Jennie King on UK schools teaching children critical thinking skills to spot extremist content

ISD’s Director of Climate Disinformation Research and Policy Jennie King spoke to Nick Ferrari on LBC about children being taught to spot conspiracy theories and extremist content online in UK primary and secondary schools.

Jennie highlights how in an “unbelievably saturated information environment” critical thinking is a fundamental tool for navigating content. This is as true for young people as it is for adults because, as Jennie explains, “children in primary school are already consuming information whether that is online or offline.”

“Understanding yourself as a consumer; why are you seeking out information, how are you using that information to build a worldview, and are you able to unpack the agenda or motivations that might be behind those who are sharing information,” she said. Interrogating what sort of visceral emotion a piece of content it is attempting elicit can help to “sift between what might be credible and what might not be.”

However, Jennie adds that being persuaded or emotionally swayed is not necessarily an intrinsically negative quality. Another example she highlighted includes showing children a charity campaign and asking them to highlight the techniques used to make them want to donate. The underlying element of the activity is “identifying the techniques being used to engage them as a consumer.”

In addition to knowledge and competency testing, Jennie adds that “action research”, a collaborative approach to problem solving, is a useful measure of how successful teaching of these critical skills is in schools. By asking young people to create projects using critical thinking methods, educators “can see whether they have taken on the attitudes and knowledge to navigate this complicated information space.”

You can listen to the full episode here.