CONTRA ("Countering Propaganda by Narration Towards Anti-Radical Awareness") is an EU-funded research project aiming at contrasting youth radicalization. Within its framework, a pool of researchers, practitioners and experts from security institutions are developing a primary prevention program, to be implemented in schools, against right-wing extremist and Islamist propaganda addressing young people online.
The project employs the latest findings from media psychology, as well as results from radicalization research, to develop learning resources that educators can use in their regular teaching activities.
CONTRA's goals are:
- To raise awareness among youth about radical messages on the web;
- to empower young women and men to engage in critical reflection on propaganda through the development of critical media literacy; and
- to enable them to participate in social and media discourses on extremism.
The preventive program’s first version is being developed thanks to the work of researchers in Education Sciences, Media and Communication Psychology at the Universities of Cologne and Mannheim; civil society prevention actors Ufuq e.V.; as well as security authorities in Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria.
This pilot version will be first implemented and evaluated in selected schools in Germany. At a later stage, the program will be transferred and further developed to reach other European school systems. A unique project, CONTRA may, in fact, serve as a model for other countries.
CONTRA does not exclusively address teachers, but multipliers (educators, trainers, practitioners, and so on) in need of concrete solutions for prevention. It may be as well of interest to researchers, whose area of interest deals with prevention, propaganda, and counter-narratives.
