ABSTRACT
At the heart of debates over how education should engage with extremism is how to negotiate difference in the context of value pluralism. Existing approaches are largely rooted in a rights and justice-based model. Here, I argue there is a need to supplement this with a greater commitment to an ethics of care rooted in a relational approach to education and social interaction. I explore these ideas using research carried out with community groups engaged with those ‘at risk’ of involvement in extremism, concluding that in the effort to foster critical, compassionate citizens it is necessary to provide safe spaces to negotiate difference and develop caring relations. Such spaces should widen the object of critical thinking, resist the security and risk-oriented framework in which this work is increasingly embedded and support young people’s political agency in ways that allow them, and society, to flourish.
