Formers & families

This report contains three studies on the aforementioned questions, conducted by Dutch, Danish and British researchers. The three research groups selected each with its own accent. The Dutch report mainly focuses on the interactions between parents and children, Danish report focuses on the development of young people and the way it is influenced by people and organizations that try to win the young people for their ideology, while the British report situates the radicalization process in the context of the social and political context. The interviews make clear that there is no linear path of certain types of family or parenting practices radicalization. In some cases, only the interviewees indicate the family as the main source of radicalization and de-radicalization. Concerning the latter: own choice (‘agency’), imprisonment and trial, so as a main reason given. The fact that the family was mentioned by almost anyone as a direct cause of radicalization remains that many conversations were reports of various problems that occurred in family atmosphere. In about two-thirds of the families was talk of separation, an absent father, lack of emotional support, psychiatric problems, sickness or death; in some families, there was violence and abuse. We conclude that such circumstances do not explain the radicalization process itself, but it can be a fertile ground for. The anger, for example, young people feel about the role their (absentee) father in the upbringing played -or just did not play- can make them more susceptible to recruitment by extremist organizations. But it seems that there are always other factors must be at play, like the feeling of humiliation or disappointment in the institutions of society. Although each of the stories is unique recorded in this project, precisely in the complex interplay of factors and conditions, signs are quite a few routes to and from radicalization that contain common elements. In this report, these routes are ideally typical journey's' named, a series of transitions that young people go through in their development from childhood to adulthood that usually a lot of navigational assistance required. The journey should not be seen as fixed patterns which fit any young radical by definition, but as an attempt to organization of the complex reality differently is put together for each young.