Exploring Youths’ Willingness to Engage with Civil Society and Public Sector Institutions: The Untapped Potential of Religious Communities in Preventing Violent Extremism

Abstract

Research on preventing violent extremism is still in its infancy concerning the question of who the target audiences might be willing to talk to if they need help. To explore this question, we utilized the "Young in Oslo" dataset from 2015, where attitudes toward the use of violence were expressed by students in upper-secondary school (n = 7801). Our analysis revealed that youths who support the use of violence were open to talking to adults in religious organizations if they needed help. This suggests that religious communities should be both consulted and partnered with more closely when (re-)designing prevention work.

Citizenship to (counter)terrorism: the need to de-securitise the Norwegian education system and create space for democratic resilience

“…Democratic resilience can therefore involve a form of transformation which may guide the process of societal and political democratisation. The research field suggests that social capital, trust and connectedness are the building blocks of democratic resilience (Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2016;Haugstvedt and Sjøen, 2021;Stephens and Sieckelinck, 2020). In our study, the facilitation of trust-based relationships was of the utmost importance, not only because it enabled a more prosocial approach to PVE, but also by inspiring an agenda that diverges from the security-driven perspective.…”

“…However, it is not only (potential) extremist students who express these sentiments, as students and teachers tend to describe how attempts to prevent anti-social or anti-democratic phenomena may be more successful if they are based on student-centred pedagogical activities (Sjøen and Jore, 2019;Svendsen and Skotnes, 2022). Here, it is worth noting that educational efforts to prevent radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism cannot be limited to what happens in formal education, as research has highlighted the importance of community building and dialogue beyond the formal boundaries of schools, for instance, by including families and civic actors in preventive engagement (Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2016;Haugstvedt and Sjøen, 2021). This does not mean, however, that education cannot do anything or does not have an important role to play in preventing or reducing societal enmity and violence.…”