Diana Miconi's Montreal study found something that challenges everything we think we know about how teenagers become radicalized: the journey isn't a straight line at all—it's more like a branching forest where most young people are wandering, changing direction, and finding their way out.
For years, policymakers and researchers have worried that radicalization follows a predictable arc: teenager absorbs an ideology, becomes an activist, then turns to violence when democratic channels fail. It seems logical, inevitable even. But when Miconi, a professor in the Faculty of Education at Université de Montréal, and her team surveyed 574 students around age 15 across six high schools in metropolitan Montreal over the course of a year, they discovered the reality is far messier—and in many ways, more hopeful.
The researchers mapped out what teenagers actually believe across two surveys conducted in 2023 and 2024. What emerged were six distinct profiles. The largest group, about 39 percent of students, supported nonviolent forms of engagement like signing petitions or joining demonstrations. Another 15 percent believed violence and nonviolence could coexist as tactics. About 13 percent were largely disengaged from these questions altogether. At the other end of the spectrum, roughly 12 percent supported violence without endorsing activism of any kind. Miconi noted that the largest group represents something encouraging: "These are young people who believe in democratic methods."
The truly striking finding, though, was how unstable these attitudes turned out to be. Most teenagers shifted profiles between the two surveys—they weren't locked into their initial views. And here's what should ease some alarm: the teens who initially favored violence were the most likely to change their minds. Of those who supported violence in the first survey, only about 13 percent remained in that category a year later. Most moved toward less violent positions, either embracing nonviolent engagement or stepping back from the issue entirely. By contrast, students who held nonviolent views tended to stay consistent.
Two factors shaped whether teenagers moved toward or away from violence. Students who experienced discrimination were more likely to remain pro-violence, suggesting that lived inequality has real consequences. But academic success and positive school experiences appeared to act as protective buffers, keeping students engaged in nonviolent activism. Regardless of their stance on violence, engaged youth shared a common concern: they worried deeply about global injustice, from international conflicts to environmental collapse. "Young people are sensitive to injustice, even at the global level," Miconi observed.
What troubled Miconi most was the emergence of a new form of radicalism that doesn't fit traditional models. Some teenagers construct what she called an "ideological smorgasbord," drawing from countless online sources to build hybrid worldviews outside any organized movement. Worse, a small cohort embraces what Miconi described as nihilistic violence—not aimed at social change, but rooted in the belief that humans are fundamentally evil and the world is beyond saving. For these young people, violence becomes aestheticized, something to admire in viral videos rather than a means to an end.
Yet Miconi urged caution in interpreting the findings. "We're talking about attitudes, not behaviors," she emphasized. Checking a box on a questionnaire is far from acting on those beliefs. Still, the study suggests that for most adolescents navigating questions of justice and change, attitudes are not fixed. They are exploring, testing ideas, and most importantly, open to change.