Teaching approaches help young people build resilience to extremism

New report demonstrates that teaching approaches can assist younger people build their resilience to extremism.

There is growing recognition of the need to combat extremisms and develop younger people’s resilience to potentially harmful ideologies to prevent them from being radicalised. Educators and others collaborating with young people have been identified as having a key function in offering a safe environment and chances for young people to build up their resilience to extremism. The challenge for those in education is how to successfully fulfil this responsibility in their everyday practice.

A new report, Teaching approaches that assist to build resilience to extremism among younger people, from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and the Office for Public Management (OPM), carried out on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE), assists those in schools and other education settings to meet this challenge with growing confidence. It highlights the factors that can assist to either push or pull young people towards extremism and/or violent extremism, such as a sense of injustice or feelings of exclusion. The report goes on to identify, from an in-depth study of case studies of effective practice, a number of key ingredients which are significant for effective resilience-developing teaching approaches and interventions, alongside support factors in schools and other settings that assist to maximise the impact and benefits of such interventions.

Key report findings contain:

· Interventions work best where they are young person centred and young person led.

· To develop a dialogue conducive to developing resilience, facilitators, whether educators or other practitioners, need to be able to develop a ‘safe space’ for all younger people in a group to be able to participate in debate, which may (and in fact frequently should) cover controversial matters.

· A key aspect of developing resilience is supporting younger people to explore, appreciate, and celebrate their personal identity. Especially effective seems to be enabling young people to reflect on the multiple facets of their identity, discuss the possible tensions and celebrate multiplicity as something which develops balance and ‘uniqueness’.

· The significance of equipping people with appropriate critical thinking skills. Such skills are crucial for encouraging and assisting younger people to interrogate and challenge extremist ideologies head on.

What factors assist to support a successful intervention?

Three sets of broader factors are significant in schools and other education settings in enabling a successful intervention: They are:

· effective partnership collaborating with local agencies

· supportive school leaders, and

· good integration with the wider curriculum.

The over-arching message in the report is that whatever the setting and resources available, the principles of good design and facilitation are crucial and non-negotiable. Well-designed and skilfully facilitated interventions will offer a space for dialogue about sensitive matters and will assist to build resilience to and appreciation of extremist ideologies among younger people. Educators and other practitioners need to use their professional judgment in adapting, developing on and applying these key ingredients and support factors to their specific contexts.

To be more confident of longer-term, sustainable resilience, it is vital that there is an additional focus, over and above good design and facilitation, on developing the ‘harder’ skills, knowledge, appreciation and awareness, covering practical tools and techniques for personal resilience among younger people both in and beyond schools.

Professor David Kerr, Research Associate at NFER, stated:

‘Building resilience to extremism among younger people is a new and challenging area, and one that has proved difficult for school leaders, educators and other practitioners to get to grips with. This report and its findings offer practical advice and examples which will assist those in education settings to approach the matter with growing clarity and confidence in their everyday practice. I hope that it leads to a strengthening of interventions for the benefit of all young people.’

Phil Copestake, Head of Research at OPM stated:

‘The strength of this research comes from the fact that it casts a light on the direct experiences of educators, school managers, youth workers, other professionals and younger people. It demonstrates that excellent teaching delivered by sensitively attuned and well prepared teaching practitioners has the potential to assist young people resist the pull of violent extremism. The findings pinpoint some of the specific practices and approaches that really make a difference. Building resilience to extremism is initial and foremost about great teaching. Yet building resilience to violent extremism over the longer term means building the capacity, confidence and life skills of young people too.’

The full report is available at: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-RR119

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For more information contact: Allison Chownsmith, Media and Communications Executive, on 01753 637155 / a.chownsmith@nfer.ac.uk, and Jane Parrack, Marketing Communications Manager, on 01753 637245 / j.parrack@nfer.ac.uk

Joe Bonnell, Associate Fellow at OPM 0207 239 7830 / jbonnell@opm.co.uk

Notes to editors

The study was commissioned by the former Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF), now the Department for Education (DfE), with support from the Home Office. The Office for Public Management (OPM), an independent public service research and development centre, conducted the research in partnership with the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), which is the UK’s largest independent provider of research, assessment and information services for education, training and children’s services. For further guidance, see the relevant UK information.