Exploring Youths’ Willingness to Engage with Civil Society and Public Sector Institutions: The Untapped Potential of Religious Communities in Preventing Violent Extremism

Community dialogue, community resilience, radicalization; violent extremism, youth, religious leaders

Research on preventing violent extremism is still in its infancy concerning the question of who the target audiences might be willing to talk to if they need help. To explore this question, we utilized the “Young in Oslo” dataset from 2015, where attitudes toward the use of violence were expressed by students in upper-secondary school (n = 7801). Our analysis revealed that youths who support the use of violence were open to talking to adults in religious organizations if they needed help. This suggests that religious communities should be both consulted and partnered with more closely when (re-)designing prevention work.