended to other countries such as Sweden (Mattsson & Säljö, 2018). Along
this line, although education and schools are considered to be at the forefront
of Community policy guidelines, in practice, schools are like other public
institutions in that they are more platforms for the early detection of
radicalization than areas and means of education and training. In short, these
practices involve subordinating the school to the security and intelligence
agendas of the countries. The emerging academic literature on education and
security studies take different points of view but have in common that the
securitization of education systems is not a novelty and shows the deep
historical roots of this type of practice (Gearon, 2015; Stonebanks, 2019).
Along this line, it is worth highlighting how
anti-radicalization policies make contradictory demands on schools and
educators. On one hand, education and school are seen as particularly relevant
factors for prevention and for facilitating integration, and their work as
promoters of social cohesion and resilience is recognized; on the other hand,
however they are turned into information platforms for security agencies
through risk indicators. In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, this
has become a legal obligation; in others, such as Belgium and France, they are
developing structures so that educators can report cases (Ragazzi, 2017). The early detection
of radicalization is necessary and is still considered a preventive objective,
but it must be complemented by a multifaceted educational task that fosters
integration and personal and social development, especially of young people,
families, and those from the most vulnerable surroundings.
The permanent challenge of the educational system is to
adapt the structures and the educational resources and means and make them more
flexible to ensure the chances of progress and improvement, especially for
children and adolescents. This challenge is not without its difficulties. It
should be noted that there is little empirical
evidence on how the process of radicalization and risk factors develop (Verkuyten, 2018), thus
making it difficult and complicated to specify what educational needs and objectives
become prevention efforts. It is clear that the
radicalization of minors includes control of their schooling and the interest
of recruiters in interfering with their education (Vicente, 2018).
As has been shown, the prevention plans
show that the role of schools is not particularly relevant, despite the fact
that its role is crucial in facing the difficult task of facilitating
integration, beyond the mere schooling of immigrant students. Along with the
relationships with native peers, schools are the main exponent of the host
culture as opposed to the culture of the home represented by the family, peers,
and ethnic group. In migratory contexts, school is a double-edged sword because
it can be an important facilitator of integration or become an element of
exclusion. Given the growing importance of friendships in adolescence, friends
can play a crucial role in socialization and integration processes. At school,
peer contact is facilitated, friendships are created, prejudices are
diminished, and relationships and interactions between different individuals
are forged. Through relationships between peers and fundamentally through
friendship, one learns to accept and value identities that differ from one's
own, thus making the school an environment that promotes citizenship. According
to (Dahl, 2017) the importance of peers in developing positive values
and feelings towards immigrants is an important source of positive influence
for a more humanistic, democratic, and diverse society.
Following the Allport theory (1962), man is not born with prejudices; they are learned. Prejudices deny
individual human dignity and break the fundamental unity between people. He defines
prejudice as "a hostile or pre-emptive attitude towards a person who
belongs to a group, simply because he or she belongs to that group, and is
therefore assumed to possess the objectifiable qualities attributed to the
group" (Allport, 1962, p. 22). He also
specifies that it is a judgment, based on stereotypes, that ignores the truth
and leads to arbitrary judgments about an individual or group. Academic
research considers the adolescent stage as a critical period in which peer
influence is especially relevant (Berndt, 1982). Therefore, this
stage can be considered key to forging positive attitudes towards immigrants (Verkuyten & Thijs,
2001; Van Zalk et al., 2013).
Consequently, we consider it worthwhile to promote civic, intercultural and
democratic values and attitudes in the educational field and in the adolescent
stage through friendship and equal treatment at schools. Children
and young people need to understand what extremism and terrorism are. Teachers
have an important role in this goal. Empowered teachers can develop critical
understanding and engage children and youth in various forms of values
education (Jerome et al., 2020).
Just as schools can be an important element
of integration, they can also become a vehicle for discrimination, prejudice,
and exclusion since many negative attitudes towards immigrants from non-native communities
are experienced in nearby environments such as the school or the neighborhood.
Along this line, it is desirable to prevent some schools from becoming ghettos
for certain ethnic groups. Such situations can have harmful effects on getting
along, they may diminish social contact, increase fear of being "different", and constitute, in short, risk factors for
radicalization.
We conclude here that policies to prevent
violent radicalization in Europe, while conceiving of education and school as
an indispensable means of integration, do not realistically and practically go
beyond the mere detection of the first outbreaks of radicalization. Greater
efforts are therefore needed to promote the mainstreaming and unity of policies
for integration and social cohesion and to reassess the value of schools as a
proactive area for integration and inclusion.
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