Radicalisation The transformation from concept to action -A pilot study of how social caseworkers and frontline professionals identify and describe young people at risk of being radicalised

To define radicalization as a concept, and what leads to radicalization has become a European political and academic topic after the terrorist attacks in major European cities. From a political standpoint, the necessity to define radicalisation arises in relation to the urgent need for political action in order to control and prevent terrorism. However, there is no universal scientific definition of radicalisation, and academia declares that we need studies that are more empirical in order to understand the process that leads to extremist violence and terrorism. The necessity to define the concept of radicalisation seems to be in a position between the urgent demand of political action, and academia that addresses radicalisation as an open-ended question yet insufficiently examined.
Denmark was one of the first European countries to establish government-funded institutions in order to prevent radicalisation. In particular, The Aarhus Model has been recognised both nationally and internationally. In 2007, the government-funded institutions, Info-houses were established. Here teachers, educators, social workers and other street level bureaucrats are able to contact specialists, if they are worried about a young person and his/her risk behaviour.
The purpose of this project is to examine how young people are constructed as vulnerable individuals who are assessed in risk of being radicalised in national and local policy documents and discuss how this construction may affect the street-level bureaucrats who are working to prevent radicalisation. Furthermore, the project seeks to identify the welfare professional logics prevalent in social work: For example, what categories of risk behaviour causes professionals to refer a case to the Info-house? How do welfare professionals differ between general vulnerability and specific vulnerability to radicalization? What theoretical and/or legislative references do welfare professionals infer in their operationalization of useful risk categories of radicalisation in their daily work?