Hiding in the classroom: How neo-Nazi leaders prepare their children for schooling

Introduction

Following the Second World War, Swedish schools were tasked with actively combatting racism and prejudice (SOU, 1948, p. 27). Because of European experiences with the rise of fascism and racist ideologies, this became a prominent factor in school reforms in the post-war period. The curriculum has been revised and updated several times since this initial reform to accord with recent developments and various forms of racism and prejudice present in different periods (i.e. when Sweden started welcoming immigrants being employed by large industrial companies or when refugees arrived from South America, Asia and the Middle East).

Partly because of these reforms, from the 1950s, Sweden’s education system has been seen as both a beacon for democracy and human rights and an effective defence against ideas, ideologies and movements considered as threats to democratic governance (Englund and Englund, 2012). However, the rise of the neo-Nazi movement and the skinhead subculture in the 1990s posed a particular challenge for schools, especially where these movements were most active. The role of schools in combatting these ideas is well known, with previous research identifying a clear geographical pattern in the reproduction of right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi strongholds in existing strongholds, even if the reproduction mechanisms are largely unknown (Cantoni et al., 2019; Ezekiel, 1995, 2002).

Some studies have analysed attempts to counteract the passing on of far-right ideologies by educating students about these issues in areas where neo-Nazi ideologies are most present (e.g. Carlsson and Fangen, 2012 ; Mattsson and Johansson, 2021). Most of these studies focused on the so-called ‘skinhead era’ (between the late 1980s and the turn of the millennium when neo-Nazism was generally associated with skinheads behaving in a violent, rowdy manner). During this period, it was common for young people to join these milieus during their early teenage years, when they still were students in secondary school. Today, the average age for joining the neo-Nazi movement is 25–30 years old (PST, 2019). Thus, we can no longer talk about the prevention of right-wing extremism in terms of stopping teenagers from becoming neo-Nazis. Despite this, there is now an even stronger expectation that Swedish schools should combat radicalisation, not the least with respect to neo-Nazi movements (Mattsson, 2019).

However, we must consider the experience of those who were skinheads at least 20 years ago and who are today both active neo-Nazis and parents. These people were subjected to different forms of intervention during their schooling. Now, they are parents enrolling their children into the compulsory school system, knowing that their children’s teachers are instructed to refute the values and norms that have been foundational in their and often their children’s upbringing. This case study–based analysis focuses on four middle-aged active neo-Nazi/right-wing extremist leaders in Sweden, their perceptions of their own schooling and how they have used their experiences in regulating their children’s education. These individuals are well recognised as outspoken neo-Nazi leaders with prominent positions in far-right movements and have one or more children who attend, or have attended, the compulsory school system.

The research questions are as follows:

How do active neo-Nazis describe their own experiences of schooling?

The following sections review previous research, outline the study’s theoretical framework and methodology, present the results and analyse the main findings.

Literature review

In regard to pedagogical interventions and teachers’ efforts to intervene and prevent far-right radicalisation, it is difficult to concretely define what constitutes intervention. This is partly because teachers themselves often do not perceive and define their efforts as interventions but as ongoing pedagogical challenges and didactical choices, which are mobilised to respond to situations as they occur. Davies (2016), who studied efforts to counter violent extremism in education systems, claims that established social practices that lead to undesirable behaviours and attitudes cannot be changed with any quick fix. She describes that the only effective approach is to loosen up the problem space to permit a broader range of options for action to emerge. She is critical of centralised, undifferentiated policies based on outdated ideas that students can be inculcated with predetermined values. Instead, she suggests that knowledge and understanding, which are deeply rooted within the social practices, need to be revised.

In alignment with Davies (2016), Oser et al. (2006) show that pedagogical measures to prevent recruitment to right-wing extremist milieus will fail if they focus upon ideologies and values. They argue that racism is situated within social practices and structures and that prevention must be more than simply singling out individuals who appear to be at risk of far-right radicalisation. Furthermore, Carlsson and Fangen (2012) promote a similar approach that it is important to avoid interventions that pinpoint at-risk students in such a way that the intervention itself creates a negative identity for these students. Furthermore, Kundnani (2015) also argues that many prevention models rest on insufficient empirical data.

Such models are used to explain recruitment to extremist groups and also, supposedly, to identify potential recruits for extremist groups. However, such claims are difficult to substantiate. Moreover, previous research indicates that teachers are reluctant to discuss controversial matters in the classroom unless they feel secure and confident in their approach to these subjects. When faced with these challenges, teachers generally prefer to hand over this task to the various NGOs that engage in educational activities (Skolinspektionen, 2012).

Previous research has claimed that educational efforts have placed too much focus on behavioural issues among students who hold racist attitudes and too little focus on their needs. This leads to a judgemental positioning towards the students that contributes to further fuelling racist attitudes (Ezekiel, 2002; Pedersen et al., 2003). Mattsson and Johansson (2020) show that schools often play a negative role in students’ life trajectories and the radicalisation processes that lead them to right-wing extremism and neo-Nazism. Moreover, previous studies have indicated that schools unintentionally contribute to the reproduction of extremist and racist attitudes. The reason for this is that children raised in racist homes tend to have racial gaze and speak racist language, which might get them into conflicts with peers and teachers. When schools handle such conflicts in a confrontational way, it sustains the development of a racist identity, that is, students start to see and articulate themselves as racist in relation to being compelled to defend themselves.

This study considers the generational effect of schools’ engagement in the prevention of right-wing extremism. It is the first such study to analyse how students targeted for pedagogical interventions because of their right-wing extremist views have made use of these experiences when raising their own children and preparing them for schooling.

Ideological dilemmas and controversies

This research is based on transcribed interviews with four informants. The interviews are biographical accounts of how the informants talk about their past and derive meaning from their experiences in relation to their current lifestyle.

The concept of self-identity is very helpful in understanding and contextualising the transcripts (Giddens, 1984, 1991). The informants developed their identity through a self-reflexive process, based on significant relationships and societal norms and expectations. As well-known neo-Nazis, they uphold ideas that contrast with generally accepted societal norms. This disparity of norms has created frequent social dilemmas throughout their lives.

Social dilemmas can arise in various situations. However, in this study, social dilemmas are not to be understood as dilemmas in the outcome of a choice. Billig et al. (1988) claim that social dilemmas cannot be reduced to a choice, but they arise from societal norms that set the context for decision making. Thus, the dilemma is not about deciding between different choices but acting in accordance with expectations based on social norms. These norms change over time and vary between different contexts and societies. Social dilemmas should, in this sense, be understood as ideological dilemmas. Ideologies, according to Billig (1991, 1996), are to be understood as messages being conveyed and accepted as common sense in a particular context.

Thus, it becomes necessary to distinguish between lived ideologies and intellectual ideologies, the former being experiences of conveying messages that pass as common sense and the latter, a system of political, religious and philosophical thinking. Billig et al. (1988) note that in this circumstance, a political dilemma will arise in the clash between lived ideologies and intellectual ideologies. The clash occurs when the utopian vision, which is embedded into intellectual ideology, and the practicality, which contextualises lived ideology, cannot be bridged – when the ideological message cannot pass as common sense.

Another relevant research field that has theoretically informed this study concerns the teaching and educational discussion of controversial issues. The span of topics within this field is wide, but the majority of the studies focus upon the teaching of social sciences (Camica, 2008; King, 2009; Swalweel and Schweber, 2016; Zimmerman and Robertsson, 2017).

Hand (2007, 2008) states that it is useful to distinguish between three different forms of controversy. The first form arises from a lack of knowledge, which can lead to misunderstandings under what he labels behavioural controversies. These can be addressed by providing relevant information and through education. The second arises from a clash of values and norms, resulting in political controversies. This is the result of private norms that are not aligned with the liberal democratic system that has informed the development of the curriculum used in educational systems. The third controversy arises when strong, opposing positions can be taken due to a lack of methodological means to provide undisputable knowledge, referred to as epistemic controversies. Hand (2007, 2008) suggests that this labelling could help orientate teachers on what sort of controversies they are handling as this theoretical structure provides clear terms for identifying and analysing a range of convictions and behaviours.

Methodology

All four informants became active in the neo-Nazi movement when in secondary or upper secondary school. Three were around the age of 50 and one about 40. They all completed their education during the late 1980s or the 1990s – during the skinhead era.

The informants were asked to take part in individual in-depth interviews, which lasted for about one to one-and-a-half hours, about their experiences of schooling, both as students and parents, in relation to their controversial worldviews. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and then analysed; the excerpts presented in the article have been translated into English in a way to convey the original use of linguistic nuances, such as class, style and taste.

Since the informants were naturally expected to reinterpret and reconstruct their memories in relation to their current needs and the surrounding social settings, their statements cannot be taken at their face value (Adams, 1990; Holstein and Gubrium, 2004). Therefore, the transcripts were thematically analysed and individual statements were compared to search for similarities and discrepancies (Braun and Clarke, 2006). The interviews followed a semi-structured questionnaire.

The study adopts a case study format because it concerns retrospective recollections of the neo-Nazi leaders’ schooling experiences and how they communicate these to their children. Their narratives cannot be seen as a single entity, nor are the experiences observed in real time, which narrows the scope for comparison (Salkind, 2010). The possibility for comparison therefore lies within the similarities and differences between the four informants’ renditions of their lived ideological experiences – how they give meaning to their own actions, their perceptions of actions taken by schools and the consequences they envisage from their parenting approach. The analyses do not reveal causal factors for behaviour but act as analytical resources for understanding causal patterns (Denscombe, 2014).

The study was carried out in accordance with the guidelines of and received ethical approval from the Swedish Research Council (2017). The participants consented to taking part, and they were informed about the aims and purpose of the study, how the data would be recorded, stored and used and that they could choose not to participate at any time. Any data that could reveal the identity of the participants were omitted or anonymised. For ethical reasons, the exact age is not given as the participants were selected from a very small number of possible informants. However, since their ages are of relevance to the reader, an approximate age is provided.

Results Results: Hated students and caring fathers

This section presents four cases, each providing an analysis of the informants’ accounts of their experiences of schooling, followed by their reflections on how these relate to their children’s schooling.

Discussion and conclusion

This study’s informants attended school in a period when right-wing extremism was represented very differently within society to today. In the 1980s and 1990s, the current third-largest party in Sweden – the Swedish Democrats – was not allowed into Swedish schools to provide political information, as other parties were during national elections. The sole reason for this was that they were seen as a right-wing extremist party opposing the foundation of the democratic mission of the Swedish educational system. Swedish Democrats, neo-Nazis, skinheads and other such groups were seen to represent ideas that were intolerable and contradictory to the overall aim of the Swedish national curriculum to foster democratic values, tolerance and equality. Today, the Swedish Democrats have distanced themselves from their roots and, from the neo-Nazi movement perspective, are seen more or less as a mainstream party.

The informants all describe how they got into debates during the teaching of human rights, history and religion courses when their worldviews collided with the content of the teaching. It is reasonable to assume that the actions taken by teachers, as described by informants, were based on an internal analysis of why the informants acted in this way, potentially also recognising a responsibility towards other students who were offended by the informants’ opinions and a duty to follow a curriculum that instructed them to stand up for democratic values and beliefs. However, it seems that, at least in the cases analysed here, these teaching strategies backfired and to some extent contributed to the further radicalisation of the informants.

A prominent insight gained from this study is how the informants’ experiences at school have helped them to develop strategies for opposing social and political norms whilst simultaneously living within mainstream society. In their accounts, the informants generally do not regret getting into debates with their teachers, but are still upset over being treated unfairly, as they see it. Their experiences of the ideological dilemmas that they faced in the classroom – that is, the possibility of establishing ideological difference and balancing being true to one’s convictions against the individual cost – were commonly not positive. However, they claim they were compensated for this by the classroom becoming an arena where they articulated and stood up for ideas and values in front of teachers and peers and thus gained recognition within the neo-Nazi movement. As informants describe in their interviews, both they and their teachers lacked preparation for this situation in Swedish classrooms of the 1980s and 1990s, with informants lacking any role models to follow to understand how to act as neo-Nazis in school.

Their debates in classrooms appear to have prepared the informants to play out identities as nationalists and neo-Nazis. Indeed, it also appears that teachers considered their actions as being those of adolescents seeking identities and perhaps thought that these beliefs would pass, thereby seemingly contributing to their radicalisation. These experiences of confrontations with teachers can be understood as a starting point for constructing, developing and mastering a new self-identity as active neo-Nazis.

While Hand’s (2007, 2008) research suggests that the teachers considered such actions as behavioural controversies – that is, that the informants lacked sufficient knowledge and thus should be confronted, corrected and contained, the empirical material gathered by this study demonstrates that a separation between actions as behavioural or political controversies was largely implausible and that aspects of both were recognised. Certainly, however, a better outcome would have emerged if the teacher had been able to gain insight into the political controversy dimension of the clash and avoided escalating the debate to the point of pushing the informants closer to their neo-Nazi peers, which became their lived ideological experience.

The ideological dilemmas of being a neo-Nazi that developed in the informants’ classrooms in the 1980s and 1990s still provide them with direction when raising their children. In their minds, they can anticipate how the school will react and thus prepare their children on how and when to engage in discussions on controversial issues (if at all). Overall, the informants have no desire to see their children undergo the same stigmatisation that they experienced.

However, they do implement different strategies in pursuit of this goal. Mikael expressed fears that his children might find themselves in a situation where they would have to choose between him or their teachers, Sven stated that he is eager to provide alternative lessons on the subjects taught in school and encourages his child to mistrust teachers, while Ulf and Magnus appear more laidback, trusting that their children will navigate a path to developing an ideology favourable to their own. This is most likely a result of their children’s differing ages: Ulf and Magnus have grown-up children and thus have experiences of their children passing through the school system. At the same time, it should be noted that they have all either been forced or elected to withdraw from society in various ways and live within a subcultural sphere. On the surface, it may appear that they are avoiding the stigma of being neo-Nazis (and likely this is certainly a factor), but on a deeper level they are avoiding ideological dilemmas by conveying common sense messages and thus compromising their convictions. As fathers of school children, they have been forced out of this subcultural sphere in regard to their children’s education and the lessons that schools are imparting upon their children.

By doing this, these fathers face the risk that their children will be victims of their choices and thus cannot choose their own approach to engaging with controversial matters in school. However, if these children are not willing to pay the price that comes with their father’s decisions, they might turn their backs on their fathers. Recognising this, all the informants have chosen to provide their children with an alternative curriculum at home, although to different degrees and in varying forms.

All the informants deeply mistrust the school system, but have directed their children to adopt a different relationship with their schools and their teachers than their own. They all used school as a means of engaging with the neo-Nazi movement, but now, it seems, they prepare their children to disregard democratic teachings without attracting too much attention. With this strategy, they anticipate that they can raise their children with neo-Nazi values and escape the intended outcomes of a democratic education in school. In other words, they have developed social strategies for enabling their far-right ideology to be passed on at home without their children facing the consequences of the ideological dilemmas they themselves faced.

However, care should be taken not to draw definite conclusions on the basis of this very limited empirical material, as this study only contributes case-level nuances to the approaches adopted to the teaching of controversial issues. Yet, the analysis appears to demonstrate that the situation has changed. The controversial ideas of fathers being educated in the 1980s and 1990s were commonly considered as being refutable by imparting proper knowledge. Instead, debates fostered the fathers’ identities as nationalists and neo-Nazis whereby ideas did not form the root of identity, but instead the relationship between articulating one’s ideas and the reception received by the listener became the main driver of identity. These days, it is more likely that teachers will frequently encounter students upholding ideas that traditionally have been seen as right-wing extremist beliefs but with the difference that children are more likely to have been instructed by their parents to avoid engaging in discussions of these topics. Therefore, in a society where politics normalises racism, it is natural to ask whether schools are adequately prepared and have learned from the last 30 years to withstand racism. Particular in a society in which racism is becoming gradually more normalized.