ABSTRACT
Governments increasingly identify education as a key site in their struggle against radicalisation, and there has been an explosion in the production of official guidelines and materials for use with young people. Most of these resources address the threat of radicalisation through a focus on the development of resilience and the use of ‘soft power’. This article explores guidelines produced, supposedly, to support educationalists to stop radicalisation and counter the spread of extremism and purportedly, to foster the liberal values of free speech, autonomy and a commitment to democracy. This chapter provides an analysis of the interplay between the pedagogies and strategies suggested by these guidelines and the liberal values they purport to advocate that reveal the regulatory nature of these materials. Using the notion of the ‘emptying out’ of liberal concepts and institutions in a neoliberal framework (Brown, 2015 and Giroux, 2004), the article explores the ways in which the ideas that underpin the guidelines undermine free speech and autonomy and are as such, illiberal.
