ABSTRACT
Research has shown that a young person’s situation at school and pupils’ relationships with their teachers have a clear impact on the processes that led to young people being radicalized. This chapter is based on a retrospective interview study with former neo-Nazis and their teachers at the time when they became involved in neo-Nazi organizations or milieus in Sweden. To better understand the logics of pedagogy and the result of their teachers’ decisions to intervene and confront their extremist beliefs and lifestyles, we have focused on two extensive case studies. The results show that the teachers’ attempts to isolate these students, and thereby contain the ‘problem,’ failed. Confrontations and strategies designed to discipline the students instead led to resistance and stigmatization. Reflecting on this situation today, both students and teachers agree that these confrontational strategies fueled the radicalization process.
