How can education immunize the mind against extremist ideologies?

Articles

Osama Mohammed Ibrahim

Creativity

The world continues to be plagued by extremist ideologies. It is often said that one effective solution to combating this extremism is to provide more educational opportunities, but the picture is more complex; a large number of radical extremists are university graduates, and quite a few of them even hold prestigious degrees in engineering and other technical disciplines.

Martin Rose, a visiting fellow at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for Islamic Studies at Cambridge University and a Middle East adviser to the British Council, has written a paper, Immunising the Mind, which examines research on this issue in the Arab region. The paper suggests that there is a link between the teaching of certain subjects and the “closed mindset” of radical extremists. The paper suggests that changing the way certain subjects are taught, encouraging alternative perspectives and questioning, and “humanising” the teaching of scientific and technical subjects, alongside good humanities and social science education – often neglected across the Arab world – could help to immunise young minds against extremism and engagement with radical ideologies. If this conclusion is correct, it could have some important implications for education policy.

A review of the literature in this area shows that a significant proportion of violent radicals are far from being uneducated; in fact, a significant number are highly qualified. For example, a 2007 study found that 48.5% of radicalized individuals recruited in the Middle East and North Africa were university graduates, and 44% of the sample had engineering degrees. Anecdotal evidence suggests that prominent terrorists from some ideologies, particularly those on the far right of the political spectrum, may have studied technical subjects rather than religious or political degrees.

In his paper, “Mind Immunization,” Martin Rose reviews the research and offers a counterpoint to the simplistic stereotypes about the complex factors that lead individuals to become radicalized. The researcher’s initial conclusion is that “education” may be an important factor in explaining this phenomenon.

While it is important to stress that this problem can be observed in other parts of the world, it can be concluded that there is a particular problem in some Arab countries that historically spend about 20% of government budgets on education (higher than the global average) without producing any high levels of achievement and creativity, or the critical analytical skills that prepare young people to challenge naive or superficial ideologies.

The philosophy of education in our countries is based on rote learning and passing exams, not on creative and critical thinking. Moreover, engineering, medicine and other technical subjects are traditionally seen as prestigious and superior, compared to humanities such as arts, literature and social sciences which are considered somewhat neglected. Moreover, university graduates are not equipped with the soft skills to increase their employability, and the educated middle classes in the Middle East suffer from high unemployment rates and high levels of frustration.

However, these factors alone cannot fully explain radicalization; technical subjects appear to be under-represented among non-violent extremists. Martin Rose believes this suggests a further layer: that the embrace of violence may be linked to education in particular disciplines, which fail to encourage the investigation of received ideas or alternative arguments and viewpoints. Other studies have suggested that there may be a “state of mind” that is drawn to simple solutions, and lacks the ambiguity, nuance or discussion that is sometimes seen in technical disciplines. This mindset is vulnerable to radicalization for similar reasons.

Individuals with such mindsets may be drawn to particular subjects in the first place, but it seems likely that such mindsets are reproduced or reinforced by the teaching methods used in these disciplines. The paper suggests that the teaching of arts, social sciences and humanities, despite their relative neglect in Arab countries, has a positive effect on reducing radicalization among their graduates. This fact may have been behind the fact that ISIS eliminated the study of law, fine arts, archaeology, philosophy and political science from the curricula in areas it controlled.

Given the above, one solution might be to increase STEM students’ exposure to more discussion, critical and creative thinking, and the uncertain ethical and philosophical issues associated with the social sciences and humanities. In other words, young people need to be taught how to think in order to inoculate their minds against ideologies that seek to teach them what to think.

There may be many ways in which this could be done, whether by moving away from the tradition of rote learning in schools, encouraging STEM students to take some courses in humanities subjects – as is often done in many American and British universities, encouraging teaching methods that are less based on the binary division of “right or wrong” found in STEM subjects, and exposing students to extracurricular activities such as active citizenship or discussion programmes that encourage critical thinking and discussion of social issues. This is particularly relevant at a time when STEM majors are receiving more encouragement and funding than other majors in many countries.

Although this thesis is only part of a larger picture, it is hoped that this vision will spark further discussion about the causes of extremism and radical ideologies and the role of education in resisting and immunizing young minds against them.