Webinar #2: Dealing with Radicalisation at Schools

Later adolescence and early adulthood are regarded as a vulnerable periods for radicalisation processes. For this reason secondary schools can be places where youngsters show worrying signals or even explicit radical behaviour. The present leave of youngsters to IS puts political and societal pressure on the educational systems to deal with radicalisation.How can schools handle this task and meanwhile remain a positive learning environment in which pupils and teachers feel comfortable? What could schools do to build resilience against extremist thoughts?

This questions will be discussed during the next DPT and RAN webinar on 18 April 2016 from 4 to 5 pm. Speakers will be:

Jesper Holme (Aarhus, Denmark) will focus on the how young people can be themselves and also be part of a greater “We”. What is the connection between a good balance between personal skills and daily challenges and the moti-vation to think and say, what you think and mean? And what about development of critical thinking? Since 2009 Jesper has been a part of the working group “Prevention of Radicalisation and Discrimination in Aarhus”, a cooperation between East Jutlands Police, Social services and the educational system in Aarhus. Jesper is a former teacher and pedagogical leader, and he is now working with development of the educational system and as mentor consultant under the “Aarhus model”.

Karin Heremans (Antwerp, Belgium) tells how she got involved in the topic when youngsters of her school radicalised. As there was no supply at that time she developed her own programme on dealing with radicalised pupils and offering them new perspectives. Apart from being director of a secondary school Karin started this year as an expert an policy advisor on radicalisation at GO!, one of the leading Flemish educational networks. She is one of the two chairmen of the Education Working Group of the Radicalisation Awareness networks, She published several articles on the subject, most recently with ‘Onderwijs in tijden van onmacht’ (Education in times of owerlessness) in the book ‘Lokroep van IS’(The lure of IS) edited by P.Loobuyck.