Social and Civic Competencies Against Radicalization in Schools

This book discusses a range of interventions that can be implemented in schools to prevent radicalization and violent extremism. The book advocates for primary prevention by strengthening social and citizenship competences of youth. It combines perspectives of citizenship education, school psychology, positive psychology, peace psychology and social-emotional learning to highlight the spectrum of approaches that practitioners can consider adopting or advocating for. Mechanisms of radicalization the approaches may relate to are also discussed making it useful not only for practitioners and policy makers developing and implementing preventive interventions at schools, but also for academics studying radicalization and students of education, youth work and educational psychology. The authors discuss relevant concepts such as identity development, perspective taking, political self-efficacy, citizenship competences and youth empowerment, mindfulness and self-regulation.
Marcin Sklad is an associate professor of psychology, and research methodology of social sciences and statistics at University College Roosevelt (UCR), Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Mona Irrmischer is a meditation researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and at UCR, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

Eri Park is an assistant professor in psychology at UCR, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.


Inge Versteegt teaches intercultural communication at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She is an expert on diversity, radicalization, and extremism.


Jantine Wignand is a researcher at UCR working on the Citizenship Education on Social Inclusion project focused on creating resilience against radicalization.