Building Belonging and Resilience to Hate in U.S. Classrooms through Project-Based Leadership and Peer-Learning

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Teachers College, Columbia University

First Presenter’s Email Address

Sabic-El-Rayess@exchange.tc.columbia.edu

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Dr. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess is an associate professor of practice in organization and leadership at Columbia University, Teachers College; Executive Director at the International Interfaith Research Lab; and a faculty member at Columbia’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies and Middle East Institute. Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess has published on a range of issues, including educational displacement, violence prevention, and radicalization. She has delivered 100+ invited lectures in more than 15 countries. She is a recipient of research grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships; Smith Richardson Foundation; the U.S. State Department; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; International Research and Exchange Board; and Women’s World Banking. Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess was awarded a 2021 Finalist Medal for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction by the American Library Association and Best Book recognition by School Library Journal, Malala Fund, Capitol Choices, and Children’s Center for Literature for her memoir, The Cat I Never Named (Bloomsbury, 2020) -- a defining text on resilience to hate and empowerment through education. Her next nonfiction contribution, Three Summers (Macmillan Publishers-FSG, 2024), is a story of resilience, belonging, and sisterhood in the three years leading up to the Bosnian Genocide.

Second Presenter's Institution

Teachers College, Columbia University

Second Presenter’s Email Address

vhj2103@tc.columbia.edu

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Vik Joshi is a Doctoral Student in the Philosophy and Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. He holds a B.A in Philosophy and Literature from Bard College (U.S) and an M.A in Biography and Creative Non-Fiction from the University of East Anglia (U.K). He has served on the faculty of the Bard Prison Initiative, teaching and advising in maximum and medium security prison in Up-State New York; taught as part of the Philosophy faculty at Fordham University; and held fellowships at the Center for Justice at Columbia University and within the inaugural cohort of Mr. Harry Belafonte's The Gathering for Justice. His research, which builds on Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess' novel theory of Educational Displacement, seeks to offer a robust philosophical account of resilience in schools alongside protective factors against violence such as belonging and storytelling. Inspired by Project Belonging's mission to build connected, compassionate, and caring student leaders who will unify their communities, Vik hopes to design a thoughtful learning experience for all our participants and build strong partnerships with organizations that seek to cultivate belonging in classrooms and schools.

Third Presenter's Institution

Teachers College, Columbia University

Third Presenter’s Email Address

slm2270@tc.columbia.edu

Third Presenter's Brief Biography

Shaune currently studies Cognitive Science in Education within the Department of Human Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was named as a Zankel Fellow in Fall 2023 and works with the Center for the Professional Education of Teachers to support educators in New York City Public Schools. Before coming to Teachers College, she taught AP English at a high school in Austin, Texas, after teaching English as a foreign language in Madrid, Spain through Comillas Pontifical University. She holds a BA in Professional Writing and Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, and firmly believes in the transformative power of storytelling. She joined the Project Belonging team to empower students in creating resilient, empathetic communities.

Submitter

I am submitting this proposal as one of the presenter(s)

Location

Scarbrough 3

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention

Relevance

Strand #1 (Heart: Social & Emotional Skills): In order to participate as effective learners and leaders within their communities, students must be equipped with the skills to connect and collaborate with their peers across racial, gender, ethnic, and religious identities. Dr. Amra-Sabic-El-Rayess’s research on Educational Displacement explains the ways students can build these abilities, through social-emotional practices that promote self-awareness, perspective-taking, diverse storytelling, and healthy friendships.

Strand #2 (Hands: Safety & Violence Prevention): In order to prevent violence within our school communities, educators must understand the root causes, as well as the pathways towards radicalization that can lead students to believe violence is their only option for addressing grievances. Dr. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess’s research describes how this process can begin with stereotyping, othering, and peer rejection. Project Belonging interrupts this process through student-led initiatives designed to build community resilience to violence and hatred, improving safety and preventing targeted violence.

Brief Program Description

When students experience Educational Displacement, they may feel invisible in classrooms and schools. Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess–author, Columbia University professor, and survivor of the Bosnian Genocide–and her team have developed an immersive, multimodal, and project-based training program called Project Belonging. Supported by Innovation Grants awarded by the Department of Homeland Security, Project Belonging strengthens local community resilience through student-led initiatives.

Summary

For 21st-century students coming of age in an environment of globalization and connectivity coupled with polarization precipitated by the use of digital media (Joshi & Sabic-El-Rayess, 2023), the ability to connect with peers across racial, gender, ethnic, and religious identities becomes essential to both leadership development and the cultivation of “resilience to hate (Sabic-El-Rayess, Joshi & Hruschka, 2024a).”

Dr. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, Columbia University professor, author, researcher, and survivor of the Bosnian Genocide, developed the Educational Displacement Model of Radicalization to illustrate the pathway by which a student shifts from an unaddressed grievance to committing an act of violence. This process begins with an experience of Educational Displacement. A student may become Educationally Displaced through an invisibility of representation, when they do not see themselves represented in stories read in the classroom, or through an invisibility of voice, when schools fail to provide opportunities to listen to students’ stories. These experiences can leave students feeling devalued and engender a lack of belonging felt in the learning environment. Educational Displacement can cause students to drop out of school, mentally “check out,” and even begin down a path of radicalization towards the belief that violence is their only option for addressing grievances (Sabic-El-Rayess, Joshi & Hruschka, 2024b).

To build resilience to hate, Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess and Vik Joshi have developed an innovative, multimodal training and experiential learning program called Project Belonging, designed to empower students to become changemakers who unify communities through the cultivation of belonging and resilience to hate. Session participants will engage with Project Belonging material, moving through key learning activities that will teach them how to integrate protective factors such as perspective-taking and diverse storytelling into their classrooms. By the end of the session, participants will understand the root causes of hatred and violence, protective factors that can build community resilience, and practical steps they can take to promote a sense of belonging within their school communities.

Evidence

Joshi V and Sabic-El-Rayess A (2023) Witnessing the Pathways of Misinformation, Hate, and Radicalization: A Pedagogic Response. In Parker L (ed) Education in the Age of Misinformation: Philosophical and Pedagogical Explorations. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 97-117.

Sabic-El-Rayess A, Joshi V and Hruschka T. (2024a) Building resilience to hate in classrooms: innovation in practice and pedagogy to prevent extremism and violence in US schools. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community: 1-19.

Sabic-El-Rayess, A., Joshi, V., & Hruschka, T. (2024b). The epistemology of extremism, bias, and violence in American schools: the shift from religious and racial profiling to social belonging and an identity-agnostic perspective. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 1-21.

Learning Objective 1

Participants will be able to explain the root causes of hatred and targeted violence.

Learning Objective 2

Participants will be able to identify protective factors that can build community resilience.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will be able to develop concrete plans for building students’ sense of belonging in schools.

Keyword Descriptors

Belonging, Resilience, Educational Displacement, Student-led, Project-based, Multimodal, Violence prevention, Safe schools, Leadership, Community

Presentation Year

2025

Start Date

3-3-2025 2:45 PM

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Mar 3rd, 2:45 PM

Building Belonging and Resilience to Hate in U.S. Classrooms through Project-Based Leadership and Peer-Learning

Scarbrough 3

When students experience Educational Displacement, they may feel invisible in classrooms and schools. Dr. Sabic-El-Rayess–author, Columbia University professor, and survivor of the Bosnian Genocide–and her team have developed an immersive, multimodal, and project-based training program called Project Belonging. Supported by Innovation Grants awarded by the Department of Homeland Security, Project Belonging strengthens local community resilience through student-led initiatives.