The deradicalisation of education: terror, youth and the assault on learning

Abstract

A high profile anti-radicalisation agenda in schools and other educational institutions throughout Europe has risen in response to terrorist attacks on European countries in the first decades of the twenty-first century. This article looks critically at anti-radicalisation in education, arguing that it needs to be placed in the broader context of ongoing neoliberal educational reform and questioned not just in terms of its dubious efficacy in addressing terrorism, or the civil rights harm it inflicts on Muslim and ethnic minority citizens in Europe, but also as a direct attack on the centuries-old radical tradition in European education. In particular, anti-radicalisation diverts attention from the analysis of structural root causes of social problems, opposes the use of education for fundamental social change, and stigmatises transformational educational practices that many would argue are now vitally important in helping us collectively address a range of contemporary global social, economic and environmental crises.