What is it to speak freely? This question is raised in relation to strategies to prevent what is referred to as radicalization among youths within European Union. This paper aims to unravel discourses of radicalization of adolescents in school in policies and governance and the implications for the pedagogical relationship. Further, this paper is a discussion of how insights from philosophy can productively be used to investigate educational efforts undertaken to prevent pupils’ potential tendencies of becoming radicalized in their beliefs and actions. The focus is on counteraction of the pedagogical element of prevent by exploring Michel Foucault’s the ethical political stance of the Greek concept of parrhesia that concerns free speech and care of the self (Foucault, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2010). In brief, Foucault’s interpretation of parrhesia means that truth-telling involves to put yourself at risk and care of the self is about the endeavor of self-transformation by putting oneself to test of the reality. The point I wish to raise is what this ethical stance can offer to understand our relationship to the ideal of democracy and citizenship in the public sphere of education and the quest for prevention of radicalization in the current crisis of governance of security.

In this paper, prevention of radicalization in school is regarded as an action of governing security in a historical-cultural moment in Europe (Foucault, 2009). A number of authors have studied contemporary alerts about prevention of radicalization associated with policy for preventative counter-terrorism from a viewpoint of securitization of schooling and community life (Mattson, Hammarén & Odenbring, 2016; O’Donnell, 2016; van San, Sieckelinck & de Winter, 2013). It is argued that the duty of confronting and reporting ‘extreme views’ among pupils in public schools in the UK put teachers as role models in an ethical dilemma of being guided by duties or ethical concerns (Foreman-Peck & Heilbronn, 2015). The reading of Foucault’s (1999, 2001) discussion of parrhesia is instructive in this regard.

School systems in Europe are expected to promote the teaching of democratic values, non-discrimination and freedom of speech (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2016).  In the classroom, expression of the self is exercised in encounters between the educator and pupils as well as between pupils and pupils. In pedagogical activity, self-expression is commonly exercised in dialogue and in narrative, that is, as a speech activity. One could say that educators’ preventive work on radicalization implies a tension between support and control of self-expression among pupils. It seems reasonable to say that to express one’s opinion is an ethical practice concerned with voicing the self (Hodgson, 2010) and to ‘make ourselves intelligible to ourselves and to others’ (Butler, 2005, p. 21). Based on this understanding of truth-telling, how can self-expression oriented towards self-care be imagined as a pedagogical approach to transgress and to move beyond the goals of prevention of radicalization in school? I explore how, at least since the time of the ancient Greeks, to speak freely has been understood as central for shaping the citizen and the role of education in educating the citizen in a democratic society.  As a counter-action to prevention of pupils’ radicalization, I argue for the exercise of care of the self in pedagogical encounters as an approach that allows for self-transformation as an ethical practice.

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