Ideological Transmission Families (Pdf
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MARCH 2017 IDEOLOGICAL TRANSMISSION I THE FAMILY AND IDEOLOGICAL TRANSMISSION FULL REPORT Benjamin Lee and Kim Knott Lancaster University This report was produced out of the Ideas, Beliefs and Values in Social Context programme, funded by CREST. To find out more information about this programme, and to see other outputs from the team, visit the CREST website at: https://crestresearch.ac.uk/projects/ideas-beliefs-values/ About CREST The Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) is a national hub for understanding, countering and mitigating security threats. It is an independent Centre, commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and funded in part by the UK security and intelligence agencies (ESRC Award: ES/N009614/1). www.crestresearch.co.uk ©2017 CREST Creative Commons 4.0 BY-NC-SA license. www.crestresearch.ac.uk/copyright CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...............................................................................................................5 BACKGROUND TO THE REPORT ...............................................................................................9 INTRODUCTION - THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY IN IDEOLOGICAL TRANSMISSION ....10 Terminology ......................................................................................................................................................10 Structure of the report ..................................................................................................................................11 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ................................................................................................12 Socialisation ...................................................................................................................................................13 Political and religious transmission .......................................................................................................14 Religious nurture............................................................................................................................................15 Cognitive transmission .................................................................................................................................17 Social learning theory .................................................................................................................................18 Outside agents and transmission ...........................................................................................................20 The family and social milieu ......................................................................................................................20 Different contexts of family transmission ...........................................................................................21 Agency in transmission ...............................................................................................................................22 Child and adult development and transmission ...............................................................................24 THE FAMILY, AND POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS SOCIALISATION .................................26 Why study transmission? ..........................................................................................................................26 What is being transmitted? .......................................................................................................................27 Direct transmission of concrete concepts and practices .............................................................28 Direct transmission of abstract concepts ...........................................................................................29 The role of different family members ....................................................................................................31 The role of social milieu .............................................................................................................................33 Comparative approaches ..........................................................................................................................34 Ethnographic approaches ..........................................................................................................................35 Methodological critiques ...........................................................................................................................39 CASE STUDIES ON FAMILIES AND IDEOLOGICAL TRANSMISSION: TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM ........................................................................................................................41 Introduction to the case studies ..............................................................................................................41 The family and ideological transmission ..............................................................................................41 The family as organisational connections ...........................................................................................45 The family as a repository of grievance ................................................................................................47 Individual case studies ...............................................................................................................................49 Mohamed Merah- Intra-generational transmission .........................................................................49 Ken – Inter-generational and intra-generational transmission ........................................................51 Roshonara Choudhry – Non transmission ........................................................................................52 CONCLUSIONS ..........................................................................................................................54 The direct transmission model ........................................................................................................54 Beyond the direct transmission model ............................................................................................54 Direct transmission - empirical support ...........................................................................................55 Ideological transmission and terrorism/extremism .........................................................................55 Future research ................................................................................................................................56 BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................................................58 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE ON SECURITY THREATS THE FAMILY AND IDEOLOGICAL TRANSMISSION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Purpose and content This report is the first of a series of synthetic reviews on ideological transmission produced by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST). It focuses on the family as a context for ideological transmission, and includes case studies on extremism and terrorism. Later reports will consider education and peers, and religious and political organisations. The reviews bring together and summarise open source, social science research on ideological transmission. They draw on literature from religious studies, social psychology, sociology, political science, education, anthropology and security studies, and address the following research questions: a. How is political and religious ideology passed on between and across generations and to newcomers? b. Who is responsible for ideological transmission? c. Where and when does ideological transmission take place? d. How do these issues apply to the transmission of extremist and terrorist ideologies? This first report synthesizes arguments and findings from more than a hundred books and articles. It is divided into three principal sections, on the theoretical background, empirical approaches, and case studies on ideological transmission and families in the context of extremism and terrorism. Definitions A deliberately broad approach was taken, with ‘ideology’ being understood to include religious and political affiliations, beliefs, values, attitudes, traditions and practices. Various concepts were used in the literature for the process of learning and the passing on of knowledge, behaviours and skills. These ranged from general terms like socialisation, development and education, to more specific ones such as political transmission and religious nurture, and pejorative terms such as inculcation and indoctrination. Most scholars have focused on inter-generational transmission (principally from parent to child), with increasing interest over time in intra-generational exchange between siblings. Religious and political groups have their own ideas about how, when and where to communicate their worldviews, and on what role the family should play in this. 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE FAMILY AND IDEOLOGICAL TRANSMISSION The direct transmission model Families in all times and places socialise their children, pass on family culture and the wider traditions, norms and values of the societies – and in many cases religious and political groups – of which they are a part. This process has been discussed by scholars from a wide range of disciplines. No single, universal model of ideological transmission could be identified in the literature. However, the majority of authors have focused on parent-child