Education as a New Battleground for the Far Right

Far-right parties are typically associated with anti-immigration rhetoric and policies – often referred to as a “niche issue”. In recent years, however, far-right parties and politicians have become progressively more interested in educational policy, which is anything but niche.

In 2022 in the US, Republican presidential candidate and governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, introduced the “Parental rights in education act” and the “Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act”. While the first act enables parents to file legal challenges against school teaching to which they personally object, and have the sued school or district pay for the lawsuits, the second act essentially prohibits instruction on race relations or gender diversity. Similarly, in India, the ruling populist radical right party, Bharatiya Janata Party, has made a concerted effort “to distort the curriculum to promote a monocultural view of the country's past and present”.

The educational system has also been put under political pressure in European countries, where the far right governs. In Hungary, state auditors claims that the country’s educational system is “too feminine” and that it causes problems for the mental health of boys and for the national economy. In Italy, Georgia Meloni’s Minister of Education and Merit, Guiseppe Valditara, opposes what he sees as “the damaging progressive cultural hegemony in society and the school curriculum”, most notably so-called “gender propaganda”. In most European countries, however, far-right parties have not yet been in government, which means we know less about their educational policies. How do contemporary populist radical right parties envisage the educational system?

Systematic analysis of educational policies

In a recent journal article, we looked more systematically at the educational policies of populist radical right parties (PRRP) in Western Europe. While previous research suggests that these parties are largely uninterested in educational policies, we find that they do pay attention to educational policies in their manifestos. Although some parties only devote a bit more than 1 percent to education, others use more than 6 percent of the text to elaborate their preferences. PRRPs focus particularly on content, but also emphasize aspects related to the redistributive (the availability of the education systems to foster inclusiveness and social mobility) and governing dimension (the overall organizational structure of the education sector and the extent to which this sector should be autonomous).

Consistent with core ideologies

In terms of substantive positions, our results show that PRRPs favor education policies that are clearly in line with their key ideological features of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism.

In terms of nativism, almost all parties promote policies that aim to strengthen national values, language, culture, or history in school. For example, the Finnish party, Perussuomalaiset, states, “We consider it important that schools promote Finnish values and culture and emphasize the importance of Finnishness”. Some parties also want to limit the proportion of foreigners or immigrants in schools/classes, increase fees for international students, roll-back Europeanization of education through re-nationalization, and close Islamic schools.

Regarding authoritarianism, policies are mainly related to grants or scholarships and include some sort of “punishment” of the students who do not complete their studies within the expected timeframe. A few parties also put forward centralizing policies that could be linked to authoritarianism: Alternative für Deutschland wants to control the themes on which research is conducted, whereas the United Kingdom Independence Party wants to give teacher training courses a radical overhaul. Moreover, several policies promoted by PRRPs can be linked to ideas coming from New Public Management, such as increased privatization, more choice, and more differentiation, which all contribute to the preservation of existing social hierarchies.

When it comes to populism, PPRPs tend to promote the idea that education should be “useful” (i.e., lead to a specific job), that there should be more physical activity in schools, that the system should put more emphasis on natural sciences and technology; and that the education system should create “critical human beings” who can think independently. Not surprisingly, a common feature among PRRP parties is that they want to prioritize or expand vocational educational training (VET) systems as an alternative to higher education. Other policies related to populism that are supported by some parties include preservation of small schools and/or policies that aim to reduce class or school size. Finally, and contrary to centralizing policies, some parties support the increased autonomy of educational institutions and favor less bureaucracy.

In opposition to current education systems

Overall, our results clearly show that PRRPs’ policies promote illiberal content and less redistribution. Regarding the governing dimension, however, the policy position is more mixed: some policies point towards centralization (those related to nativism and authoritarianism), while others point towards decentralization (those related to populism). As a result, the preferences derived from their ideological roots make PRRPs stand in opposition to several of the foundational values of Western European education systems, such as open-mindedness, equality, respect, and personal autonomy. However, this does not mean that PRRPs only hold positions that no other party families would support. Some of the positions that we found in our data, such as favoring privatization, segmentation or upholding morally conservative values, might resonate with Conservative or Christian-Democratic parties that also tend to support authoritarianism in education. However, the combination of the three ideological roots and the resulting policy profiles make educational preferences of the populist radical right unique.

Two strategies

In their opposition to many of the fundamental values of Western European education systems, PRRPs combine two strategies. First, they try to influence the values that are taught to tomorrow’s voters by promoting policies that fundamentally challenge central values enshrined in education systems, such as opposition towards diversity, and suggest alternative normative foundations. This speaks to recent arguments, that education systems’ initial emergence  - starting with Prussia in 1763 - and expansion through the state during the early Nineteenth Century sought mainly to mold citizens’ political values, and to arguments in the curriculum studies literature, where the importance of educational content has been highlighted as a tool to form a "good society".

Second, they combine this anti-system strategy with political tools that provide parents more veto opportunities regarding educational content. This is a populist-informed strategy to protect their core constituencies from unwanted educational interventions, by empowering parents against teachers and the educational system. This helps to create protected pockets in the education system that ensure that PRRP ideological values continue to be transmitted to future generations, which in turn secures PRRPs’ future electoral survival.

Lessons learned

Understanding how education has become a new battle ground for the far right should be of interests to scholars of education policies and the far right alike. For one thing, the combination of the increased salience of education, a clear ideological program, and the growing political relevance of PRRPs across Western Europe calls into question earlier findings, which highlighted increased partisan convergence in this policy area. By opening a political debate on the content of education even without having a majority, PRRPs might shift the political debate on selected values underpinning educational systems.

For another, our analysis emphasized that PRRPs actively adopt frames and labels that are part of the mainstream discourse, which is by no means unique to the field of education. The best example in our analysis is their position in favor of critical thinking, which in the context of PRRPs is often linked to questioning the fundamental values of liberal Western European education. This form of “liberal illiberalism” can help making their positions more acceptable for voters. Moreover, this dilutes the meaning of these labels, and opens political competition over the definitory power over what is a desirable expression of critical thinking in education.