Fulfilling the democratic assignment at schools: Encountering racial hate and National Socialism in the classroom

The project will investigate how racist subcultural milieus are reproduced in particular geographical areas and how different schools within these areas are dealing with expressions of racism.

The project will use a mixed qualitative method with an ethnographic approach to the research, and is structured into four work packages (WPs).

In WP1, through interviews with principals, health teams, and teachers in the selected schools, we will engage in conversations about the geographical presence of racist attitudes and how this influences everyday life.

Whereas WP1 provides a coarse-grained picture of how the geographical presence of racism can be understood, WP2 aims for more detailed descriptions of how it is dealt with by teachers in terms of interventions and didactical choices for prevention.

In WP 3, we will focus on the students’ understanding of the presence of neo-Nazi recruitment and various intervention programmes. WP4 is intended to provide an understanding of how pedagogical interventions against racism are conducted.

By using various empirical sources and maintaining a continuous presence in the field, we aim to arrive at a complex picture of the conditions that teachers, students and other stakeholders encounter. We will gather empirical data mainly through interviews and observations. Methodologically, the project will be based on institutional ethnography.