Exploring Anti-Semitism in the Classroom: A Case Study Among Norwegian Adolescents from Minority Backgrounds

Abstract

This study explores high school students’ views of Jews in one minority-dominated school in Oslo, Norway. Employing a qualitative approach, semistructured interview guides and classroom-based discussions teased out attitudes toward Jews drawing on questions from a nationwide research conducted by The Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities (2012). The findings are analyzed through the conceptual prism of anti-social capital and the literature on anti-Semitism with a focus on Jean-Paul Sartre’s (1948) analysis. This study warns that failure to pay attention to the increasing fragmentation of the educational landscape in Norway along ethnico-religious lines will serve to undermine teachers’ efforts to combat anti-Semitism.