Publication
Adverse childhood experiences, education, and involvement in terrorist violence
Examining mediation and moderation.
- Author
- Sarah L. Carthy & Bart Schuurman
- Date
- 10 July 2024
- Links
- Read the full article here
Most perpetrators of terrorist violence have had some level of post-secondary school education, with many enrolled in education at the time of their attacks. Exploring this premise in the context of prevention, this article draws from data gathered on a purposive sample (N = 206) of radicalised individuals from Europe and North America, half of whom became involved in terrorist violence at the end of their radicalisation trajectories.
Through a lens of educational participation, the authors propose novel, non-linear frameworks for understanding radicalisation outcomes. To do so, two factors are explored that uniquely intersect when an individual enters a school setting: Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and the human capital provided by education. As hypothesised, exposure to ACE was found to be associated with radicalisation trajectories culminating in terrorist violence at the bivariate level (OR = 2.08).
Consistent with the developmental-assets framework, it was further hypothesised that this relationship would be mediated by enrolment in education; however, results did not support this hypothesis. Instead, consistent with resiliency-based models, it was found that the relationship between ACE and involvement in terrorist violence was significant for those who abandoned education during radicalisation (OR = 2.07). As well as contributing to theoretical models of radicalisation to terrorist violence, identifying the furtherance of education as a moderator of risk may signal an important preventative strategy for violent extremism. Keeping enrolled students engaged in their programmes, even if only nominally, may also forego the need for educators to engage in potentially controversial practices such as alerting the authorities to students who display signs of radicalisation.