Teachers in Sweden are increasingly facing challenges with children in nurseries and lower primary school classes expressing extremist and hateful views. Issues such as hatred towards LGBTQ individuals and anti-democratic sentiments are even more severe in higher grades and secondary schools.

According to a survey by the Swedish Teachers’ Union, one in three educators working in nurseries, primary or secondary schools, and after-school care centres reported encountering serious problems with offensive and hate-filled expressions, as highlighted by the Swedish Samnytt news portal. In upper secondary schools, two out of three teachers reported witnessing or hearing students voice extremist views, including racism, hatred towards LGBTQ individuals, and antisemitism.

Among teachers working with students in grades 7–9, nearly half said that in the past school year, they had heard students make verbal attacks against others based on skin colour or ethnic background at least once a month. For teachers in upper secondary schools, this proportion stood at 45 percent.

Approximately four out of ten secondary school teachers reported hearing students insult LGBTQ individuals at least once a month, and a similar proportion reported students making disparaging comments about women.

Students insult each other’s mothers on a daily basis,” one teacher explained. Some students are intolerant of any criticism of religion, while others assert that women should remain at home. Female teachers and women in general are frequently referred to in Arabic as “whores.”

The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) has warned that extremist views are becoming normalised. Misogyny, homophobia, and anti-democratic sentiments, they caution, provide fertile ground for threats and violence.

„We’re witnessing increasingly polarised, hateful, and loud rhetoric pushing the boundaries of what can be publicly said. This also risks testing the limits of what is permissible to do,” Fredrik Hultgren-Friberg – Säpo’s spokesperson – told Vi Lärare.

Karin Ernfors, legal counsel for the Swedish Teachers’ Union, emphasised that teachers who hear students make hateful or offensive comments have a duty to act and report crimes. Addressing these incidents is both an educational necessity and a measure to prevent further offences. However, many teachers feel uncertain about what steps to take and are often too afraid to act.