Schooling in the racist badlands: health team professionals’ understanding of the problem of racist opinions and practices among students

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• school professionals
• pedagogy
• democracy
• Neo-Nazism

Introduction

Following the 1946 School Commission’s report, Swedish schools have been assigned the task of fostering democracy and combating totalitarian ideas, including racism. The report states the following:

It can be demanded from the citizen in a democratic society that a critical mindset should be well developed, that enables resistance of moral corruption. The democratic society has no use of unoriginal people. (SOU, 1948, p. 27 p.4, our translation).

This reform, introduced as a result of the devastating events of the Second World War and the Holocaust, gave a new outset for the Swedish educational system, fostering democratic citizens in a spirit of equality. This reform has been followed by numerous others, all sharing the same goal of combating xenophobia, racism, and bigotry.

The ways in which these reforms have been implemented and understood by those expected to implement them (teachers, principals, and others), has varied, however. This is partly because racism, as a phenomenon, has been conceptualised differently at different times, ranging from a focus on racist opinions expressed by individuals/pupils, to the role of racist structures embedded in society (Mattsson, 2018). This historical variation also partly relates to changing (read increased) expectations put on Swedish schools to fulfil this task. Following the rise of the skinhead movement and the so-called white power movement in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, for example, schools were not only obliged to counter racism, as before, but also to prevent racist social practices in all forms and recruitment to right-wing extremist groups. When Sweden adopted its first national action plan to prevent violent extremism in 2010, “first-line” professions, such as teachers and health team workers in schools, were even deployed to identify signals among individuals who may be at risk of becoming radicalised (Mattsson, 2018; Sivenbring & Andersson Malmros, 2019). Although it can be concluded that there is a historical continuity in the ways great responsibilities have been placed on Swedish school staff to deal with racism, it remains unclear how racism is understood and conceptualised as a problem by school professionals, if identified at all. Arneback and Jämte (2021) have also shown that teachers understand racism in very different ways.

Research that in any capacity investigates how school professionals understand and are affected by long-term open racism is scarce. There are different reasons for this, one being that the prevention of racism within the education system often has come to focus on educational efforts to teach students about racist structures and so-called unintentional racist behaviours (Arneback & Jämte, 2021; Kinloch & Dixon, 2017). Although such measures may be relevant, the focus on educational campaigns may partially obscure school professionals’ own understandings of racism and their ability to identity and deal with such occurrences. Health professionals may, for example, not typically perceive and define an effort to deal with students as a form of intervention to counter racism per se, but instead as an effort done as a part of ongoing didactical choices mobilised or deployed when something—a critical situation—occurs. Furthermore, since the introduction of efforts to prevent violent extremism, challenges such as extreme racism and neo-Nazism have come to be viewed as playing out at the individual level in a highly idiosyncractic fashion and addressed accordingly (Mattsson, 2018). Following this, as a second reason, the enabling environment and socio-geographical context in which racism and problems with racism manifest themselves have often remained side-lined in the scholarly debate. This is paradoxical as research has shown that hardcore racist organisations and milieus resurface repeatedly, over time, within the same geographical areas (Demker, 2014; Lööw, 2004, 2015), impacting not only students, but also those working to counteract such expression. Thus, we argue that these phenomena cannot be understood solely as problems of individual students that teachers can deal with by addressing individuals and deploying preventive measures (Blombäck, 2017; Lööw, 2004, 2015).

Following this line of thought, the current study focuses on schools located in geographical areas with a long tradition of neo-Nazi activism. Arguably, schools in such areas constitute relevant cases due to their location as they are likely to encounter racist opinions and practices, presenting challenges for school professionals to counter racism in their work. Three schools in three areas were selected. Interviews with representatives of the schools’ health teams, consisting of headmasters, counsellors, nurses, and special teachers, were subsequently conducted. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse how school health team professionals—working in geographical areas with a tradition of extensive neo-Nazi activism—understand and discursively conceptualise the problem of racism among students in school, and how these understandings impact their approaches to dealing with racism in general, and recruitment to neo-Nazi groups more specifically; hence, racism is within this study understood as part of the challenge of countering recruitment to neo-Nazi movements. As school health teams are directly connected to the leadership of the schools and are also a key group in addressing questions on violence, radicalisation, and different kinds of harassment, we have chosen to focus on this professional group. Rather than analysing the significance of the participants’ different roles in the schools, or the differences and similarities between the schools, we have considered how racism and racist practices are discursively debated by school professionals. Studying their ways of thinking on how to address and work with these issues will help us to understand how work against racism and neo-Nazism is understood and problematised. The study was guided by the following research questions (RQs):

• RQ1: In what ways do the participants describe the socio-cultural and geographical areas in which the schools are situated?

• RQ2: How do the participants talk about and understand racism and neo-Nazism in the school environment and what constitutes such expressions/opinions?

• RQ3: How is the problem of racism, if identified, approached by the schools concerning students’ behaviour, and the long-term presence of neo-Nazi organisations in the school’s catchment area?

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section presents the background of the study, situating it concerning existing literature. Then, we describe the theoretical and methodological framework for the study, as well as the research design. This is followed by a presentation and analysis of the findings, consisting of three parts, in which the RQs are addressed sequentially. In the concluding section, the main findings of the study are brought together and linked to the theoretical framework, addressing the overall aim of the study.

Background and literature

Since this study focuses on both perceptions of racism and experiences of neo-Nazism as pedagogical challenges, we have screened the research field accordingly. Countering racism is not the same as countering violent extremism, such as neo-Nazi recruitment, but they obviously overlap. In our study, countering racism is understood as a component of countering neo-Nazism, given the geographical areas in which the three schools are situated.

As stated earlier, research on schools’ long-term work against racism is scarce. However, the interest is increasing, and some studies have contributed greatly towards putting this topic on the academic agenda. For example, Davies (2016a, 2016b) has studied different efforts to counter violent extremism in educational systems and concerning the UK’s prevention strategy. Her research highlights the importance of tackling violence and racism in schools by promoting a human rights-centric culture that accommodates both human security and national security. Davies also notes that ingrained social practices that generate undesirable behaviours and attitudes cannot be changed with any kind of quick fix. Violent extremism and racism within education are instead described as a “wicked problem” (2016a). This problem is multi-layered, and she suggests that all one can do to deal with it is to loosen up the problem and create a space that permits a broad range of options for action to emerge. Davies is critical of centralised, undifferentiated policies that are based on outdated ideas that, for example, suggest that predetermined values can be inculcated in students. Instead, she argues that knowledge and understandings that are deeply rooted within social practices should be brought to the fore through value pluralism, working with enabling constraints of human rights, the building of students’ confidence and resilience, and through building networks of social change (Davies, 2010, 2016a).

Following this line of argument, Oser et al. (2006) claim that pedagogical interventions deployed to reduce recruitment to right-wing extremist groups have often had limited success, especially those that tend to focus only on changing ideologies and values. They argue that racism and extremism are rooted in social practices and society in general. Consequently, a relatively wide context must be included and understood by those performing the intervention. Furthermore, Carlsson and Fangen (2012) make a similar point, emphasising the importance of avoiding any form of intervention that may serve to pinpoint “students at risk” in such a way that the intervention itself creates a negative identity for these students. There are also indications that schools have unintentionally contributed to the reproduction of extremist racist social practices (Ezekiel, 2002; Pedersen et al., 2003). Extant research suggests that the relationship between racism/extremism and gender, for example, has been largely about men and masculinity (Fangen, 1998; Kimmel, 2007). Scholars have repeatedly emphasised that racist subcultures and expressions can be linked to ethnocentrism, violence, and masculinity (Perho, 2000; Sela-Shayovitz, 2011). However, although research shows that those who are recruited by extremist organisations tend to be young males, it is important to acknowledge that young women are recruited as well, despite it being less researched. The importance of meeting the individual’s needs, not making judgemental statements, and focusing on behaviour rather than on ideological factors or a particular mindset has also been addressed in scholarly debates (Ezekiel, 1995, 2002).

Regarding school professionals’ work, Arneback and Jämte (2021) conducted a study on 27 teachers in Sweden who work in different ways to counteract racism. Their study reveals that teachers employ a broad palette of actions to deal with racism:

While some teachers emphasize the need to counter individual students’ expressions of racism, others work to challenge social norms of exclusion, institutional discrimination, monocultural learning environments or internalized restrictions. The complexity of the problem calls for a wide range of anti-racist actions, something that our data also showed. No single approach has the potential to address all manifestations of racism. Instead, teachers have developed various approaches to counter different forms of racism that address different targets of change. (Arneback & Jämte, 2021, p. 206)

In their study, racism is described as a practice that manifests itself both in educational settings and in Swedish society (p. 206; see also Davies, 2016a, 2016b). They present a theoretically informed typology consisting of six forms of actions: emancipatory, norm-critical, intercultural, democratic, relational, and knowledge-focused. Instead of simply focusing on racism as a problem with a one-dimensional solution, the typology, thus, offers an increased understanding of the variety of ways in which racism has been addressed in the school context and in relation to a societal context. Though this typology can provide significant insights to understand the problem of racism in school and how predominantly “problem students” are handled/dealt with, such models are limited in their ability to capture processes and socio-geographical changes.

To conclude this section, large parts of relatively early research in this area have concentrated on how to “solve” the problem of anti-democratic and racist tendencies among high school students. Conversely, to these policy-oriented and intervention studies, our contribution lies in taking one step back and reflecting upon how these types of “problems” are framed and understood by the professionals in schools, if identified at all. The contribution thus lies in a reflexive approach regarding how everyday racism, neo-Nazism, and other violent extremism is understood by school professionals and how such understandings possibly, but not necessarily, transform into formal or informal pedagogical interventions.

Methodological framework—What’s the problem?

To study the professional gaze and the ongoing construction of meaning and categorisations in schools, we will turn to Carol Bacchi’s discussion on how social problems are framed and problematised (Bacchi, 2004, 2008, 2015, 2017). Bacchi introduces an approach to policy analysis called “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” (WPR approach). Using this approach, we will investigate how taken-for-granted views on school problems are framed and how issues are conceptualised as “problems” (Bacchi, 2015). The WPR approach focuses on how we are governed, and on how professionals tend to frame “problems” in specific ways that produce a certain type of discursive knowledge. Bacchi is heavily influenced by Foucault’s discussion of governmentality and individualisation (Foucault, 1978). In line with Foucault, she studies how citizens are disciplined and governed through individualisation processes targeting their bodies. This critical view of governmentality implies that individuals are self-regulated and free, which implies that their risk-taking behaviours are targeted, leaving other socio-cultural circumstances and structural factors out of the equation.

How problems are framed and discussed in an organisation are central to the governing process. Bacchi writes, “Therefore, we need to direct our attention away from assumed ‘problems’ and their ‘solutions’ to the shape and character of problematizations, posing a major challenge to the current, dominant paradigm of evidence-based policy” (Bacchi, 2015, p. 132). This study is thus not primarily interested in how “problems” can be fixed, but how certain issues are presented as “problems.”

A WPR approach starts with the question of how a certain “problem” is represented and framed at the policy level. Thereafter, the following questions are asked:

• What key concepts and categories are used in a specific problem representation?

• Is it possible to trace the genealogy of the problem representation, that is, the historical background?

• What is not problematised in a specific problem representation?

• What implications follow upon a certain problem representation?

• What practices and sites are involved in the production of a particular problem representation? (Bacchi, 2015, pp. 132–133).

The questions in the WPR approach can be used either systematically or as part of a more integrated analysis. In this study, we could not know beforehand whether the professionals in the three schools saw recruitment to neo-Nazi groups, or implicit and explicit racism, as a problem. We did, however, know that the selected schools were situated in geographical areas with a tradition of extensive neo-Nazi activism and racist presence. Consequently, we did not follow Bacchi’s questions to the point, but rather allowed the questions to inform our semi-structured approach to qualitative investigation while interviewing the participants on their understandings of racism, racism in school, their local and societal environment, and more.

Bacchi (2004) distinguishes between the extent to which we “are” in discourses and the extent to which we “use” discourses. We are all located in institutions and are thereby highly influenced and formatted by central discourse. Stepping outside hegemonic discourses on—in this case—pedagogical and social welfare approaches to students’ health is difficult, but not impossible. Bacchi writes, “Rather we need to reflect upon the extent to which we are all ‘in’ discourses that shape and limit the possibilities of ‘what can be said’, without suggesting that discourses are monolithic and that contestation is impossible. A study of discourse involves a dual problem: what the subject is able to say and what the subject is permitted to say” (Bacchi, 2004, p. 143). Policies and problematisations affect people and their lives, but also, largely, constitute who we are. Therefore, we should ask ourselves: What does a certain policy deem to be a reasonable and effective intervention? How does this produce people as subjects?

Materials and methods

This article is part of a large research project in which qualitative measures and an institutional ethnography approach to the research have been applied, focusing on both school professionals’ and students’ perceptions and experiences of racism. However, for this particular study we focused on the perspectives of health team professionals, consisting of headmasters, school counsellors and nurses, and special teachers, focusing on their experiences of racism in school and their task to counter such expressions. The data presented here are based solely on the interview material.

Concerning the selection of schools, the Segerstedt Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden (which is a national resource centre that aims to contribute to the development of knowledge on how to prevent violent ideologies, violent structures, and racist organisations), in cooperation with Expo (an anti-racist foundation in Sweden), has developed a model for analysing neo-Nazi social practices and presence over time, resulting in the creation of a list of 35 municipalities in Sweden with a long-standing history of continuously high levels of National Socialism and racist social practices (Blombäck, 2017). From this list and for this study, three geographical areas were selected, based on them having: a) recognised that they have a particular challenge concerning the reproduction of racist social practices and the mobilisation of neo-Nazi groups; b) developed some sort of mechanism to counter the problem, such as policy documents, particularly concerning teaching or structured interventions. The selected areas and schools were named Longfield, Shortfield, and Broadfield.

All three schools are located in traditional mill towns built around a dominating industrial plant. They share a history of economic deprivation and low socioeconomic standards. The areas in which the schools are located further have a history of being meeting places for skinheads and neo-Nazi activists, and there have been several leading activists living in these areas. The areas also represent, to varying degrees, strongholds for the neo-Nazi movement in Europe and the National Socialist movement. These problems are generally recognised, and different preventative measures have been employed by the schools to handle their task of counteracting racism.

Schools in areas with a historically high presence of everyday racism constitute interesting institutions that allow rich and nuanced portraits (Pearson & Hobbs, 2003; Yin, 2014). In these schools, the problem of everyday racism is accentuated and recurring, which makes it possible to investigate not only professionals’ general understandings of racism and their task to counter such expressions, but also how they de facto have to meet and deal with expressions of racism in their daily work (see previous section on methodological framework). Everyday racism is defined as multiple acts and cumulative acts of insults/assaults based on “race” (Eliasoph, 1999; Essed, 1991; Walton et al., 2013). Everyday racism cannot be reduced to incidents or separate events, and its analysis requires a more systematic approach to people’s everyday behaviour. Everyday racism is integrated into the mechanisms, the routines, and the very fabric of everyday life (Gaudio & Bialostok, 2005). Everyday racism is also evident in the prevalent idea of an ongoing “replacement” of white people and an unstoppable mass invasion of immigrants.

Our selection of schools also makes it possible not only to address the schools’ tasks but also to study how the work against racism can be situated within a wider sociocultural and geographical context. In each of the schools, we interviewed the headmaster, the counsellor, the school nurse, and one or two special teachers. Together, these professionals form the so-called student health teams at each school, which are responsible for forming and deciding how each school is to address the task of countering any form of racism. We interviewed 10 professionals in total, one from each of the aforementioned categories, from all schools except the Broadfield School, in which we interviewed two special teachers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the participants (two men and eight women, aged between 35 and 56 years) were interviewed individually using Zoom. Interviews were semi-structured in that the questions dealt with specific themes (such as participants’ work experience, understanding of the community, experiences of racism in school, thoughts on preventative measures, and more). We asked the participants what sorts of expressions of the everyday racism they had experienced through their work and how such expressions were dealt with. We also asked about their contacts with parents, their understanding of the local community, and more. The interviews, each of which was about one hour long, were recorded and transcribed verbatim.

When analysing the interview material, our primary focus was on the participants’ descriptions and ways of talking about expressions of racism in school and how such expressions were dealt with. Methodologically, the ambition was to capture the participants’ subjective experiences and subsequently place them within the particularity of the geographical context in which such expressions (and the problem) arose (see the analytical framework for further information on data analysis). All the names and places mentioned were anonymised to ensure confidentiality. Formal ethical approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority.

Results

The mill-town mentality

The participants all had a clear understanding of the sociocultural status of the environments surrounding the schools and acknowledged that as the backdrop to explain why and how the social situation and the learning conditions played out particularly in each of the schools. Their expectations of students’ capabilities and prerequisites to be successful in school were often rather low, which was related to the locations of the schools. Pernilla, a special teacher in Longfield, said the following:

Well, we have a rough neighbourhood, considering the socioeconomic standard, a lot … how to put it, well it is an old mill town// … a lot of people work at the factory. There are not many academic backgrounds, so to speak. Neither do we find too many students with immigrant backgrounds. There are some with academic backgrounds, but more than anything we have a lot of students where many welfare institutions are involved [referring to the social welfare agency, child and youth psychiatry, and the police].

Pernilla talked about the prevalence of low socioeconomic status and low level of cultural capital in the local area, and applied this knowledge to explain the students’ reluctance to attend school, their poor academic performance, and their need for support. Several participants returned to what they called the “mill-town mentality” (this is a well-recognised expression in Sweden, “bruksortsmentalitet,” that is seen to ascribe a narrow-minded worldview among people living in rural areas that used to be dependent on a 19-century mill) as a significant cause of the problems they faced as professionals. However, this should not be misinterpreted as disdain towards students or their areas of work. Conversely, the participants expressed their appreciation for the students and their work. As another explained:

As I see Shortfield, it is a small mill town. Everybody knows everyone, sort of. Despite that … or rather [because of that], it is peaceful. I believe that you get to see and know all the students, the older ones too; I think they are jolly good students. It is the students, how to put it, that you after all care about. [But you must remember] that it is a very small mill town. People do not have a lot of things to do here. There are many pickup trucks you see, but yes, even so, I think that they are good kids … ordinary youngsters and students. (Camilla, counsellor in Shortfield)

Our participants repeatedly addressed the nature of the areas in which their schools were located. They explained that they appreciated the area and its inhabitants, although the prevalent conditions were not always in their favour when working with the students’ learning.

Seen from a Longfield perspective, this school is a milltown school, the working class, performing less. Thus, the reputation, [that in Longfield] we must work harder. (Petter, Headmaster in Longfield)

Though the participants acknowledged the difficulties that may come with working in areas with great social challenges (as above), they also expressed pride in doing something important and of being in the front line for young people. They sought to create a relational problem-solving approach towards their students (cf. Arneback & Jämte, 2021), which means they tried to maintain a good relationship with the students and solve the problem together. The mill-town social structure and the “mill-town mentality” referred to above can be understood as the overall problematisation (Bacchi, 2004), the explanatory root cause to most of the problems that the student health workers faced on a day-to-day basis. However, the role of the “mill-town mentality” is not entirely clear when it comes to racism and the presence of neo-Nazism. Even if the “mill-town mentality” is seen as a contributing factor to racism, the absence of immigrants in these areas and the youngsters’ will to be provocative are also seen as causes of racism. Petter, for example, did not argue that racism was too much of a problem:

… I know what it is like with all these mill towns and I know that there were some problems around 2000 with right-wing extremist views and groups [in the school]. We had some problems in the last year also. A couple of students showed clear right-wing extremist views. This year, it has not been all that bad: not too many stickers, no swastikas, and no comments from the teachers [about racist attitudes among the students]. Having that said, of course, things happen. How shall I put it? Teenagers want to provoke, and they are darn good at getting the headmaster and other teachers on the go [upsetting them with racist slurs]. So, dumb things are said, but when you scratch a bit on the surface, [there is nothing to it]. (Petter, headmaster in Longfield)

The participants made some connections between racism, neo-Nazism, and the surrounding sociocultural environment. However, they also tended to frame it as a particular problem. Contrary to their framing, racism and racist slurs are part of the surrounding environment; however, with the low expectancy that the participants had from both students and their families, it was hard for them to believe that there were systematic long-term agendas or particular political agency among their students. The students and their families were understood as white people living in the countryside with low educational attainment and poor cultural backgrounds. Therefore, the school professionals expected these people to be somewhat racist, but not consistent enough in their racism to form organisations or other structured manifestations of it. Thus, racism, to the participants, appeared to be more of a behavioural problem than one arising out of political convictions and structural problems. In other words, they saw expressions of “everyday racism” but did not particularly see such expressions as part of an enabling environment that served to support systematic racism and racist mobilisation (cf. Blombäck, 2017; Eliasoph, 1999; Essed, 1991; Gaudio & Bialostok, 2005; Walton et al., 2013).

This is despite the fact that the neo-Nazi movement is reported to recruit students from the selected schools, and neo-Nazi elements are visible in the schools regularly, for instance at frequent events with neo-Nazi slogans and hardcore racist messages. Viola, the school nurse in Broadfield, said she was used to hearing racist slurs and worse:

… they do the Hitler salute [openly] say things like: “Go back to your own country” and: “You are not welcomed here” very harsh words. / … / between each other they [are constantly using phrases such as] “That nigger … ” or “That faggot … ” all these really harsh words … (Viola, school nurse in Broadfield)

Even so, the participants separated these expressions among the students from ongoing neo-Nazi activism and recruitment attempts at the schools. While these expressions are, as said, problematised as a behavioural problem, neo-Nazi activism is seen as something that comes from the outside, from relatively old individuals and other geographical areas. Petter explained:

My guess is that when there is something going on elsewhere [talking about neo-Nazi mobilisation] we slide along, so to speak. We do not live in a bubble, so when the right-wing extremists start to mobilise in [the name of a large nearby city deleted for ethical reasons], it will also find its way out here. We are perhaps six months behind or something like that, but eventually, it will also reach us. (Petter)

Overall, it can be concluded that the participants expected to encounter racist expressions regularly among their students as a part of the “mill-town mentality.” This mentality is rather a frame factor for their everyday educational and pedagogical work, that is, the low educational attainment of the parents is taken as an explanation and justification for the educational attainment of the students, and consequently, the racist minds that the students have “inherited” from their parents.

The participants valued and appreciated their students and endeavoured to “accept them as they are,” without any aspirations to work against the so-called mill-town mentality. In other words, they expected that people living in the neighbourhood, in general, would remain poorly educated and influenced by racist opinions. However, the participants did not accept neo-Nazi mobilisations as routine and as something to be ignored. To rationalise the everyday racism among their students and the presence of neo-Nazi activism, they described their students as being naïve and the neo-Nazis as people from outside the community, taking advantage of the naivety of the students.

It’s getting better all the time

None of the participants lived in the communities where they worked, so it cannot be assumed that they were aware of the historical presence of neo-Nazi organisations, and perhaps not the current situation either. Shortfield, for example, was one of the oldest strongholds of the National Socialist Movement in the interwar period and remains so (Lööw, 2004, 2015). Some of the active neo-Nazis in Shortfield are also parents of the students in the school. This does not imply that the staff at the school are aware of that or even that there is a neo-Nazi organisation present in the community. Cecilia, for instance, recently became aware of the neo-Nazi history and the presence of neo-Nazi organisations in Shortfield when reading the local paper. In her words:

… I found out not long ago, I believe I read about it in the paper … and I just like wow. Here in Shortfield? I have not noticed anything at all. [And then it was a situation with neo-Nazi symbols in the school] and we all like: “We better keep an eye on this!” / … / this is how I became familiar with it. However, it is not anything that you notice among the students. Then you hear that some students have parents who are Hells Angels and such, but I don’t notice it. (Cecilia, special teacher in Shortfield)

Similar to Cecilia, several participants reported not having witnessed the presence of local neo-Nazism. Consequently, the influence of local right-wing organisations was not included in the participants’ problematisation of neo-Nazism and racism in school.

The lack of visual expressions/manifestations of neo-Nazi mobilisation perhaps influenced the participants’ unfamiliarity about neo-Nazism in their areas of work. To this end, the participants appeared to be leaning towards a risk management strategy common within the practices of prevention of violent extremism in their problematisation. Within this discourse, concerning signs of neo-Nazi affiliation, such as symbols, verbal communication, and clothing, are supposed to identify the students at risk (cf. Carlsson & Fangen, 2012; Sivenbring & Andersson Malmros, 2019). These signs of risk unfold as a script that, to an extent, determines how the participants expect students with neo-Nazi convictions to appear or behave. In other words, the rationalisation is that if such expected signs or symbols are not present, neither is the problem. As another participant explained:

[I think about] what it looked like during the turn of the millennia, you know when we had a more open National Socialism and that image is perhaps still around [regarding Broadfield]. We had those incidents [nationally documented neo-Nazi deeds left out for ethical reasons] that make people think about Broadfield in a particular way and perhaps believe that it is still like this. / … / The Nazis have got themselves shirts and a comb, so you do not see any heavy boots or bomber jackets [significant among skinheads at the time] any longer. (Gabriel, headmaster in Broadfield)

Examples of skinhead clothing, signs such as swastikas, or behaviour such as a Hitler salute appeared to be a precondition for our participants to detect neo-Nazi sympathies or presence. Consequently, they found it relatively easy to talk about how it was some 15–20 years ago when there were students who, through their clothing, demonstrated that they sympathised with neo-Nazism. Several participants reiterated that the situation was worse before, not just during the so-called skinhead era. Pernilla, for instance, spoke about how things became heated in 2015, during the so-called refugee crisis when an unusually large number of people (162,877) applied for asylum in Sweden (The Swedish Migration Agency, 2021).

I think that this problem was more common before, there were more graffiti; you saw the swastika, and so on. Then, there are particular periods when things deteriorate when things happen in society at large. In 2015, when we received a lot of unaccompanied refugee children, there were great numbers of neo-Nazi posters glued to the windows of the school. It was just the very night before they arrived at the school that people glued these posters with messages against these new arrivals. / … / It is not just something done with a pencil while walking by, really it is planned. (Pernilla)

The need for the visual presence of neo-Nazism may serve to obscure the ability or perhaps priority to see and engage routinely with extremist views. It is hardly by chance that these particular schools immediately became targets when issues concerning immigration were on the agenda. The participants’ perception that neo-Nazism necessarily involves visual expressions of extremist views perhaps also explains why they tended to think of the past as being worse. This notion of neo-Nazism as a phenomenon involving visual expressions also serves to explain why, after long periods without visual expressions, the problem is thought to be gone or at least temporarily dealt with.

However, after some reflection, most, not all, participants were able to provide examples of how the neo-Nazi heritage manifests itself via routine and not just via visual expressions. Susanne happened to be the classmate of one of the leading neo-Nazis in the county when she was a teenager. That former classmate, at the time of the research, had children going to school in Broadfield. Susanne explained:

When I was asked to take part in this interview, I started to think to myself: “What is it that I do not see? What is it that I am missing out?” You see I know how they are; I mean the parents. We have students here in school whose parents are active neo-Nazis. They have their facility [a neo-Nazi establishment] close to the school, and we see how they go there and how they invite lecturers there. Still, I do not think that we have too much of a problem in the school. So, what is it that we are missing? When I meet these parents, I treat them like any other parent and I do not think that they are seeking conflicts with us either. They pay attention to what I have to say, but yes, there are situations. We have had some of the younger students who say things like “Yes, but Hitler was a kind person. I have heard that from a woman who explained to me that Hitler was actually nice” … “Yes, [we responded to this student] but was he really all that nice when he had so many people killed?” It is really a bummer when the children are compromised [by their parents’ views]. Then, I need to talk to the parents and explain that it is not good when their children express themselves this way in school. I tell them that we have explained how we think in school and that it would be good if we could work in the same direction so that their children do not get confused. [Usually, we do not have any more problems], but what they say back home, I do not know. (Susanne, headmaster in Shortfield)

Susanne is well informed about some of the parents’ political leanings and convictions and provides an example of children expressing rather radical views. Yet, she argues that she is missing something. The school even has a practice for dealing with neo-Nazi expressions from children with neo-Nazi parents; they ask the parents to ensure that no neo-Nazi opinions are mentioned in the classroom.

To acknowledge the problem and to problematise racism in general, and neo-Nazi views and convictions in particular, the participants seemingly required concrete expressions or behaviours as reference. However, these references are based on their experiences of how neo-Nazism was expressed “before,” and since currently there is no skinhead movement present, there was a tendency among the participants to misread certain situations, which did not adhere to their expectations of students’ racist expressions or practices. This should be understood in combination with the participants’ unwillingness to view their students as competent political subjects, with agency and ability to form radical convictions (as discussed in the previous section).

Thus, the participants “read” the students as agents for their parents’ convictions, rather than their own, which further explains why the schools seem to fail to systematically identify the problem of racist expressions and prevent the circulation of extremist beliefs. In conclusion, we find the paradox that racism and racist expressions are not a part of the problematisation as long as there are no or few visual expressions, that is, the governing of the problem is separated from the content of the problem (Bacchi, 2004).

The forest is hidden behind the trees

Most participants did not consider racism or neo-Nazi mobilisation at their schools to be a major problem. However, each one of them provided several concrete examples of situations with obvious expressions of racism or even neo-Nazi convictions. As we have learned above, two factors explain the discrepancy between the notion that there are no problems and the evident examples of rather crude problems. The first is the apologetic approach of the participants that is connected to their low expectations of students being brought up with a mill-town mentality, thus having poor prerequisites to be successful in school. The second is the participants should see visual expressions and behaviours to identify racism as a problem in the schools. In addition, there is a third factor that obscures the possibility of noticing patterns of racism, which is the individualisation of the problem. All participants described reactive and stimulus-driven interventions closely connected to individual students’ behaviours (cf. Arneback & Jämte, 2021). Jessica, for instance, described a situation in which a student played white power music during a lesson.

[We] have been rather clear about that we do not accept this kind of music. Anyway, it is always issues around a particular student that we have reported several times for problematic behaviour, and we have had targeted work there. Therefore, I think that we have been able to talk to him about it: “Why do you play this sort of music and so on?” The teacher in this class was very clear about not accepting this music. I cannot remember whether they confiscated his phone or not. (Jessica, counsellor in Longfield).

As we learn later in the interview, the aforementioned student had four more classmates with the same harsh racist views. However, since the participants’ interventions were stimulus-driven, that is, as responses to racist stimuli from the students, they would only engage with students displaying explicitly problematic behaviour and not with all students who held similar convictions. Such measures are unable to capture how identities develop concerning interactions between all the students and their teachers (cf. Carlsson & Fangen, 2012; Davies, 2016b) The strategy to handle one situation at a time recurs in the interviews, although there were a few participants who expressed their dissatisfaction with this situation-by-situation handling of extreme racism. As Luna recounted:

It was a situation when one of the girls (whose parents are active neo-Nazis) had carved a swastika on her table. Then there was some discussion between the teacher, the counsellor, the janitor, and the headmaster about how to handle the situation and about who should remove the swastika. It was a harsh discussion between the teacher and the headmaster about what should be done and what consequences should follow. / … / The headmaster was more like, “Yeah let’s replace the table.” On the other hand, the teacher was more like, “Hey, we need to pay attention to this. I know what she did,” and he had a discussion with the girl, as well as with the whole class. (Luna, special teacher in Shortfield)

Once again, we have an example of a situation where prompt action was required. However, only the teacher found it important to address the problems associated with neo-Nazi leanings. The headmaster appeared to be satisfied with replacing the table without involving the parents of the student in question. Finally, the teacher addressed the entire class concerning the situation, which was not the usual routine. It is particularly challenging for schools to act when they are aware that some students’ convictions about and engagement with the neo-Nazi movement mirror their parents’ convictions and engagements. Thus, it is relatively easy to handle each situation as an isolated event and on an individualised basis. One of the participants, Rebecca, found this approach to be insufficient. Rebecca said she was aware that parents sometimes are a source for expressions being observed among students but was not willing to accept that this phenomenon was only limited to students who expressed themselves bluntly:

Well, you call the parents and tell them what their children have said and done to other students. Then, they say: “Oh my gosh that was no good. We will talk about it back home.” But you can tell, it shines right through, that what we hear in school is what is said back home. I do not believe that children of seven or eight years of age talk about “Fucking Arabs with a curtain before their faces.” These are just not words that small children use unless they pick it up back home first. So, we have a lot of it, but we also have those who know how to phrase things smoother, so to speak. Instead of using the n-word, they will talk about people from countries where they do not have skies. It is always done in a sarcastic and patronising manner. (Rebecca, counsellor in Broadfield).

Rebecca also spoke about students with neuropsychiatric disorders that caused disturbances on an everyday basis, and how there was little energy left to deal with racism and extremist views. Controlling and containing individuals’ rowdy behaviours is a necessity for coping with daily educational work. When it comes to racism and neo-Nazism, it is more about controlling and censoring the worst expressions/manifestations of the problem when it appears. Consequently, there are few opportunities to address the root causes of racist and extremist views.

Discussion and conclusion

In this study, we have closely examined three schools characterised by a historically high presence of everyday racism and varying degrees of neo-Nazi activism. The study found that the participants, generally speaking, did not consider racism or neo-Nazi mobilisation to be a central problem in their respective schools. At the same time, they cited several examples of obvious expressions of extreme racism and full-blown neo-Nazi convictions. This paradox is a good starting point for analysing professionals’ approaches to different types of problems associated with racism and neo-Nazism. When trying to approach historical and contemporary problems such as racism and the presence of neo-Nazism, the student welfare teams bring forward three different types of problematisations:

• Firstly, professionals contend that the rather high presence of everyday racism is explained by the fact that most students in these schools are brought up with a mill-town mentality. Consequently, professionals have low expectations regarding both students’ prerequisites to be successful in school and their abilities to reject racist slurs and symbols. Rather, it is somewhat expected and excused as youthful, mill-town mentality-influenced ignorance.

• Secondly, the lack of concrete and visible symbols, artefacts, and stylistic elements – such as those in the skinhead movement in the 1990s – is taken as evidence of a lack of political engagement and organisational capability of the students. The students are not regarded as political subjects capable of engaging in, for example, neo-Nazi movements.

• Finally, the presence of racism and neo-Nazism is interpreted as expressions of behavioural disturbances of individuals. All participants focused on interventions closely connected to individual students’ behaviours, and there was a lack of contextual and structural analysis. In other words, patterns of racism are obscured by individual actions.

Using Bacchi’s (2004) WPR approach, it becomes evident that the problem of racism and ongoing neo-Nazi activism is framed as an individual problem rooted in the mill-town residents’ low educational attainment. The participants refrained from seeing racism as structurally embedded in the local culture and community. This gives rise to a paradox: since the participants suggest that the mill-town mentality is the root cause of everyday racism, it would have been beneficial if they had approached the problem as such, making a structural analysis of the enabling environment and culture that they seem to think foster racism. However, individuals who display the claimed mill-town mentality are talked about as individuals with a low level of agency, not capable of any structured and continuous political engagement. Consequently, professionals mainly look for and talk about particular events and behaviours related to racism or neo-Nazism. Thus, the professionals reduce racist and neo-Nazi statements and practices to individual problems, which are problematised as exceptions rather than signs of a continuous underlying racist structure and tradition. Our contribution, alongside the policy-oriented studies and intervention studies discussed in the survey of research, lies in taking one step back in order to zoom in on how different social and educational problems are framed and understood by professionals in schools.

To conclude, this way of producing or framing the problem of racism in the school context impairs the professional’s ability to connect the situation in school with the long-term presence of neo-Nazi organisations in their communities, even when known neo-Nazi leaders are parents of the students. The focus on the so-called mill-town mentality seemingly serves to block the participants from gaining an in-depth understanding of the students’ lived experiences, understanding the meaning-making processes of young people growing up in racist homes with a racist background noise constantly present, as well as how this relates to the school’s democratic assignment. The lived experiences of the students are not included in the problematisation, which obscures professionals’ ability to see patterns over time, and instead diverts focus to individual behavioural incidents. Consequently, living and working in the racist Badlands will be formative not only for the student’s schooling, but also for the professional’s production of the problem, and the limitations of possible solutions found at hand. A reflexive approach to everyday racism, extremism, and pedagogical interventions in schools has to involve a better understanding and analysis of how individual expressions of racism and neo-Nazism are connected to and formed by collective sentiments and structures cultivated in certain places and spaces.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet: [grant no 2020-03111].