"We know that young people of school age can be exposed to extremist messages," warned Prime Minister Gordon Brown in a recent speech on national security.
The battle to stop religious extremism must start in schools and youth services, he said, before setting out a number of plans for achieving this goal. One proposal was to increase twinning of schools, so young people from particular backgrounds can meet students from other communities.
It's an approach that was endorsed last week by a study on extremism in the London Borough of Hounslow (CYP Now, 28 November-4 December). The research, by Coventry University's Institute of Community Cohesion, explored divisions in the borough. It found a lack of interaction between communities was helping to foster racist and religious extremism among young people.
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