The epistemology of extremism, bias, and violence in American schools: the shift from religious and racial profiling to social belonging and an identity-agnostic perspective

Abstract

This study presents findings on the indicators of educational displacement as an early risk factor for radicalization in school settings in the U.S. We collected and analyzed data from 301 students living in 43 U.S. states to inform the creation of Reimagine Resilience, an innovative violence prevention training program for educators and educational staff developed at Teachers College, Columbia University, and to measure early indications of educational displacement as a risk factor for radicalization. The study shows that poor teacher-student relations and multiple experiences of biased speech and behavior are significant early predictors of the students’ educational displacement. Educational displacement, in this study, is measured as a lack of social belonging in schools.

Keywords:

• Educational displacement
• extremism
• religious and racial profiling
• targeted violence
• violence prevention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism#terrorism-deaths-globally.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an Innovation Grant awarded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships under Grant [DHS-21-TTP-132-00-01].