2025 Theses Doctoral

Building Resilience to Hate in K-12 Schools and Universities across the United States of America

Joshi, Vikramaditya

With radicalization and hate-fueled violence becoming an increasingly visible and urgent problem across the United States of America, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed a whole-of-society approach to violence prevention. While this dissertation supports the espousal of a whole-of-society approach to violence prevention, the argument lays necessary emphasis on K-12 schools and universities as vital sites for the development of our collective resilience to hate to fortify democracy in America.

Using Amra Sabic-El-Rayess' Educational Displacement Model of radicalization as the theoretical foundation informing the analysis herein, I outline the strengths of the model and illustrate the promising results of its ongoing application, which I co-lead, through federally funded research and programming in K-12 schools and universities.

In addition, I utilize case studies involving formerly radicalized students to exemplify the way Educational Displacement, if unaddressed, can lead to radicalization and, in turn, hate-fueled violence. Following this, I propose a Resilience to Hate ("R2H") framework constituted by key civic practices such as non-violence and approaches to teaching and learning such as a connection-first pedagogy to guide the design and responsiveness of learning environments in classrooms, schools, and communities.

The fundamental lesson emergent from this dissertation is that it is through the empowerment of all key stakeholders in K-12 schools and universities that the twinned aims of preventing Educational Displacement in learning environments and fortifying democracy as a way of life in the United States of America becomes an actionable vision rather than a fragile hope.