ABSTRACT

In the field of preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) schools have an important role to play, but precisely how policy actors and educators should best respond to extremism within their schools remains uncertain. Reporting on data from a broader study, this article draws on semi-structured interviews with three participants. The participants were working as policy intermediaries responsible for implementing a federally funded, small-scale grant to develop a program in four Australian schools intended to guard against student behaviours deemed ‘at risk’ of leading to violent extremism. Investigating the strategies and negotiations of these policy intermediaries, we demonstrate the politicization of policy enactment in the field of P/CVE. We draw on Beck’s work to understand the discourses of risk that underpin the P/CVE space and to focus on the strategic negotiations of these policy intermediaries as responses to various forms of risk. The findings contribute to understandings of ‘risk management’ in a neoliberal state particularly in the development and enactment of policy in education, through a focus on how policy intermediaries operate in an ‘in-between’ space between federal prerogatives and local constraints.

摘要

在预防和打击暴力极端主义 (P/CVE) 领域，学校可以发挥重要作用，但政策参与者和教育工作者应该如何最好地应对学校内的极端主义仍然不确定。本文报告了一项更广泛研究的数据，并利用了对三位参与者的半结构化访谈。参与者作为政策中介负责实施一项联邦政府资助的小规模赠款，以在澳大利亚四所学校制定一项计划，旨在防范被认为“有可能”导致暴力极端主义的学生行为。通过调查这些政策中介的策略和谈判，我们展示了 P/CVE 领域政策制定的政治化。我们利用 Beck 的工作来理解支撑 P/CVE 空间的风险话语，并将重点放在这些政策中介机构的战略谈判上，以应对各种形式的风险。这些发现有助于理解新自由主义国家的“风险管理”，特别是在制定和制定教育政策方面，通过关注政策中介如何在联邦特权和地方限制之间的“中间”空间中运作。