Schools downplay neo-Nazi activity among students, study finds
Health professionals at Swedish schools in areas with strong far-right movements systematically minimize racism and extremism, dismissing obvious warning signs as local culture or isolated incidents. The finding suggests institutional blindspots that could allow radicalization to accelerate undetected—a critical gap for policymakers designing school safety and intervention programs.
Originaltitel: Schooling in the racist badlands: Health team professionals’ understanding of the problem of racist opinions and practices among students
<p>This study aimed to analyse how school health team professionals in geographical areas with a long tradition of neo-Nazi activism discursively conceptualise the problem of racism. The participants do not consider racism or neo-Nazi mobilisation to be a central problem at their schools. At the same time, they cited several examples of obvious expressions of neo-Nazi convictions among students. This discrepancy is explained in different capacities. Firstly, as the students are understood to have a mill-town mentality, certain behaviours are expected and excused. Secondly, to be seen as a problem, racist expression is also expected to be visual. A third factor is that the problem is individualised, focusing on one incident at a time.</p>