Violent Extremism, National Security and Prevention. Institutional Discourses and their Implications for Schooling

Abstract

Currently, threats to societal security from extremist groups are high on the political agenda in many countries. Politicians, policymakers at various levels and communities are searching for methods to counteract recruitment to violent organizations. These efforts are often referred to as Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE-programmes). One of the earliest PVE programmes in Europe was the British PREVENT programme, and it has to some extent served as a model for other countries, including Sweden. In this article, we scrutinize a particular method, inspired by the PREVENT, and developed by the Swedish National Coordinator against violent extremism, called The Conversation Compass (CC) intended for so-called front-line workers. This article reports an analysis of this method in order to provide a broader understanding of how the discourse on preventing violent extremism meanders from political and policy discourses into claims about how to organize educational practices and social work and the regulations under which these institutions operate. The results show that the CC contributes to a securitization of the educational system in ways that are not in line with educational traditions of schools in Sweden, or with the laws and policies that regulate the educational system.

Keywords:

• schools and extremism
• prevention of extremism
• radicalization

13. Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Later in the text, these categories will be referred to as ‘professionals’ following the language used in the material.