More Resources for Difficult Dialogues at the CFE
Lynn Davies, Educating Against Extremism, Stoke on Trent,UK: Trentham Books, 2008.
The author is Professor of International Education at the Centre for International Education and Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England.
Her book proposes an educational strategy that differs from the prevailing "conventional tolerant multiculturalism" which, she feels, is inadequate for addressing the root causes of "extremism" among 21st century disaffected youth (i.e., those most likely to be attracted to extremist movements and organizations).
Her strategy takes into account the fact that global communications technologies allow extremist organizations to recruit young people and to organize outside of educational institutions. In other words, it recognizes that schools have been "cut out of the loop" where contemporary disaffected youth are concerned.
What Davies wishes to do is to make educational institutions relevant to the political thinking of young people. The way to accomplish this objective is to offer young people a political (i.e., politicizing) education--yet one that avoids the uncritical inculcation of single truths.
Such an education must make a secure place for alternative ways of thinking and ambiguity. Davies argues for the centrality of political education, media education, "active citizenship education" (taking the mandate in public education for "civics" courses seriously), critical and comparative religious education: all of which affirm "human rights" as a universal value.
And underlying the educational process is a belief that a strong civil society is one that encourages critique but not without equipping citizens with the skills and dispositions to engage in critical discourse without resort to violence.
Topics discussed in the book include:
The author is Professor of International Education at the Centre for International Education and Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England.
Her book proposes an educational strategy that differs from the prevailing "conventional tolerant multiculturalism" which, she feels, is inadequate for addressing the root causes of "extremism" among 21st century disaffected youth (i.e., those most likely to be attracted to extremist movements and organizations).
Her strategy takes into account the fact that global communications technologies allow extremist organizations to recruit young people and to organize outside of educational institutions. In other words, it recognizes that schools have been "cut out of the loop" where contemporary disaffected youth are concerned.
What Davies wishes to do is to make educational institutions relevant to the political thinking of young people. The way to accomplish this objective is to offer young people a political (i.e., politicizing) education--yet one that avoids the uncritical inculcation of single truths.
Such an education must make a secure place for alternative ways of thinking and ambiguity. Davies argues for the centrality of political education, media education, "active citizenship education" (taking the mandate in public education for "civics" courses seriously), critical and comparative religious education: all of which affirm "human rights" as a universal value.
And underlying the educational process is a belief that a strong civil society is one that encourages critique but not without equipping citizens with the skills and dispositions to engage in critical discourse without resort to violence.
Topics discussed in the book include:
- The nature of extremism and its relationship to myths and myth-making
- The role of identity in radicalization
- The role of faith-based schooling and segregation in radicalization
- The concepts of Justice, Honor, and Revenge
- Free speech, satire and offensive humor
- Critical thinking and what the author terms "critical idealism."
posted by Peter M. Wright at
12:21 PM
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