title: Prevalence and correlates of radicalised thinking amongst adolescent Muslims in Islamic high schools
Creators: name: Rahimullah, Riyad
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Radicalised thinking
subject: Adolescent Muslims
subject: Islamic high schools
subject: Violent extremist thinking
subject: Apostasy

description: A concerning marginal minority of Australian Muslims are believed to be fighting abroad for terrorist organisations such as ISIS. Consequently, it is plausible that there are certain variables influential in the violent radicalisation of some Muslims, although no evidence exists ascertaining the prevalence of this radicalisation process. Existing international research, although prone to methodological limitations, has identified possible reasons for radicalisation that may apply in the current Australian context. The present study seeks to explore (a) the prevalence of radicalised thinking, or otherwise put, violent extremist thinking, (b) the prevalence of factors possibly contributing toward radicalisation, and (c) which of these factors were associated with radicalised or violent extremist thinking among adolescent Muslims within Islamic schools. A mixed-methods design was employed in the present research to address these aims. For the qualitative component of the study, nine focus groups comprising a total of 94 participants were facilitated to explore adolescents’ perceptions of violent radicalisation. The quantitative component utilised an online questionnaire, which utilised novel and pre-existing scales and questions to explore factors implicated in radicalisation, manifestations of extremist thinking and different forms of terrorism. In total, 334 responses were received throughout the phases of the research. Participants recruited for this research were students enrolled in two Islamic high schools in Australia. During focus group discussions, participants sympathised with the Palestinian plight and supported Hamas’s conflict with Israel. All participants were opposed to ISIS except for one, who expressed support but did not recognise ISIS as a terrorist group responsible for the inhumane atrocities they were committing. All participants, including this one participant, unequivocally objected to terrorism and the taking of innocent lives. Focus groups also explored several potentially significant predictors of violent extremist thinking, namely racism and the perceptions of the media. Participants were very aware of anti-Muslim racism. A significant negative perception was observed among many participants who held the view that the media was biased against Muslims in Australia. The quantitative component of this study, measured various manifestations of violent extremist thinking including takfir (pronouncing a Muslim guilty of apostasy), perceiving a utility in terrorism, support for suicide bombing targeting soldiers and civilians, support for Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, support for groups that attack Western soldiers and civilians, and approval of Muslim attacks on Israeli soldiers, American and Australian soldiers (in Iraq, Afghanistan or based domestically) and Australian and American civilians (in Muslim countries and domestically). The results indicated that, while a very small minority of participants exhibited extremist attitudes, the majority held moderate attitudes and opposed terrorism. However, a modest proportion of participants did not formulate an opinion or did not respond to certain questions. As the questionnaire highlighted, several factors previously implicated in radicalisation were present among the participants, including ambitions for Islam on the international stage, religiosity, Muslim identification, perceived threats to Islam and attitudes against Westernisation. A smaller proportion of participants ranked high on other implicated factors, which included perceiving the West as being against Islam, perceiving anti-Muslim racism, awareness of socio-political events, and low Australian identification. Other factors tested showed minimal levels of alignment. Despite many participants exhibiting higher levels of these ‘risk factors’, participants who actually exhibited extremist thinking were uncommon, as already mentioned. This study employed correlation and multiple regression to identify that a consistent pattern of factors correlated with the different expressions of extremist thinking measured within the questionnaire. The factors which always or nearly always correlated with extremist thinking included religiosity, Australian identification, Westernisation, integration, thinking the West is against Islam and anti-Western sentiment. Other factors were sometimes correlated with extremist thinking, including an awareness of the socio-political atmosphere of society during the year 2014 and gender. The remaining factors failed to correlate at all, or correlated on a minor number of examples of extremist thinking, including age, Muslim identification, ethnic identification, experience of racism, perception of racism, awareness of the socio-political events of 2014, ambitions for Islam on the world stage, and perceiving threats to Islam. However, one manifestation of violent thinking did not match the above pattern of correlates: approval of Muslim attacks on Israeli soldiers. This might suggest that participants considered this manner of violence is conceptually different from other forms of violence. This study demonstrates the uncommon prevalence of violent extremist thinking and the commonality of moderate thinking among adolescent Australian Muslims. Certain limitations to this research’s methodology do exist which will be discussed. However, these do not jeopardise the conclusions drawn from this research. The findings of this study serve to inform policies and practices that can be adopted by schools, communities and governments to prevent violent radicalisation.