Lukiolaisnuorten käsityksiä oppilaitosten roolista väkivaltaisen radikalisoitumisen ennaltaehkäisyssä

Issues of social concern, such as the rise of nationalism, the threat of terrorism and the rise of violent extremism, are also reflected in the daily lives of young Finnish people. However, so far little is known about what young people themselves think of the threat of radicalization. This article looks at the answers (n=3337) provided to the question titled “Assessing Radicalization” in the autumn 2017 matriculation examination on psychology. Of particular interest in the research analysis is to examine how young people see the role of school in preventing radicalization. In the young people’s responses, school appears to be a significant social and cognitive growth environment. In terms of prevention, the school’s ability to provide knowledge and skills is highlighted. Young people emphasize in particular the importance of critical thinking and media literacy in countering group thinking and social influence. The research results show that young people's ideas are in line with those in documents produced by the Finnish Ministry of the Interior regarding the role of education in preventing radicalization, which is interesting, because it is unlikely that young people would be familiar with these documents. In other words, the results of the research reinforce the guidelines of the National Action Plan from the young people's point of view as well, and support their aspiration to build radicalization prevention through the broad support of different social actors.