A decade or so ago, a strange rumour started doing the rounds among experts of Islamic radicalism. It had been suggested that a disproportionate number of Islamic radicals were engineers or scientists. However, no one had properly investigated this rumour or managed to substantiate it.

That was until a chance meeting between two scholars at a dinner in Oxford: Steffen Hertog, associate professor of comparative politics at the London School of Economics, and Diego Gambetta, professor of social theory at the European University Institute, Florence, and official fellow of Nuffield College at the University of Oxford.

During the course of their conversation, the engineering rumour came up and their interest was piqued. They decided to investigate. The outcome of their investigation was published in the book Engineers of Jihad: the curious connection between violent extremism and education earlier this year.

After analysing research from across the globe, Hertog and Gambetta established that the rumour was indeed true - a disproportionate number of engineers do go on to become Islamic radicals.

The duo argue that their findings are down to two factors.

“One that pertains to the Islamic world is the very high status and demanding nature of engineering and medical studies,” says Dr Hertog.

“These subjects attract the most ambitious, hardest-working people and those are the people who tend to be the most frustrated when their hopes and aspirations don’t work out.”

He adds that because large parts of the Islamic world have been mired in economic crisis for decades, this has caused a lack of social mobility, limiting opportunities for this particular group of people.

Social frustration

For jihadis born in the West, the data suggests a different trait.

“The research found that jihadis born in the West tend to be less well educated and are more socially marginal than jihadis in the Muslim world,” says Dr Hertog.

“If you get a degree in the West, for the most part, you have a reasonable chance of social advancement, so you don’t have those masses of frustrated graduates.

“It’s more the case that people [in the West who turn to jihad] are socially frustrated because they don’t have proper education, they’re socially marginal and they’re more drifters.”

The engineering link still comes through strongly across the globe, though, and the second factor that the pair identified as the reason for this is slightly more controversial: Hertog and Gambetta put forth an argument that there is a particular set of personality traits that tend to be more commonplace among engineers, such as the need for closure.

“Most of the traits we’ve identified are quite deep seated,” says Dr Hertog.

“They’re developed very early on and to some extent inherited rather than shaped by the social environment. So, in other words, studying engineering doesn’t nurture those traits - it’s more that because you have those traits you might be attracted to engineering.

“We argue that there must be something based on personality [linking to Islamic radicalism] because we found that in the radical political right, all around the world there is an over-representation of engineers and on the radical political left there is an under-representation,” he continues. “This phenomenon is universal - it can’t be explained by social context because it applies in Europe, North America, Latin America and in the Islamic world - so we can infer from that that there must be something about certain individuals who get attracted to certain ideologies.”

I wouldn’t say that people who take maths or science are more likely to be radicalised

A common misconception about terrorism is that it is something only uneducated people are attracted to, as they fail to rationalise the consequences or understand the issues. Dr Hertog’s findings point out the flaws in that argument.

At a broad level, the research could be a timely reminder for teachers to be aware that all of their students could be at risk of radicalisation, regardless of their ability or background.

Dr Hertog is, however, cautious about his research being used by educators.

“We’re very wary about profiling people and identifying risk groups,” he says.

“I wouldn’t say that people who take maths or science are more likely to be radicalised because we just don’t have any data on that.

“But very broadly speaking, in terms of personality traits, we’ve identified that a significant population of radicals have a need for closure, a desire for certainty and for a predictable environment. I don’t know how you would identify that among pupils, but in terms of counter-radicalisation efforts [in the classroom], perhaps highlighting things like the uncertainty that the chaos that results from Islamist radicalism would help counteract the attractiveness of it.”

He urges teachers and others to see his research as just the first step towards identifying personality traits of jihadis.

Education data is vital

“We’re not saying that we’ve found the smoking gun of the exact personality profile that would cause someone to become radicalised,” says Dr Hertog.

Instead, he believes more work is needed to establish a more precise understanding, perhaps undertaking “deep-dive” case studies of individual jihadis and potentially using more data around education, as it is as robust a set of information as is available on this particular group of individuals.

“One of the few data points we have on radicals, apart from basic things like age, nationality and gender, is the level and type of education,” says Dr Hertog. “Which is why we clung to this because we thought it was something that was fairly widely available, comparable to a certain extent across countries and one of the few hard pieces of data that might also be revealing, both of personality traits and socioeconomic backgrounds.”

For that reason, it is likely that education will continue to be used as a vehicle and filter for those making efforts to prevent terrorism.

Simon Creasey is a freelance journalist. He tweets at @simoncreasey2