Children who grow up in families who are affiliated with violent extremism and terrorism are frequently viewed through a security- oriented lens which focuses on their risk of radicalisation, or the security risk they may pose to society. This security-oriented approach limits a broader understanding of the multiple ways in which a child’s life may be impacted when an immediate family member is involved in terrorism. To rectify this, this paper high-lights the utility of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (EST) to systematically identify how this familial affiliation may impact the child’s life in diverse ways that extend beyond security- oriented outcomes. We demonstrate that EST is particularly useful because it allows us to systematically and holistically understand how the life of the child is impacted by familial association with a terrorist group in multiple spheres of their life (family, education, peer groups, etc.). We apply this approach to an example of a family who travelled to Syria in 2015 to join ISIS. This article demonstrates the utility of EST for researchers and practitioners to better under-stand the impact of familial involvement in terrorist groups on children moving away from more security-oriented approaches.
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