Teaching terror: what role for schools in countering violent extremism?
Religious pluralism is an important feature of our democratic society and is embedded in our Constitution. Section 116 of the Constitution states that the Commonwealth shall not make any law for “… imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion.”
As an alternative to teaching young people about specific religions, focusing on religious pluralism through the teaching of our Constitution and fostering a sense of Australian identity is a much more useful exercise.
Broad lessons about peace and pluralism more beneficial
In March, I delivered a workshop on countering violent extremism and education. Part of the workshop program was based on my own research into how moral disengagement theory (avoiding shame or guilt from bad behavior by justifying it as moral) could be used to build resilience to violent extremism through education.
It was also informed by research that identified good practice based on a review of teaching methods targeting violent extremism, gang involvement and crime.
Rather than require teachers and schools to undertake the onerous task of changing the curriculum, the workshop – delivered to teachers and education policymakers from Pakistan, Jordan, Nigeria and Kenya – was designed to help teachers embed countering violent extremism into their current practice. We attempted to develop their understanding of how teaching can be used to build resilience within the existing curriculum.
The participants learned how to develop their own practices to challenge violent extremist messages, reinforce moral self-sanctions that prevent people from becoming violent extremists and develop young people’s awareness of how violent extremist messages are constructed.
Within this, teachers may well choose to teach their students about events in the Middle East. Or they may find that they can draw on teaching resources from civic values and citizenship education.
Alternatively, they may use existing education resources such as the Beyond Bali Education Package. This provides teachers with a set of activities to teach young people about the harmful consequences of conflict using stories of Bali Bombing survivors.
One of the more concerning issues for counter-terrorism is that we seem to consistently ignore lessons from the past. Almost a decade of teaching young people about values and citizenship has not stemmed the flow of foreign fighters or home-based violent extremists.
Introducing new curriculum requirements to teach young people about specific issues or requiring teachers to look out for signs of radicalization are just as likely to have little or no impact if not supported by evidence.
While we still struggle to find empirical studies on educational approaches to preventing violent extremism, there are lessons that can be learned by examining how resilience to other forms of criminal or gang behavior is embedded in education.
Anne Aly is associate professor, Department of Social Science and International Studies at Curtin University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).
