Radicalisation and Higher Education: Students’ Understanding and Experiences

ABSTRACT

Since 2015 universities have been placed under a legal duty of “due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.”¹ This reflects the belief in UK counter-terrorism policy that radicalisation exists and can be countered. Advice to universities is largely silent on how this duty applies to teaching. Yet many degree programmes generate lectures and seminar discussions where views of an allegedly radicalised nature could be aired. This article presents focus group research which elicits students’ understanding of radicalisation, and provides insights into their experience of debating contentious issues such as identity, community cohesion, and the causes of terrorism. We argue that students’ understanding of radicalisation is conflated with extremism and we explore students’ anxiety about debating these issues and reliance on educators to create the right environment for such discussions. Finally, the data presented here challenges some of the assumptions underpinning contemporary counter-radicalisation policy in the domain of higher education, which are premised on ideas of active grooming. We argue that this does not accord with students’ own experiences, as they regard themselves as discerning, critical thinkers rather than inherently vulnerable to manipulation by those espousing violent extremist views.

KEYWORDS:

• Counter-terrorism
• education
• Islam
• radicalisation
• UK

Funding

This research was funded by University of Huddersfield.

Notes

1. HM Government, Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (London, UK: HMSO, 2015).

2. The literature on radicalisation, and pathways into political violence, is broad, but among the most commonly cited scholarly works include Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways toward Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 20, no. 3 (2008): 415–33; Max Taylor and John Horgan, “A Conceptual Framework for Addressing Psychological Process in the Development of the Terrorist,” Terrorism and Political Violence 18 no. 4 (2006): 585–601; Randy Borum, “Radicalization into Violent Extremism I: A Review of Social Science Theories,” Journal of Strategic Security 4, no. 4 (2011): 7–36; Fathali M. Moghaddam, “The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration,” American Psychologist 60, no. 2 (2005): 161–9.

3. For the elusiveness of the concept, see Rik Coolsaet, All Radicalisation Is Local: The Genesis and Drawbacks of an Elusive Concept (Brussels, Belgium: Egmont Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2016); Mark Sedgwick, “The Concept of Radicalization as a Source of Confusion,” Terrorism and Political Violence 22, no. 4 (2010): 479–94.

4. For accounts of the rise of Islamic State, see e.g., Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return (New York, NY: OR Books, 2014); Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2015).

5. Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror (London, UK: William Collins, 2015), 78–93.

6. Robert Verkaik, Jihadi John: The Making of a Terrorist (London, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2016).

7. Rod Thornton, “Counterterrorism and the Neo-liberal University: Providing a Check and Balance?,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 4, no. 3 (2011): 421–29; Quilliam Foundation, Quilliam Briefing Paper, Radicalisation on British University Campuses: A Case Study (London, UK: Quilliam Foundation, 2010).

8. HM Government, Prevent Strategy (London, UK: HMSO, 2011), 95.

9. Coolsaet, All Radicalisation Is Local (see note 3 above), 16; Arun Kundnani, “Radicalisation: The Journey of a Concept,” Race & Class 54, no. 2 (2012): 3–25.

10 Home Office, “E-learning on Prevent,” www.elearning.prevent.homeoffice.gov.uk (accessed June 1, 2016).

11. Home Office, Prevent Strategy (see note 8 above), 108.

12. See e.g., Taylor and Horgan, “A Conceptual Framework for Addressing Psychological Process in the Development of the Terrorist” (see note 2 above); McCauley and Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization” (see note 2 above); Fathali M. Moghaddam, From the Terrorists’ Point of View (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006); Mitchell D. Silber, Arvin Bhatt, and Senior Intelligence Analysts, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York, NY: New York Police Department, 2007).

13. Borum, “Radicalization into Violent Extremism” (see note 2 above); Michael J. Williams, John G. Horgan, and William P. Evans, “The Critical Role of Friends in Networks for Countering Violent Extremism: Toward a Theory of Vicarious Help-Seeking,” Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 8, no. 1 (2016): 45–65.

14. R. K. Cragin, “Resisting Violent Extremism: A Conceptual Model for Non-Radicalization,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 2 (2014): 337–53.

15. John Horgan, Walking Away From Terrorism (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2009).

16. Anthony Richards, “From Terrorism to ‘Radicalisation’ to ‘Extremism’: Counterterrorism Imperative or Loss of Focus,” International Affairs 91, no. 2 (2015): 371–80.

17. Coolsaet, All Radicalisation Is Local (see note 3 above); Floris Vermeulen, “Suspect Communities–Targeting Violent Extremism at the Local Level: Policies of Engagement in Amsterdam, Berlin and London,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 2 (2014): 286–306.

18. Paul Thomas, “Divorced but Still Co-habiting? Britain’s Prevent/Community Cohesion Policy Tension,” British Politics 9, no. 4 (2014): 472–93.

19. Vermeulen, “Suspect Communities” (see note 17 above).

20. Peter R. Neumann, “The Trouble with Radicalisation,” International Affairs 89, no. 4 (2013): 873–93.

21. Richards, “From Terrorism to ‘Radicalisation’” (see note 16 above).

22. Robert Savage, The BBC’s Irish Troubles: Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2015).

23. HM Government, CONTEST: The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism (London, UK: HMSO, 2011).

24. Lorenzo Vidino and James Brandon, Countering Radicalisation in Europe (London, UK: International Centre for Radicalisation and Political Violence, 2012).

25. Paul Thomas, “Failed and Friendless: The UK’s Preventing Violent Extremism Programme,” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 12, no. 3 (2010): 442–58.

26. Vidino and Brandon, Countering Radicalisation in Europe (see note 24 above).

27. Thomas, “Divorced but Still Co-habiting” (see note 18 above).

28. For a critique see, e.g., Arun Kundnani, Spooked! How Not to Prevent Violent Extremism (London, UK: Institute of Race Relations, 2009).

29. Cabinet Office, Tackling Extremism in the UK: Report from the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Tackling Radicalisation and Extremism (London, UK: HMSO), 1.

30. Coolsaet, All Radicalisation Is Local (see note 3 above).

31. Richards, “From Terrorism to ‘Radicalisation’ to ‘Extremism’” (see note 16 above).

32. Home Office, “E-learning on Prevent” (see note 10 above).

33. Department for Education and Skills, Curriculum Review: Diversity and Citizenship [Ajegbo Report] (London, UK: HMSO, 2007).

34. Audrey Osler, “Citizenship Education and the Ajegbo Report: Re-imagining a Cosmopolitan Nation,” London Review of Education 6, no. 8 (2008): 11–25.

35. Home Office, Prevent Strategy (see note 8 above).

36. Bill Durodié, “Securitising Education to Prevent Terrorism or Losing Direction?,” British Journal of Educational Studies 64, no. 1 (2016): 24.

37. Ofsted, How Well Are Further Education and Skills Providers Implementing the ‘Prevent’ Duty? (Manchester, UK: Ofsted, 2016).

38. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility & Student Choice (London, UK: HMSO, 2016), 85.

39. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006), 37.

40. For the Red Army Faction see Stefan Aust, The Baader-Meinhof Complex (London, UK: Random House, 2008); for comparisons of the RAF with the Weather Underground, see Jeremy P. Varon, Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2004).

41. Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), Prevent, Police and Universities: Guidance for Police Officers Staff to Help Higher Education Institutions Contribute to the Prevention of Terrorism (London: ACPO, 2012), 30. For more on Choudhry, see Elizabeth Pearson, “The Case of Roshonara Choudhry: Implications for Theory on Online Radicalization, ISIS Women, and the Gendered Jihad,” Policy and Internet 8, no. 1 (2016): 5–33.

42. See Tania Saeed and David Johnson, “Intelligence, Global Terrorism and Higher Education: Neutralising Threats or Alienating Allies,” British Journal of Educational Studies 64, no. 1 (2016): 37–51; Katherine E. Brown and Tania Saeed, “Radicalisation and Counter-Radicalisation at British Universities: Muslim Encounters and Alternatives,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38, no. 11 (2015): 1952–68.

43. Mike Molesworth, Elizabeth Nixon, and Richard Scullion, “Having, Being and Higher Education: The Marketisation of the University and the Transformation of the Student into Consumer,” Teaching in Higher Education 14, no. 3 (2009): 277–87.

44. Aislinn O’Donnell, “Securitisation, Counterterrorism and the Silencing of Dissent: The Educational Implications of Prevent,” British Journal of Educational Studies 64, no. 1 (2016): 53–76; Brown and Saeed, “Radicalisation and Counter-Radicalisation” (see note 42 above).

45. Durodié, “Securitising Education” (see note 36 above), 27.

46. ACPO, Prevent, Police and Universities (see note 40 above), 31.

47. Home Office, “E-learning on Prevent” (see note 10 above).

48. Liam Stanley, “Using Focus Groups in Political Science and International Relations,” Politics 36, no. 3 (2016): 236–49.

49. See, e.g., Lee Jarvis and Michael Lister, “What Would You Do? Everyday Conceptions and Constructions of Counter-terrorism,” Politics 36, no. 3 (2016): 277–91; Richard Jackson and Gareth Hall, “Talking about Terrorism: A Study of Vernacular Discourse,” Politics 36, no. 3 (2016): 292–307.

50. Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Monitoring of the Prevent Duty, http://www.hefce.ac.uk/reg/prevent/framework/ (accessed May 20, 2016).

51. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason: Right-wing Extremism in the USA (London, UK: Heinemann, 1971).

52. The notion of grooming into terrorism is prominent explicitly or implicitly in accounts such as McCauley and Moskalenko, “Mechanisms of Political Radicalization” (see note 2 above) and Moghaddam, “The Staircase to Terrorism” (see note 2 above).

53. The IRA fought an almost thirty-year separatist campaign to take Northern Ireland out of the UK and into a united Ireland. See Richard English, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA (London, UK: Pan Macmillan, 2003).

54. Mary J. Hickman, Lynn Thomas, Henri C. Nickels, and Sara Silvestri, “Social Cohesion and the Notion of ‘Suspect Communities’: A Study of the Experiences and Impacts of being ‘Suspect’ for Irish Communities and Muslim Communities in Britain,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 5, no. 1 (2012): 89–106; for the term as originally applied to the Irish community in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s, see Paddy Hillyard, Suspect Community: People’s Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain (London, UK: Pluto Press, 1993).

55. See Verkaik, Jihadi John (see note 6 above); Sami Moubayed, Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad (London, UK: I. B. Tauris, 2015), 139–42.

56. Home Office, “E-learning on Prevent” (see note 10 above).

57. For discussion of Muslim students’ experiences on British university campuses, see Peter Hopkins, “Towards Critical Geographies of the University Campus: Understanding the Contested Experiences of Muslim Students,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 36, no. 1 (2011): 157–69.

58. Home Office, “E-learning on Prevent” (see note 10 above).

59. Saeed and Johnson, “Intelligence, Global Terrorism and Higher Education” (see note 42 above).

60. Richards, “From Terrorism to ‘Radicalisation’ to ‘Extremism’” (see note 16 above), 148.

61. Durodié, “Securitising Education” (see note 36 above).

62. See, e.g., David Miller, Tom Mills, and Steven Harkins, “Teaching about Terrorism in the United Kingdom: How It Is Done and What Problems It Causes,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 2, no. 3 (2011): 405–20.

63. Institute for Race Relations, “Prevent and the Children’s Rights Convention,” http://www.irr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/IRR_Prevent_Submission.pdf (accessed July 14, 2016).

64. Royal College of Psychiatrists, “Counter-terrorism and Psychiatry,” Position Statement (PS04/16), (September 2016), 5–6.

65. This student’s observation echoes much earlier arguments concerning the efficacy of counter-terrorism policy in liberal democracies, despite claims by some scholars of a stark divide between “orthodox” and “critical” terrorism studies approaches. See, e.g., Paul Wilkinson, “Pathways out of Terrorism for Democratic Societies,” in Eric Moonman, ed., The Violent Society (London: Frank Cass, 1987), 138–54. See also John Horgan and Michael J. Boyle, “A Case Against ‘Critical Terrorism Studies,’” Critical Studies on Terrorism 1, no. 1 (2008): 51–64.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by University of Huddersfield.

Notes on contributors

Catherine McGlynn

Catherine McGlynn is Senior Lecturer in Politics, affiliated with the Division of Criminology, Politics & Sociology at University of Huddersfield in Queensgate. Shaun McDaid is Lecturer in Politics, affiliated with the Division of Criminology, Politics & Sociology at University of Huddersfield in Queensgate.