Exclusion and Antisystem Attitudes: The Impact of Perceived Discrimination in Attitudes towards Democracy and the Willingness to Use Violence among Adolescents in Brussels

Abstract

Perceived discrimination, the perception of systematic exclusion due to background characteristics, has been studied extensively in general. The political consequences of this perception remain underexplored for adolescents. Discrimination may engender a rejection of common political values such as the support for democratic politics. Using the data of 1789 pupils with an average age of 16 years (grade 10) from 24 schools in Brussels, we focus on the consequences of perceived discrimination in attitudes towards violence, as well as on a rejection of representative democracy. The outcomes of a multilevel analysis suggest that high levels of self-reported perceived discrimination are significantly associated with an anti-democratic attitude (rejection of the current form of representative democracy) and the willingness to use violence. In a context in which 75% of pupils have a non-native background, these findings reveal the challenges for future forms of civic education.

Measuring and Evaluating the Effectiveness of Active Citizenship Education Programmes to Support Disadvantaged Youth

“…Donbavand and Hoskins (2021) reviewed two experimental studies which predict that investing in the training and preparedness of teachers makes a difference in students' civic and political outcomes (see Andersson et al 2013;Barr et al 2015). Similar findings and recommendations also noted in papers published within the Special Issue (see Babhoutak et al 2020;Coopmans et al 2020;Kunitsõn and Kalev 2021;Rinnooy Kan et al 2021). In this sense, it is necessary to emphasise teachers' differences in the capabilities and responsibilities of delivering such programmes and their consequences on students' civic and political learning.…”

Being “Both”: Identifications of Second and Third Generation Brussels Muslim Youths towards the Country of Origin and the Country of Residence

“…The vast majority of the young people we met expressed a strong attachment to Brussels as a whole and/or to their neighborhood in particular. A survey of pupils from 24 high schools in the Brussels region conducted in parallel with ours revealed that students with a foreign background feel more at ease in Brussels than those without: 76% of youths of Moroccan descent and 74% of Turkish descent compared to 69% of native Belgians that were surveyed (Mansoury et al 2020) 21 . They were eager to stress their feeling of being at home in Brussels, more so than in other regions: Ihsane (Female, 21 years old): "Brussels is beautiful.…”

Controversies in Heterogeneous Classrooms, Adolescents’ Experiences of Social Cohesion in Brussels and Its Schools

“…Overall, students refraining from discussions about controversial topics and events could, however, be detrimental to their notions of citizenship [25,71]. The latter may also explain the mismatch identified by Mansoury Babhoutak and colleagues [72] between the ambitions of the education system and pupils' experiences of discrimination at school, especially since the latest Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) shows that (Flemish) teachers rarely adapt their teaching to the ethnic diversity of their pupils [73].…”