Anja GIUDICI

Lecturer in Education, Cardiff University UK

Education is not inherently liberal or equal – it is political. Far-right parties across Europe are seeking to reshape education to reflect their illiberal, nationalist and authoritarian values, capitalising on discontent with the current provision. Offering alternatives is important both politically and to defend the democratic and equalising function of education.

Education is often described as an inherently liberalising and equalising force. But it is not. A wealth of research shows that, depending on how they are designed, education systems can either promote democratic, tolerant and progressive cultures, or illiberalism and authoritarianism. Economically, education systems can enhance equality or reinforce and legitimise hierarchies and discrimination. They can provide staff with secure and fulfilling employment in classrooms, canteens, and school buses – or, as is increasingly the case after decades of austerity, exacerbate their precariousness and insecurity.

The design of education has vital, politically relevant, cultural and economic implications. Research shows that, as a result, parties have developed distinctive approaches to it. Until recently, this research largely overlooked the far right, assuming its focus lay solely with migration. However, the surge in popularity of far-right parties across Europe and their entry into parliaments and governments means they now have the power to legislate on all issues, including education. This development has rekindled interest in the question: how does the far right approach education? 

Recent research shows that far-right parties have primarily approached education as a cultural policy issue. These parties have most benefited from and contributed to immigration being linked to public policy issues such as security and the labour market. Since the 1980s, they have used schools as yet another example of how immigration and multiculturalism cause discord and lower standards to the detriment of the ‘native’ population. This framing exploits real difficulties schools face in providing opportunities for minority pupils, but places the blame on minorities themselves – immigrant minorities in Western Europe and national minorities in Eastern Europe.

Cultural values bind together the economically diverse electorate of far-right parties. The need to appeal to different economic constituencies may explain why the far right has used its platforms to drag education deeper into the culture wars, broadening the focus from immigration to religion and gender. But the focus on the cultural implications of education is not just an electoral strategy. When elected to government, far-right parties have worked to reshape education to disseminate conservative values. The Italian government, led by far-right Giorgia Meloni, recently reallocated funds earmarked for sex and relationship education to teacher training on infertility prevention. Fratelli d’Italia, Meloni’s party, now wants to require parental consent for any activity relating to ‘sexuality, affectivity, or ethics’, to limit ‘the dissemination of distorted cultural models’. In Hungary, the Fidesz government has rewritten the official curriculum to emphasise nationalist pride and religious values. It has also banned gender studies degrees from higher education.

But education is not just about culture. By determining who has access to more or less prestigious types of education and qualifications, education systems also distribute benefits and opportunities to different groups in society. Comparative analysis shows that far-right parties are less united in their approach to the economic aspects of education than they are on cultural aspects. 

Consider attitudes towards the educational role of parents, private providers, and the state. Some parties, such as Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, advocate a strong state sector that limits parental choice. They argue that only strict testing and hierarchical differentiation between academic and vocational routes, and between mainstream and special educational needs provision, can ensure opportunities are allocated based on merit. Other far-right parties, such as Reform UK or the Spanish Vox, embrace private schooling and parental choice. Still others teeter between positions. In the 1980s, the Front National was the only French party to advocate providing parents with vouchers to spend on either private or state schooling, aiming to disrupt the latter. Nowadays, it calls for a strong, hierarchically structured public education system, with greater state control over programmes and textbooks.

These positions seem contradictory. However, if designed accordingly, both hierarchical differentiation and parental choice can reinforce cultural and status inequalities, which the far right deems natural and positive. In the United States, far-right movements historically fought to reinforce hierarchies and segregation within public education. However, after losing power from the mid-1960s onwards, they started promoting and implementing parental choice, vouchers, and homeschooling as alternative means of maintaining racially segregated and religious education. Now the movement has reached the federal government, it is again using state power to reform public schooling – and private universities.

Another key feature of far-right parties’ approach to education is that they engage with it in ways that extend beyond the institutional channels of electoral campaigns, parliaments and governments. Historical studies show that, even when education did not feature prominently in their manifestos, far-right parties devoted considerable effort to organising students, teachers and parents, and to providing education themselves. This continues to be the case today.

These efforts have a dual purpose. First, they intend to change education from the bottom up. Among other recent campaigns, far-right groups have threatened individual teachers in Germany, mobilised parents to protest sex education in Germany, France, and the UK, and established an institute for higher education in France. Second, parents, students and teachers often care deeply about education, and organising in and around schools enables the far right to exploit their dissatisfaction with local educational provisions. At least in some cases, this strategy seems to be working. While some parties remain hostile towards teachers – Reform UK’s Nigel Farage recently declared he would ‘go to war with teaching unions’ –, others, such as the Rassemblement National, have reached out to them. In the 2024 French elections, a record number of teachers voted for the far right, prompting analysts to suggest that “the state left that served as a resource for left-wing parties since the 1980s has largely disappeared, including in education”.

Education can promote both equality and inequality, democratic and authoritarian values. Since the knowledge revolution, education qualifications have become a make-or-break factor in the labour market, turning education into a key issue for voters and an increasingly important determinant of partisanship. Allowing those who openly oppose liberal and democratic values to shape this policy area and exploit discontent is dangerous. The good news is that research finds substantial agreement among the parties who subscribe to liberal-democratic values on a range of policies, from expanding early-childhood education to advancing civic participation in curricula and equalising opportunities. Offering an alternative to far-right visions of education is crucial both politically and if we are to preserve and enhance the democratic, liberalising and equalising function of education.

Photo credits: Shutterstock.com/Firn