YOUTH RESEARCH

How issues of youth research have changed?Helena Helve

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Content:

Youth

Youth research

Different approaches

Concluding notes

Discussion of global youth

research

Youth researchers spend theirlives researching and writing aboutinequality, exclusion, non-participation, disadvantage and disengagement, in other words treating youth research as research on youth related problems. But as the basis of an orientation to youth, it is rather one-sided. We should also highlight young people as a positive force in society, as a resource that is changing the culture as well as societal structures. (Gudmundsson 2000.)

ISA RC 34, Sociology of Youth, (funded 1975)

http://www.rc34youth.org/

“youth”

youth as a transition into adulthood as well as a key to societal change (see e.g. Coleman, 1973; Bynner, 1987 and 2001; Bynner & Kokljagina, 1995; Chisholm, 1995; Chisholm and Du Bois-Reymonds, 1993; Chisholm and Hurrelmann 2002)

the western phenomenon has been a prolongation of youth

“post-adolescent” phenomenon (e.g., Gauthier & Pacom, 2001)

late/post adolescence as “emerging adulthood” (Arnett, 2001)

Sigmund Freud, Erik H. Erikson, and Jean Piaget different stages of development to achieve a well-developed adult identity Social learning theories (Bandura, 1977); Sozialisation theories Life-course theories from the 1980s ‘Individualization thesis’ (Beck 1986, 1992) ‘trajectories’ (Jones & Wallace, 1992; Chisholm &

Hurrelmann, 1995) International Year of Young People in 1985 The IARD Institute, Milano, 1961

Das Deutsche Jugendinstitut (DJI), 1963 NYRI 1986 NYRIS 1 NORDIC YOUTH RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM 1987 Finnish Youth Research Society 1987

Theoretical backgrounds and institutionalization

Paradigm changes from Positivisms to Realisms and Constructionisms - Britain & USA: in the 1960s and 1970s, scholarly attention turned to peer groups and

youth subcultures as vessels for transmitting proper work values, social attitudes and behaviours to young people

in 1970s British social scientists (Hall, 1976; Willis, 1977; 1987; Griffin 1985) and others working in the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS)

youth sub-cultures both as manifestations of youth rebellion and as mirrors of the dominant power relations under capitalism, patriarchy, and racism (Foucault, Marxism, CCCS, Subculture Theory Maffesoli 1985; ,Hall & Jefferson, 1993).

Youth Research East & Central Europe … First Stage in the 1960s and 70s

the rising political concerns in the German Democratic Republic in 1966, then in the

Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania and elsewhere youth research institutes were founded

strong influence of the official Marxist ideology

much empirical information about the varying expectations and experiences of young people with large-scale quantitative surveys (Kovacheva 2005)

Second Stage in 1980s international co-operation started between East and

West. qualitative studies

European Youth Research:

Methodological pluralism: case-study approaches, ethnographies, life history and focus

group interviewing, discourse and narrative analysis

Theoretical pluralism traditional indicators such as class, gender, and ethnicity;

changes in inter-generational relationships influence the process of becoming actors in late modernity/post-modernity (Furlong, Fred Cartmel, 2006)

inequality is manifested in critical variants of theories of peer groups and youth sub-cultures

gender studies Alice in Wonderland Conference 1992 hybrid and technologized identities (Mizrach; Feixa)

Network of Experts on Youth Knowledge, EC 1993 - Since 2003 European Commission/Council of Europe Youth Partnership.

International reviews of national youth policy 1997 (Williamson)

)

Concluding notes: Different approaches in youth research 1) Youth research as descriptive and correlations: focus on quantitative aspects of what

young people – often defined by age – are doing: Education, criminality, drug use, political participation, health, etc.; and how these

different youth indicators are correlated.

2) Youth cultural research in the 60s and 70s looking at new youth cultures and cultural lifestyles mainly qualitative – looking for innovative aspects in youth life

3) understanding youth individualisation in biographs from 80s: interests in understanding young people as a resourceful category in late modern society

citizenship, identity – empowerment, life management, agency mixed methods attention to the historical and contextual processes of different forms of

individualisation in different groups of youth: minorities, immigrants, excluded YP

4) Praxis or evaluation research political youth initiatives and youth projects looking for the “best practices” evidence—based policy making; Eurobarometers, Youth Reports

KEY FIGURES RELATING TO EU DEMOGRAPHY

96 million young people aged 15-29 15-29 year olds 19.4 % of the EU total population almost 40 % of employed 15-24 year-olds work on a

temporary contract NEETs – Not in Education, Employment or Training: more

than one third of 15 to 24 year old ones approximately 26 % of unemployed young people have

been unemployed for more than 12 months at risk of poverty 19 million children under 18 year olds

and 20 percent of young people from 18 to 24 Need for comparative and longitudinal research

perspectives