Education under the far right in Europe and its impact on global citizenship education

This article analyses the educational proposals of extreme right-wing parties that had significant representation in the European elections of June 2024. It seeks to investigate the parties’ educational project and its impact on global citizenship education. The methodology used is critical discourse analysis. The sample analysed focuses on the electoral programmes, campaign documents and public statements on education made by the leaders of these European extreme right-wing parties. The results show that their educational model follows similar patterns, replicated with different emphases on certain aspects though under the same general parameters. These include not only recovering traditional and xenophobic approaches, but also defending radical neoliberal educational policies, thus deepening the threat to the liberal order from extreme postulates. The conclusions point to the existence and progress of a common political agenda of the far right in education, albeit with different nuances and emphases. Discussions arise as to whether public education and education policy can still be configured as a space of debate to defend global citizenship education in a Europe shipwrecked by the rise of the extreme right. Thus, the questioning of the basic assumptions of education for development, human rights, sustainability, peace and intercultural education should be studied.