The ideological underpinnings of the Great Replacement Theory, which frames Muslims as a threat to Europe, originated in Serbia and emboldened a wider narrative of anti-Muslim hate across Western milieus. The othering of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks), an autochthonous ethnic group in Southeastern Europe, has contributed to the normalization of the alienation of Muslims throughout Europe, engendering Educational Displacement —an internalized sense of invisibility and devaluation within targeted individuals, diminishing their participation and trust in the societal institutions. In this complex socio-political and historical context, Bosniaks have nonetheless chosen to principally champion interfaith coexistence, offering an instructive and community-based model of resilience to hate and violence. The study investigates the Bosniaks’ affinity for coexistence by examining the underexplored case of interfaith solidarity and entente between Muslims and Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1540 to the present.

In recent years, Western societies have witnessed a notable rise in populism, nationalism, and extremist ideologies, marked by the increasing dehumanization of specific social groups. This trend presents significant challenges to the preservation of civil liberties, particularly the freedom of action and speech for targeted groups, both within higher education institutions and K-12 schools. The study investigates whether access to such freedoms impacts students’ sense of belonging in school and society. Reduced belonging among certain groups diminishes social cohesion and heightens the risk of radicalization and targeted violence. Drawing from a comprehensive sample of N = 518,833 students from 18,819 schools in 68 countries or economies as defined by the OECD, this study reveals a significant insight: countries with more equitable access to civil liberties across all social groups exhibit the higher average levels of school belonging.

Abstract Reimagine Resilience (2023), designed and established at Teachers College, Columbia University, is an innovative program that builds awareness and understanding among educators and educational personnel in the U.S. on the precursors and causes of educational displacement in students, supporting educators in promoting belonging, connectedness, and resilience to prevent educational displacement, extremism, and radicalization among students in their schools and classrooms. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of the Reimagine Resilience Program in producing attitudinal shifts in participating education personnel as they cultivate an awareness of their own biased speech and conduct. Further, this study spotlights the Program’s efficacy in identifying ways to actively prevent educational displacement as educators gain new knowledge of protective and risk factors for radicalization and targeted violence. This study underscores the importance of innovation in pedagogy, practice, assessment, and professional training for educators and educational staff to effectively engage educators in extremism and violence prevention.

Abstract This study presents findings on the indicators of educational displacement as an early risk factor for radicalization in school settings in the U.S. We collected and analyzed data from 301 students living in 43 U.S. states to inform the creation of Reimagine Resilience, an innovative violence prevention training program for educators and educational staff developed at Teachers College, Columbia University, and to measure early indications of educational displacement as a risk factor for radicalization. The study shows that poor teacher-student relations and multiple experiences of biased speech and behavior are significant early predictors of the students’ educational displacement. Educational displacement, in this study, is measured as a lack of social belonging in schools.