These are the questions 10 year olds in UK were asked to determine whether they are extremists or not

[Axulus]

On Waltham Council’s website the description of the BRIT Project has been edited in the last few days. It originally said its purpose was to “identify the initial seeds of radicalisation with children of primary school age” in line with the Department of Education’s “Prevent duty,” as outlined in the recently passed Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Parents of the 10- and 11-year-olds who answered the questions at Buxton School reacted angrily when pictures of the questionnaire were shared online. One Twitter user asked: “Is the purpose of this form to make sure kids lose all trust in the system as early as possible?”

The result of tactics like this would be “more homeschooling and even less integration,” according to another.

i100.co.uk asked both Buxton School and Sean Thomson, leader of the BRIT Project, what the results of the questionnaire - which ask for identifying details such as name, age and gender - were supposed to be used for, but they failed to respond.

http://i100.independent.co.uk/artic...hether-they-are-extremists-or-not--eJG59kDTZZ

 

[Underseer]

What are your thoughts? Do you think this counts as "profiling Muslims" or not?

 

[whichphilosophy]

On Waltham Council’s website the description of the BRIT Project has been edited in the last few days. It originally said its purpose was to “identify the initial seeds of radicalisation with children of primary school age” in line with the Department of Education’s “Prevent duty,” as outlined in the recently passed Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Parents of the 10- and 11-year-olds who answered the questions at Buxton School reacted angrily when pictures of the questionnaire were shared online. One Twitter user asked: “Is the purpose of this form to make sure kids lose all trust in the system as early as possible?”

The result of tactics like this would be “more homeschooling and even less integration,” according to another.

i100.co.uk asked both Buxton School and Sean Thomson, leader of the BRIT Project, what the results of the questionnaire - which ask for identifying details such as name, age and gender - were supposed to be used for, but they failed to respond.

http://i100.independent.co.uk/artic...hether-they-are-extremists-or-not--eJG59kDTZZ

I'm not quite sure how this questionnaire serves its perceived purpose, or indeed what purpose.

 

[Axulus]

What are your thoughts? Do you think this counts as "profiling Muslims" or not?

It seems more like psuedoscientific BS than anything else. Is it based on some sort of sound predictive empirical evidence, or is it just some bureaucrat's pet project to demonstrate that they are doing something about detecting the signs of radicalism?

It may or may not count as profiling for those who are vulnerable to extremism, which is currently a problem most prevalent in the Muslim community in the UK and around the world at the moment. Therefore, it makes sense to detect and implement preventative measures for those who are within those communities (such as what Maajid Nawaz does with the Quilliam Foundation)

 

[whichphilosophy]

What are your thoughts? Do you think this counts as "profiling Muslims" or not?

It seems more like psuedoscientific BS than anything else. Is it based on some sort of sound predictive empirical evidence, or is it just some bureaucrat's pet project to demonstrate that they are doing something about detecting the signs of radicalism?

It may or may not count as profiling for those who are vulnerable to extremism, which is currently a problem most prevalent in the Muslim community in the UK and around the world at the moment. Therefore, it makes sense to detect and implement preventative measures for those who are within those communities (such as what Maajid Nawaz does with the Quilliam Foundation)

The first step to the implementation of preventative measures would be to not to use asinine forms like the one presented to this thread.

 

[Jayjay]

I think it doesn't hurt to ask. But in order to prove there is any correlation with the answers and future radicalization, you'd have to wait for a decade or so.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

I wish I could give this to my ten-year-old self to see how terrorist-y I was back in the day. I can remember a fair bit about what ideas I held at the time, but I have no idea how I would have interpreted the questions or dealt with the not applicable. "People from a different religion are probably just as good as the people from mine." I didn't have a religion at ten. I didn't even have much of a religious identity based off of cultural heritage. I didn't have atheism as an ersatz-religion for the sake of the question. That said, I don't think I believed at the time that some groups of people were inferior to others on the basis of religion, so maybe I would have focused on that, but I bet I'd have refused to answer.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think it doesn't hurt to ask. But in order to prove there is any correlation with the answers and future radicalization, you'd have to wait for a decade or so.

Yeah, it looks like a reasonable attempt to find out people's attitudes but without testing over time we don't know if it's meaningful.

I don't see that this is about profiling Muslims--I only see it mentioned once and that's a matter of what people identify as: In other words, it's whether they consider religion to be an important part of themselves.

 

[ronburgundy]

Seems like more invented outrage over nothing. The survey is the very opposite of racial profiling. It is attempting to acquire empirical data about individuals regarding beliefs, values, and perceptions that together might be and probably are predictive of religious radicals who view secular society as the enemy and view violence as a valid response to religious insult.