Conference Agenda

Populism is a current challenge for democracies across the world and Europe specifically(Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Populism can be defined as an attitude that related to the clear distinction between a virtuous people and a corrupt elite (Akkermann & Mudde, 2014; Sant & Brown, 2021). Populism is strongly linked to modes of identification and exclusion: Populists are generally less tolerant of whom they perceive to be outsiders (Kinnvall & Svensson, 2022). For democracies, this is problematic, as they depend upon the idea that different perspectives are valid even if they are not shared or even opposed. For education, populist attitudes in students are relevant as they can relate to more bullying (Wray-Lake, et al. 2018) and oppose the idea that students learn to approach political and social issues from multiple perspectives (Abs, 2021).

Currently, there is little research on the development of populist attitudes in adolescence and even less research, which compares populistic attitudes among youth between different countries (Noack & Eckstein, 2023). Differentiating between countries is important as political attitudes relate to the performance of the incumbents of the country in question (Stals & Ziemes, 2024). If the corruption in ones political system is high, believing that the leadership is an elite that does not hold the peoples’ interest in high regard is more rational than in countries with less corruption (Stals & Ziemes, 2024).

This study wants to investigate how different aspects of schooling relate to populist attitudes in the adolescence. This is relevant to find out which aspects of schooling can help to inoculate students against populist reasoning and which aspects of schooling might actually relate to an increase in populist attitudes.

Experiences of participation, teacher support, and an open classroom climate should be negatively associated with populist attitudes. As populist attitudes are thought to be a reaction to feelings of political helplessness (Sant & Brown, 2021), feeling empowered by the act of participation should counter the idea that a regular citizen is unable to enact change. Teachers are representatives of the state in the school level and experiences made in the school are assumed to generalize to the political level (Flanagan, 2013; Stals & Ziemes, 2024). Therefore, positive experiences with fair teachers should foster a trust in state authorities in general. Finally, an open classroom climate for discussions is defined by the teachers’ effort to make different perspectives within the classroom heard. This should foster perspective-taking capabilities and the tendency to approach problems from multiple perspective instead of just one and is related to tolerance towards minority groups (Knowles, R. T. & McCafferty-Wright, 2015; Maurissen et al., 2018).

Formal political, i.e. learning about how laws are made and how elections work, can either be related to higher or lower populist attitudes, depending on the political education within the country. It can be used to inform students about proper political procedures or used as propaganda to introduced populist thinking into the school context (Kloubert, 2018).

Civic competencies should be negatively associated with populist attitudes. As has been shown, its relation to political trust varies depending on the trustworthiness of institutions (Stals & Ziemes, 2024). After controlling for trust, civic competencies should not be positively related to populist attitudes as they relate to a more complex understanding of social and political issues.

In the face of terrorist attacks, many European countries have increased their effort into the prevention of radicalization and extremism to safeguard their people and their democratic political systems. Young people are especially vulnerable towards processes of radicalization during the adolescence (Schröder et al., 2022). Since schools have access to the majority of young people, the education system is often looked at to play a role in the prevention of radicalization and extremism. Especially citizenship education, with its focus on empowering young people, building resilience and democracy, is seen as one of the educational fields that could contribute to the prevention of radicalization towards violent extremism of young people (Gaffney & Silke, 2024).

The use of (citizenship) education for the prevention of radicalization and extremism has also been critiqued (Edwards, 2021; Fernandez, 2024; Lakhani & James, 2021; Skotnes & Sjøen, 2023), because it might lead to discrimination and an inappropriate emphasis on surveillance and securitization in education. Yet, studies that researched the response within the English education system indicated that these critiques were not reflected by educational professionals (Busher et al., 2019; Elwick & Jerome, 2019). It is against the backdrop of this debate between theoretical academic reflections and the outlooks of professionals working in practice, that this study seeks to answer the following research question:

How do professionals from the fields of prevention of radicalization and citizenship education cooperate in England and Norway?

The focus of the study is on the primary and secondary prevention of radicalization and extremism. Primary prevention comprises of activities aimed at the prevention of violent extremism, thereby targeting large groups of people that have not yet shown any signs of radicalization or extremism. Primary prevention projects often include whole schools or communities. Secondary prevention concentrates on specific individuals that are perceived as vulnerable or have already shown signs of radical and extreme views, but have not been violent yet. Secondary prevention usually includes projects that focus on risk factors and try to intervene with individuals that are at risk (Vermeulen and Visser, 2021).

So far, there is no research conducted specifically into the interprofessional cooperation between prevention and educational professionals. The distinction between three different forms of cooperation made by Gräsel et al. (2006) based on interprofessional cooperation within educational settings can be used to establish the current level of interprofessional cooperation to prevent radicalization and extremism. Gräsel et al. (2006) distinguish between mutual exchange of information and materials, division of labor and co-construction. The intensity of the cooperation increases from exchange to co-construction (Böhm-Kasper et al. 2016). There is however not one type of cooperation that is generally better than the other, but it rather is the specific task or goal that determines which form of cooperation works best in a specific situation (Reinsdorf & Ehlert, 2025). With regards to cooperation between prevention and educational professionals, the exchange of information and materials might contribute to a shared perception of the educational context in which the prevention of radicalization could take place, which in turn would lead to a more unified approach. The division of labor would mean that two professionals do not have to exercise the same task, thereby decreasing the work load and increasing the efficiency of professionals from both fields. Finally, professionals could combine their perspectives on the situation through co-construction. This might encourage them to learn from the others’ viewpoints and contribute to the professionalization of both fields.

The first quarter of the 21st century, especially the last five years, has seen an increase in discussions about polarisation around the world, including in Turkey. Merriam-Webster's selection of 'polarisation' as its word of the year for 2024, alongside its treatment as a key agenda item in a series of recent policy and research reports (EdWeek Research Center, 2025; OECD, 2025), reveals that this issue has become a pressing concern for societies. Polarizasyon is defined as “division into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.” (Merriam-Webster, 2025). Manifesting in many different forms, polarization results in the bonds between all members of a community or society gradually weakening, with people remaining connected only to members of their own groups (Interian, Marzo, Mendoza & Ribeiro, 2023). Deep socio-economic inequalities, echo chambers created by social media and digitalisation, economic difficulties, migration and democratic crises are all causing deep divisions in societies, with political polarisation in particular increasing (Göksel, 2024; Jiang, Ren & Ferrara, 2021; OECD, 2025). Many such factors feed the climate of polarisation and, in turn, are fed by this climate. Polarisation is considered a major risk to social cohesion and a healthy democracy and has been shown to manifest in various ways in schools. Consequently, it is widely accepted that education researchers must address this issue (EdWeek Research Center, 2025; Fogelman, Giunco, Liu & Alford, 2025). It is particularly important to examine how deep divisions, which are more concretely visible at the political level, affect the school life of children who begin to develop political views through especially their families, as well as their relationships with other students and staff. Based on Dewey's view that schools are a microcosm of society, it is expected that the phenomenon of polarisation seen in society will also be evident in schools. This research aims to reveal how the societal polarisation of recent years is reflected in schools, particularly in classrooms, and to examine the role and potential of social studies courses in this process, given their aim to educate for democracy. In this context, the following questions were addressed: 1) What traces of polarisation are evident in schools and classrooms? 2) How can social studies classes intervene in polarization issues that may arise in schools and classrooms?

Emotions play a key role in shaping our political identities and values, and political issues often evoke strong and profound emotions. As political phenomena with emotional foundation such as political polarization and populism have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, the connection between emotions and politics has received growing interest in many academic fields and the long prevailing ideal of the rational subject has begun to crumble (Demertzēs, 2020; Salmela & von Scheve, 2017, Thompson & Hoggett, 2012). While emotions, passions and conflicts are an integral part of interaction in a democratic society, political issues can evoke strong emotions also in classrooms.

In schools, where we gather together, strive to raise critical and active citizens, discuss social and political issues, and form political identities, we inevitably encounter political emotions (see e.g. Löfström, 2025; Ruitenberg, 2009; Sætra, 2021; Zembylas, 2018). Schools function as key arenas for political socialisation, promoting particular ideals of democratic citizenship. They make social phenomena visible and hold the authority to present commonly accepted understandings of reality. In schools, political emotions can also convey an understanding of what it means to be a good citizen and what a good citizen is expected to feel (Blennow, 2021). Given the growing public and scholarly attention to the relationship between politics and emotions, political emotions have become a growing focus within the research on democratic and citizenship education, too, especially in work grounded in agonistic democratic theory (Ruitenberg, 2009; Sætra, 2021; Tryggvason, 2018; Zembylas, 2021). Empirical research on the topic, however, remains relatively limited.

This study contributes to the discussion on the role and the meaning of political emotions in democratic education and addresses the issue through qualitative, ethnographic approach. The contribution is based on my doctoral thesis, in which I explore political emotions in democratic education in Finnish schools. The research focuses on democratic education in the lower and upper secondary education, particularly in the context of social studies classrooms and situations where social and political topics are discussed as part of the educational process. The study asks how political emotions manifest as social and cultural phenomena in democratic education practices and what meanings are given to political emotions by the teachers and the students.

The theoretical framework underpinning the research combines phenomenology of political emotions (Szanto & Slaby, 2020) and Sara Ahmed's (2014) and Margaret Wetherell's (2012) theories of emotions as socially and culturally formed forces and practices. The approach emphasises that emotions are not merely individual, physical sensations or psychological states, but are always strongly connected to cultural and social meaning-making. Political emotions also involve judgments and perceptions of what is important and meaningful to us from a perspective broader than that of the individual. In the study, this understanding of political emotions is combined with an ethnographic approach to explore how political emotions manifest in the practices of democratic education classrooms.