A Cross-Cultural Study of Children’s Understanding of Terrorists: “They Make the World Not Safe”

Abstract

Purpose

This study assesses children’s understanding of terrorists and the role of sociopolitical context in their conceptualizations. Gender and age effects also are explored.

Methodology

Children aged 5- to 12-years from the United States and Northern Ireland were interviewed using a semi-structured survey. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted.

Findings

The children conceptualized terrorists in terms of their actions, traits, motivations, and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Most understood what “terrorist” meant by age 9. American children were more apt than Northern Irish children to emphasize that terrorists can look like anybody. Gender was not related to conceptions of terrorists.

Research implications

The generalizability of the results should be made with caution as participant selection was limited. Future research on this topic should incorporate representative races, religions, and socioeconomic groups in the sample. Another limitation of the study is that the data were not collected concurrently in the two countries.

Practical implications

The findings have implications for human service professionals who can provide parents with empirically based information about what children understand about terrorists and give them the language to communicate with their children about acts of terrorism.

Originality/value

This study addresses a timely, yet understudied topic, capturing children’s understanding of terrorists in their own words. The research was conducted in two countries with different sociopolitical histories, which addresses the recent call for research on children’s conceptions of terrorists to occur from a cross-cultural perspective.

Citation

Blankemeyer, M., Walker, K. and Dellmann-Jenkins, M. (2014), "A Cross-Cultural Study of Children’s Understanding of Terrorists: “They Make the World Not Safe”", Soul of Society: A Focus on the Lives of Children & Youth (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 199-218. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120140000018019