Recent Danish youthood research indicates that young people experience social media as an important part of their social life, as social media plays a significant role in relation to young people's experience of ‘belonging’ (Haugegaard & Østergaard 2020). In addition, social media determines young people's news flow by algorithms. In this context, young people daily encounters polarized attitudes and hateful messages online towards their own or others' cultural, ethnic, religious background, gender or sexuality. Together with young people’s everyday experiences, this can contribute that young people with especially minority background experiences marginalization and discrimination, and furthermore attraction towards radicalized and extremist environments (Gimmerli 2015, 2016; Schmidt et al. 2005).

In addition, international research has explored the conditions under which communities show resilience to poverty, crime, violence, extremism and radicalization. Encountering such challenges community resilience is identified as a key tool, and research recommends a specific focus on the inclusion of young people in positive local community relations such as schools, youth clubs and leisure associations.These community relations is enforced by cross-professional collaborations between local actors such as teachers, educators, social workers, voluntary and private actors and religious spokespersons (Ellis and Abdi 2017; Balvig 2017; CERTA and Trygfonden 2016).

"Diversity Education" is a locally based initiative in social housing area in Aarhus, Denmark, and consist of a cross-professional and interfaith collaboration between two primary schools, a local mosque, a local church and the interest group Danmission. Together they have developed “Diversity Education”, which is a set of teaching materials that seeks to support lower secondary school students’ digital literacy, i.e. understanding and tolerating diversity online and offline, and engaging critically with offline and online influences.

This paper is based on analytical insights from the first try-out of the “Diversity-Education”. Focusing on the student’s perspective, the paper first explores the connections between the educational setting and the students' current critical thinking and tolerance towards diversity and polarizing messages online and offline. Secondly the paper engages in a critical discussion of how – and if – “Diversity Education” promotes intercultural education in terms of diversity sensitivity, critical thinking and inclusion of young people. In addition, the paper finally discuss how locally based cross-professional and interfaith collaborations can support preventive initiatives regarding radicalization. Here the paper explores how these collaborations evolves and what challenges and opportunities it gives rise to.

Main theoretical framework

The paper refer to (social) constructivist cultural theory, and theories about social reality: social reality is understand as formed and changed by our practices and language. Therefore, social reality creates and constitutes language and practice (Berger and Luckmann 2007). This means that the papers analytical points regards a specific view or perspective on a section of social reality, in this case, the students' language and class practice. Furthermore, the paper refers to cultural theoretical perspectives on “diversity”, which we find within the sociological, anthropological and social psychological research (Jenkins 2006; Eriksen 2003; Skytte 2007; Jensen 2013). Diversity is here related to understandings on social identity, where social identity and identification are relational and context-specific and are created both from within and from without (Jenkins 2006; Eriksen 2003). In this context, the paper is concerned about what social categories (Staurnæs 2004) that become socially applicable when students mark, articulate, and act as if these social categories actually exist.

The methodological basis of the project is ethnographic, implicating the use of several types of data generation (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007) and several methodological interventions, such as “participant observation” (Spradley 1980). This allows us to study 'in depth' (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007) and to generate knowledge about how students and teachers, speak about and understand their everyday school practice. As of this methodological framework, the empirical data generated, is through fieldwork in the two involved primary schools, following the teaching in three lower secondary classes. The classes consist of approx. 23-25 students, of which up to 85 percent of the students have minority background. We also used interviews and informal conversations (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007; Brinkmann & Kvale 2015). In order to approach the students' perspectives, we positioned ourselves as “non-teachers”, but as “participants in student life” (Stauernæs 2004) meaning that we alternated between participating in the teaching exercises with the students. Other times we stepped back and observed how the students worked and talked about the teaching material. In addition, we worked with “thick descriptions” (Geertz, 1973; Ehn and Löfgren, 2006) both in our field notes and in the following analysis. The intention was to capture moods, situations, moments, from the teaching, which could enhance the interaction between the students and between the students and the teachers. Furthermore, we carried out 2x5 focus group interviews (Brinkmann & Kvale 2015, Kampmann et al 2017) of groups of 4-7 students from both schools. We did interviews with the same groups of students before and after the teaching. We selected this approach to get a sense of whether new perspectives, examples or reflections had emerged among the students after the teaching. Therefore, we also repeated a number of questions from the first interviews in the last. In the concluding interviews, we also asked directly about the students' experience of the teaching process.

The papers results addresses professionals who in various ways work with marginalized and vulnerable young people in institutional or educational settings. Here, the paper aims to provide with insights about how professionals such as social workers, teachers or educators can support young people's intercultural education and critical thinking towards cultural and religious diversity in order to support the inclusion of young people in institutional or educational settings. Next, the paper seeks to contribute to the complementary research on how locally based cross-professional collaborations at the organizational level can strengthen community resilience and preventive initiatives regarding radicalization, discrimination and inequality. Here, the paper points out how professionals such as social workers, teachers and educators can transcend organizational boundaries and participate in local collaborations with both civil society actors and private employees. Finally, the paper wants to contribute with new critical perspectives on the challenges and opportunities such collaborations create.

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