Through this thesis I have studied the different meaning constructions and discourses concerning radicalization in general research and in specific regarding the prevention of radicalization in Denmark. The prevention of radicalization is an area which, due to the complexity of the subject, lacks definite definitions, uniform success criteria and a limited understanding of what a radicalized individual is more precisely. This must be seen in the light of the fact that the frontline professionals include various professional groups such as social workers, former Syrian volunteers, intelligence staff, school teachers etc. and a large civil society group involving parents, different associations, volunteers, imams etc. In the actual practice, this entails a risk of miscommunication between professional groups and misjudgements of necessary interventions in relation to the radicalized-threatened young person. Radicalization is also a highly politicized field which is influenced by, for example, terrorist events, popular attitudes, integration problems, policy changes etc. Problems concerning radicalization are therefore also included in a macro-sociological context, which is basically about the relationship between 'us' and 'them'.
My empirical data is the National Action plans against radicalization and extremism from 2009 to 2016, because they set the normative, discursive and political guidelines for social work on radicalization. With a combination of a deconstructive and discursive analysis strategy, I have examined what significant meaning constructions, discourses and logics that can be located in the National Action plans and compared this with a selected reference frame of the recent state of the art research in the field of radicalization. My intention was to create a more transparent framework of the understandings and possible implications of conflicting discourses in relation to the social work in practice and in a macro sociological context. I found that the prevention of radicalization is largely a politically controlled field that is flooded with almost hegemonized discourses that link radicalization with parallel societies and lack of integration despite a lack of evidence thereof. The dominant discourse often portrays the parallel society as a result of ethnic minority segregation, especially Muslim, and thus, as both a hindrance to integration and as a threat to the social cohesion of the classic nation state. I also found that the liberal approach and way of handling radicalization, established around the Aarhus model shows good results, but is threatened by an equivalency logic that often simplifies the complex field. In that way, the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is deepened, and it seems likely that this indirectly creates unintended consequences that ‘feed’ a collective anger among many Muslims. This suggests that the conditions of opportunity for formulating efforts and definitions in writing in a highly politicized area are narrow - and must be thought through.