Hardwired Global: addressing bias and fear before teaching pluralism in Iraq
Josh Cass, FoRB in Education Case Studies
Hardwired Global’s work in Iraq begins from a different starting point than its counterparts. Rather than treating FoRB as a body of knowledge to be transmitted, the programme is built around the premise that bias, fear, and misconception about pluralism and human rights must first be identified and addressed. Hardwired’s largest programme, Promoting Pluralism Education Among Youth in Iraq, illustrates how this premise has been translated into a sustained, government-embedded training model.
Background and aims
The initial phase of the project ran from 2020 to 2023 in Mosul, where it reached ten Master Trainers (teachers trained specifically to train other teachers) and thirty Directorate Trainers (education officials trained to lead teachers in turn). From there, 750 teachers were trained, who in turn reached approximately 14,000 students (aged 10-17). A second phase extended the model into Iraqi Kurdistan, where eight Master Trainers trained 192 official education trainers, who went on to train 576 teachers reaching more a further 400 students aged 10-17. The cascading structure of the model is a deliberate design feature intended to embed sustainability and scale.
The primary aim of the project is to support the integration of pluralism education into teacher training and curricula. A secondary aim is to generate a robust, evidence-based model of teacher training, capable of demonstrating measurable impact among both teachers and students, that can support official expansion into additional schools across the region.
Alignment with FoRB Education Principles
The curriculum is grounded in human rights education and the provisions of the UDHR. Distinctively, teachers and students approach these instruments through a backward design method: participants first discover and articulate their own language for the rights they inherently possess, before encountering those rights as formally articulated in international documents. The intention behind this sequencing is to deepen understanding by anchoring abstract legal language in something participants have already worked out for themselves.
Hardwired’s approach to enabling students to learn about their own religion or belief, and those of others, is also distinctive. Teachers and students begin by exploring the concept of human dignity and inherent human rights, before extending that understanding to the nature of religion and religious practice among diverse people. This is done through a fictional simulation/roleplay which is intended to allow participants to learn how to interact with people who believe differently, and why every person has the right to their own beliefs and practices, before the discussion turns to real and potentially more sensitive examples from their own community. Following the simulation/roleplay, participants apply what they have learned to real-life scenarios drawn from their own context, at which point they begin to engage directly with the different religions and beliefs practised in their region. Hardwired reports that participants often emerge from this process with a stronger sense of confidence in their own beliefs and their ability to express them, alongside a greater willingness to engage respectfully with those who believe differently.
Discussions of freedom are embedded throughout the simulation/roleplay, the central challenge of which is to encourage participants to build arguments as to why a fictionalised group deserves equal human rights, and specifically freedom of religion or belief, and to articulate that argument in a way capable of building support and trust within their community.
Hardwired’s programme enables an articulation of human rights, including FoRB, throughout the programme rather than in a single session contributing to the goal of producing a conceptual change in how participants understand human rights, both for themselves and for others.
Ensuring take up and engagement
Hardwired’s model is built on a train-the-trainer approach, operating under formal authorisation from the Ministry of Education that allowed it to work directly with the Ministry’s official directorate of education trainers, designated teachers, and designated schools. Trainers were identified from within the Ministry itself, and once a cadre of effective teacher-trainers had been established, the organisation supported their efforts to replicate the training with classroom teachers.
In Mosul, the lessons delivered to students did not map onto any pre-existing curriculum; in Iraqi Kurdistan, there was likewise no established curriculum, though the work connected with the regional government’s own efforts to promote history and pluralism education.
Securing this level of institutional access was an extensive process. Hardwired needed to achieve official support from the Ministry of Education to operate within the school system and with trainers, a process that involved submitting training materials for government vetting, entering into a Memorandum of Understanding, and working alongside designated government officials to ensure effective delivery. The organisation’s track record, built over a sustained period, was pivotal in securing support from local officials, suggesting that trust built through prior, smaller-scale engagement can be a precondition for the kind of access needed to operate at scale.
A further, intentional design principle has been the need for a model that fits within local context without attempting to change people’s underlying beliefs or culture. Hardwired’s experience in Iraq is presented as evidence that understanding of, and respect for, FoRB can be advanced through an approach adaptable to local context, rather than one that requires importing an external framework wholesale.
Throughout the development and delivery, the programme provided sustained mentoring and support, recognising that addressing a teacher’s own bias, fears, and misconceptions about pluralism and human rights is a prerequisite for that teacher being able to apply what Hardwired Global describes as conceptual change pedagogy in the classroom. Training combined in-person and online elements, drawing on simulations and activities designed to model conceptual change pedagogy and best practice in teaching for pluralism.
At classroom level, staff oversaw the implementation of lessons, administered pre- and post-lesson surveys, and conducted interviews with both teachers and students as part of an evaluation process. The mentoring relationship continued for two years in each project location, providing the sustained support needed for teachers to genuinely change their practice and begin incorporating pluralism education into regular classroom routine, notably without requiring a formal change to the existing curriculum. Activities for students were designed to be engaging and participatory: simulations, artwork, and, notably, a theatrical play produced by students for their wider community.
