Part 1: Methods and Strategies for Teachers

The meta-study confirms what other research points to, the fact that capacity building and CPD of teachers and other school staff can have effects on the prevention of radicalization (Bonell, Joe, Phil Copestake a.o., 2011). Capacity building primarily works to prevent radicalization when it aims at qualifying the teachers’ ability to support and facilitate reflective debates and dialogue in the classroom in such a way that all the students get room for expressing their viewpoints, in an environment where disagreement and pluralism is seen as a constructive and basic condition in a community (Rambøll, op.cit. Laird Iversen, L., 2014). The teacher must facilitate a context where it is considered fruitful and legitimate to reflect on norms and ideas as well as ideals and lifeforms that are otherwise taken for granted. The teacher must work towards establishing a constructive ‘community of disagreement’ in class, to manage divisions and polarization, and to establish a safe space where it is considered constructive to question our everyday prejudices, in order to strive to get behind categories and stereotypes, and build trust and belonging in the class-room as well as in a wider community characterized by pluralism.

This approach and way of thinking is supported by an understanding of democracy as essentially plural and conflictual, and of democratic interaction characterized by disagreement, ongoing struggle for ideas and compromise, as opposed to an aim of reaching consensus (Mouffe, Chantal, 2004). Unity based on same-ness and stable consensus would be a contradiction in a democracy and a sign of a democratic crisis. Accordingly, democratic civic engagement is viewed, not as something where you first have to learn certain codes or master certain competences, before you gain access and are allowed to participate as a democratic citizen (Biesta, Gerd, 2013). This would be countering the idea of democracy and equality as human beings and citizens. You are included as a member from the start, and democracy has to be shaped and reshaped by young and new citizens as well as by others, as people engage with their visions and ways of democratic participation. The schools’ role in this process is to create the fertile context for this democratic critical societal engagement and belonging to develop among the youth.