Dialogue in the aftermath of terror attacks: The role of school and religious education

As a result of several terrorist attacks on European ground in recent years, the political attention given to education policy has become extensively focused on ways to counter terrorism and extremist ideology. In this paper we look closely at the terror attacks that hit Norway in 2011, and how this has been dealt with in school and religious education. During the attacks on July 22, 77 people were killed in Oslo and at Utøya. An ethnic Norwegian right-wing extremist motivated by anti-Islamic ideologies was subsequently con- victed of the actions. Based on findings from a student survey in upper secondary school and sub- sequent interviews with RE teachers, this paper aims Abstract No. 5: Bianca Kappetijn to explore how schools have addressed these events in the context of mandatory non-confessional RE classes, and to what extent a religious education setting offers space to debate current events and to address religious extremism and fundamentalist ideology. The findings show that while students express a need to discuss these issues in RE, teachers find the task demanding. While terrorism and Islam is frequently debated, dialogue in the aftermath of 22 July seem to have been hindered by narrow goal orientation of curricular guidance, emotional stress and a lack of specific competences of the teachers in dealing with sensitive issues.