Securitizing Education: From Post-Cold War Optimism to Trumpian Realities

Professor Mario Novelli, Professor of the Political Economy of Education, University of Sussex.

Hosted by the Centre for Identities and Social Justice

This paper traces schematically, the shifting relationship between education and security from the post-Cold War era to the contemporary moment. In the 1990s, education was widely framed as a vehicle for economic and social development, embedded within (neo)liberal internationalist discourses that promised freedom and stability through democratisation and economic growth. Over time, these optimistic narratives have given way to securitisation logics that position education as a tool for managing risk, controlling populations, and pacifying dissent. Drawing on critical political economy and securitisation theory, the paper interrogates how global education agendas have been reconfigured under the influence of security imperatives, from counter-extremism programmes to resilience-building initiatives. It examines the role of international organisations, donor states, private actors and schooling systems in advancing policies that blur the boundaries between pedagogy and policing. The analysis culminates in the Trump era, where nationalist and authoritarian tendencies further destabilised multilateral frameworks abroad, amplifying the instrumentalisation of education for security ends, and censoring, repressing and reconfiguring education at home. Finally, drawing on insights from Laboratories of Learning (Novelli et al, 2025), the paper argues that when states and political leaders retreat from commitments to progressive social change, civil society and social movements become critical arenas for democratic renewal and social transformation. Education—especially non-formal and popular forms—remains central to these processes, offering spaces for critical consciousness and collective agency that challenge the narrowing logics of securitisation and open possibilities for more socially just and peaceful futures.

Professor Mario Novelli is Professor of the Political Economy of Education at the University of Sussex. His research interrogates the intersections of education, conflict, and global governance, critically examining how international education agendas are shaped by security imperatives, geopolitics, and global inequalities. Over the past two decades, Mario has published extensively on education in conflict-affected contexts, peacebuilding, and the securitisation of education, offering a distinctive historical and political lens on the evolution of global education policy.

https://www.gold.ac.uk/identity-social-justice/

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