Toolkit for Educators - Introduction
This educational toolkit is aimed at providing educators with guidance on understanding aspects of radicalisation and extremism among young people between the ages of 14 and 17, as well as fostering dialogue between educators and young people. This toolkit is informed by, and has been put together as part of the DARE (Dialogue about Radicalisation and Equality) project, a collaborative endeavour funded under the EU’s Horizon2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
The DARE project investigates young people’s encounters with messages and agents of radicalisation, how they receive and respond to those calls, and how they make choices about the paths they take. Specifically, this toolkit is tailored to allow educators to understand the concept and process of radicalisation among youth, as well as other key concepts and phenomena such as, extremism, violent extremism, de-radicalisation, among others.
This toolkit recognises that, whilst there are a number of other toolkits dealing with similar themes in circulation (cf. RAN 2017; West Midlands Police 2017; ERYICA 2018; RAN 2018; CREST 2019), these are sometimes broad in scope and do not address the specific contextual issues that characterise radicalisation across different social and political environments. Such contextual issues may refer simply to people’s familiarity with associated terms, such as radicalisation itself, accessibility to social media platforms, social environment or diverging perceptions of national and global events. Users of this toolkit will be familiar with some of the contexts and examples being presented here, many of which have been taken from the thirteen countries that are the focus of the DARE project (eight European Union countries, as well as the UK, Norway, Tunisia, Russia and Turkey). As such, this toolkit provides educators with guidance to understand radicalisation and extremism across the political spectrum, from Extreme-left to Extreme-right and Islamist groups.
Against this backdrop, this toolkit provides a brief overview of the key concepts and definitions needed to understand radicalisation and extremism broadly, identifying how these terms have been applied within official contexts (national policies, news reporting and in legislation), as well as how they have been understood and applied by people in their everyday lives. Users of this toolkit may recognise some of the associations with radicalism and extremism described here and, the hope is, that these will provoke some reactions that cause users to re-evaluate how they engage with the events, activities and people being described.
This toolkit does not aim at providing users with guidance on how to identify the ‘tell-tale’ signs of radicalisation among young people. Rather, this toolkit reflects the DARE project’s rationale, where dialogue can provide young people with the necessary critical skills that enable them to interrogate, process and verify the information they have access to or come into contact with. Radicalisation is broadly viewed as a process, where this refers to the activities that young people engage in that might lead them to embrace extremist views; this separates radicalisation from actual engagement in violent acts. What forms do radicalisation and extremism take in the European context? How do young people make sense of, and rationalise, the world around them? Apart from providing detailed information, this toolkit addresses these questions using a guided and interactive approach by employing case studies from varying social contexts and examples of radicalisation and extremism, together with interactive quizzes and activities.
After using this toolkit, users will come away with:
Users will be provided with resources that will help them contextualise the specific ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that motivate young people into engaging with extremist groups, ideas and actions. It is important for us to emphasise here that this toolkit recognises that radicalisation is a subjective process and, as a result, there is no clear-cut approach to tackling it. Therefore, this toolkit’s overarching objective is to help elevate the level of dialogue between educators and young people, whilst enabling a climate of inclusivity.
Against this backdrop, this toolkit provides a brief overview of the key concepts and definitions needed to understand radicalisation and extremism broadly, identifying how these terms have been applied within official contexts (national policies, news reporting and in legislation), as well as how they have been understood and applied by people in their everyday lives. Users of this toolkit may recognise some of the associations with radicalism and extremism described here and, the hope is, that these will provoke some reactions that cause users to re-evaluate how they engage with the events, activities and people being described.
This toolkit does not aim at providing users with guidance on how to identify the ‘tell-tale’ signs of radicalisation among young people. Rather, this toolkit reflects the DARE project’s rationale, where dialogue can provide young people with the necessary critical skills that enable them to interrogate, process and verify the information they have access to or come into contact with. Radicalisation is broadly viewed as a process, where this refers to the activities that young people engage in that might lead them to embrace extremist views; this separates radicalisation from actual engagement in violent acts. What forms do radicalisation and extremism take in the European context? How do young people make sense of, and rationalise, the world around them? Apart from providing detailed information, this toolkit addresses these questions using a guided and interactive approach by employing case studies from varying social contexts and examples of radicalisation and extremism, together with interactive quizzes and activities.
After using this toolkit, users will come away with:
- A better understanding of radicalisation and extremism among young people
- A better understanding of the everyday experiences and factors that lead young people to embrace (but also resist and counter) such attitudes
- Approaches that provide communication inroads with young people, to talk about radicalisation messages and agents
- A greater understanding of young people’s everyday lives and tools to foster further and, more inclusive, communication with young people
Users will be provided with resources that will help them contextualise the specific ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors that motivate young people into engaging with extremist groups, ideas and actions. It is important for us to emphasise here that this toolkit recognises that radicalisation is a subjective process and, as a result, there is no clear-cut approach to tackling it. Therefore, this toolkit’s overarching objective is to help elevate the level of dialogue between educators and young people, whilst enabling a climate of inclusivity.
|
|
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 725349
