Prevention of religious and ethnic extremism among young people: a review of the scientific discussions in 2020–2025

Currently, the problem of extremism and terrorism remains one of the most serious issues for both the international community and the Russian Federation. The methods of extremist influence have been changing intensively in the last two or three years, becoming more sophisticated and unexpected. Along with the law enforcement agencies, the scientific community is also facing new challenges in studying prevention of extremism. Many authors pay attention to extremism prevention among young people. The article examines the present-day images of young people, analyzes the characteristics of extremism among youngsters, and substantiates their connection with the socio-age and historical-cultural aspects. The paper explores the interaction between educational work and the efforts to prevent religious extremism and provides international experience in countering youth extremism. Special attention is paid to the formation of students’ civic position, developing comprehensive approaches to solving social problems and ensuring security in educational institutions. The author of the article examines the publications from three scientific citation databases: the Russian Science Citation Index, the Google Academy and the Russian State Library. In the years 2020–2025, the issue of preventing religious and ethnic extremism turns out to be of interest to the scholars of all stripes – to PhDs, candidates of political sciences, and those who have graduated from the master’s degree courses. The reason of the increased importance of this topic in recent years lies, on the one hand, in the current events that are causing new manifestations of extremism, and, on the other, in the interest of a wide range of researchers, who study the tight connection of extremism to many areas of society’s life.

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