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Mirja Määttä & Sanna Aaltonen 7/2012
Categorized and complex youth participation
Abstract
Issues of youth participation and involvement in society are key interests for many youth researchers today. Since youth participation rights and responsibilities are also essential objectives in public policies, sensitizing for complexities of youth engagement is vital. In our theoretic-methodological paper we develop a model for analyzing varieties of youth participation. The model differentiates institutionally framed and governed participation forms from ungoverned, spontaneous youth activities, and imposed engagement from freely chosen participation. Our approach derives from the interplay between the social political youth studies and youth sub-cultural studies (MacDonald et al 2001) on the one hand; and by the neo-Foucauldian analysis of governance (Dean 1999; Miller & Rose 2008), on the other.
In our paper, special attention is paid to the young people who are considered to need intensified measures of support in their transition to adulthood. For them participation initiatives often mean supportive and controlling policy measures in order to feed their active citizenship. While the young people categorized as ‘passive’ or ‘at-risks’ are expected to participate in reflecting upon their personal life and future plans, other young people are invited to have an influence in societal matters. As youth participation initiatives are differentiated according to the categorizations of young people, it is important to critically analyze the use of participative technologies. We argue that one-sided understanding of youth participation as empowering opportunity masks the inequalities among young people.
Introduction
Youth participation is a key interest for many youth researchers today. In general terms it
is considered to be an essential element of young people’s wellbeing (e.g. Wyn 2009) and
a prerequisite for active citizenry. Issues of youth inclusion in society and involvement in
politics and policy making are all addressed in the studies. In the policy arenas youth
participation initiatives have reached their peak in many countries. The strong demand for
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the states, communities and services to engage young people is stated in the national and
international formulas, the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child being the most
cited. (See e.g. Moran-Ellis 2010; Wall 2012.) By stressing youth participation and citizen
education those in power – politicians, policy makers and experts – hope to answer to the
anxieties created by youth exclusion risks manifested especially in the high rates of
dropping-out from education and labour market. They also want to combat against the
democratic and civics deficits, that is to say, low conventional political and social
engagement among the young. Furthermore, youth engagement is seen as a vehicle for
user friendly, responsive and better targeted services and well functioning facilities for the
target group.
“The active citizenship’ is yearned in contemporary youth policies (Harris et al. 2010;
Milbourne 2009; Brooks 2009). Instead of emphasizing the legal membership of the nation
as a given status, the term underlines the normative ideal of “citizenship as a quality,
capacity or set of skills and understanding instilled in young people” (Hall & Coffey 2007,
283). The term implies that the other side of the coin, passive citizenship, is not wanted
(Hall et al. 1998). This is in line with activating social and labour market policies which
underline the self-responsibility of individuals and seek to balance rights and
responsibilities of the citizens (Walther 2005; Pohl & Walther 2007). Yet there are limits in
desirable activity. As Janet Newman (2007) has pointed out policies in search of the active
and activated citizens do not necessarily value activists, people who aim to challenge the
existing order.
This article questions the conventional and limited interpretation of ‘youth participation’ as
a right and opportunity to which young people should be educated. Instead we offer a
wider view on participation pointing out to the complexities of youth engagement. Even
there is a need to develop further the possibilities of youngsters to be part of and involve in
their communities, and have an influence in everyday, policy and political domains; we
argue that one-sided understanding of youth participation as empowering opportunity is
misleading. It masks the inequalities among young people: namely, that their participation
possibilities are differentiated according to their categorization. Participation initiatives for
the young people categorized as ‘passive’ or ‘at-risks’ compound of supportive and
controlling measures in order to feed their active citizenship.
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The aim of the article is to make visible and enable critical analysis of the inequalities
inherent in the governing practices using participatory approaches and discourses. We
develop a model for analyzing varieties of youth participation forms. The model can be
used for explaining the obstacles and contradictions in the implementation of participation
initiatives. Our approach is inspired on the one hand by the interaction of social political
youth studies and youth sub-cultural studies (MacDonald, R. et al 2001; Hoikkala &
Suurpää 2005), and on the other hand by the neo-Foucauldian analysis of governance
(Dean 1999; Rose 1999a; Miller & Rose 2008; Sulkunen 2009). The model differentiates
institutionally framed and governed participation forms from ungoverned, spontaneous
youth activities, and imposed engagement from freely chosen participation. Participation is
examined particularly among the young people who are considered to need intensified
measures of support in their transition to adulthood. The model is further exemplified by
study on activities offering targeted support for marginal young people, who have
difficulties to get a diploma from the comprehensive school.
Model for analyzing youth participation
In order to develop understanding on varieties of youth participation we apply the following
bi-dimensional model to analyze it. This 2x2 typology employs two continuums in which
participation is examined. The horizontal continuum refers to the institutional – non-
institutional contexts of participation: on the one hand youth participation is officially
governed, conventional and sanctioned/rewarded and on the other official governing is
weak or does not exist. The vertical continuum in turn refers to the degree of choice: in the
position of high degree of choice young people have relatively more freedom to choose
their contexts, manners and intensity of participation, while in the other end of the
continuum their options of choices are more scarce and structured by other driving forces
than their own discretion. The latter kind of imposed participation is often ignored in youth
participation discussions and studies, as participation as such is interpreted exclusively
positively.
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Picture 1. Model for analyzing youth participation
The bi-dimensional model compounds of four ideal types of participation, the first being
formal participation of young people. It consists of a number of different participation
forms to which young people are hoped and guided to be engaged: from formal education
to extracurricular activities and from political involvement to voluntary work. Conventional
political activities such as voting, being a member in the political parties and trade unions
and standing in the elections – participation that is partly restricted for under-aged – are
part of it as well as the membership in ‘the pre-political representative bodies’ such as
youth and civic councils, school councils, and different associations. These decision
making forums have recently given more room and official, even legal, status in many
countries (see for example Whitty & Wisby 2007). Since it is not possible to elaborate on
all these conventional ways to participate we explore more closely these pre-political
representative bodies.
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They usually have more or less formal decision-making processes, regulation for the
meetings and adult guidance. They are also ‘promotional’ in their nature, as young people
get experience in democratic practices and learn to discuss, oppose, defend and influence
in the issues at hand (Tisdall & Davis 2004). These forums can be seen as ‘precursors to
civic engagement in adulthood’ (Flanagan 2009, 297), as stepping stones for recruitment
trajectories and further authority in society or opportunistically speaking, something to put
into CV’s (Brooks 2007).
Nevertheless, earlier studies on youth participation have identified many challenges and
limits in implementing extra-curricular youth participation in practice. There is a lack of
representativeness and inclusiveness in many youth forums or councils, because young
people identified as active and achieving in conventional manner are over-represented in
them (Tisdall & Davis 2004; Flanagan 2009; Vromen & Collin 2010). According to Nairn et
al. (2006) achiever-type of youngsters – future leaders – are recruited to represent youth
voices in developing communal and political issues and given opportunities for learning
and influencing. Those in the cultural and social margins are excluded from the
representational forums, partly because they are considered to lack the “capacities
required to be able to effectively participate in democratic decision-making settings”
(Macpherson 2008, 363–364). Instead the ‘trouble-makers’ are encouraged into
rehabilitative activities and offered supervising. Respectively, ‘ordinary’ young people,
those in the middle, are also claimed to be brushed aside from the participation initiatives.
(Nairn et al. 2006; see also Harris 2010.)
Those who are included in the decision making bodies face challenges too: for being taken
seriously young people have to act in a similar way as adult members and adapt
themselves to the appropriate council practices. This complicates the idea of representing
young people as an interest group: representatives should use ‘the voice of the young
people’ and be similar as young people in general. This is practically impossible as young
people form a heterogeneous group and the selection of the representatives is not
representative in any way. (Wall 2011; Faulkner 2009.)
While youth participation procedures and possibilities are stressed in the public policies,
the practical outcome of their participation – in other words the ideas and approaches of
young people – may be neglected; and they have only minor or no implications in the
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actual adult-driven agenda setting and decision making. (Tisdall & Davis 2004; Wyness
2009; Vromen & Collin 2010.) In practice, young people’s participation can be decorative
and superficial rather than something that gives genuine authority to them (see
comparison of the ladder of participation -models in Barber 2009). Alternatively, they are
listened to only if they are willing to legitimate the status quo and comply with the
governing bodies – such as government or municipal council (Whitty & Wisby 2007).
The second type, youth activities and informal participation refers to optional
participation without strict institutional framing and official governing. Unconventional,
everyday political participation such as recycling, donating money, signing petitions,
boycotting or marketing a brand, making statements online or otherwise, protesting and
spontaneous artistic, media, or youth sub-cultural expressions are all part of this field. At
the end of the continuum are spectacular activism, political radicalism and civil
disobedience of young people. (Harris et al. 2010.)
Part of this optional participation tests or transcends the limits of legality, aiming at
challenging existing societal orders and borders. One example of this kind of participation
is graffiti, based on city youth sub-cultural and stylistic innovations but carrying also
political meanings. It has been analyzed as community-building practice, which creates
shared visual space, challenges the commercialization of the public space and questions
the monopoly of planning authorities to design the urban environment. (Dickinson 2008;
Visconti et al. 2010.) Overtly political protests and movements of young people are further
examples of unconventional modes to participate and perform citizenship. According to
Juris and Pleyers (2009, 58) they represents “an alternative mode of (sub-)cultural practice
and an emerging form of citizenship among young people that prefigures wider social
changes related to political commitment, cultural expression, and collaborative practice”.
What is often typical for this kind of activism are network-based operational forms,
innovative use of information and communication technologies, criticism towards formal
political associations and global connectedness (ibid.; see for example Flanagan & Levine
2010; Laine 2012). Nevertheless, even though the new forms of engagement may be more
open and collaborative compared to conventional forms of participation poor and minority
youth may still remain underrepresented in them (c.f. Juris & Pleyers 2010, 62).
The third type is youth participation required in the services and for receiving social provisions. It is officially governed and institutionally framed, made binding by acts,
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decrees, codes of conduct or procedures. It is a field where embraced ideas about the
youth participation rights turn to participation duties and mixture of care and control in the
services directed to young people. In many ways it concerns all the minors in a society as
they are not characterized as mature and self responsible subjects but seen as ‘citizens-in-
the-making’. They constitute “the most intensively governed sector of personal existence”
(Rose 1999b, 123). For example, in Finland the whole age group has an obligation to
accomplish their basic education. This is sanctioned by legislation and fulfilled by intense
support measures when necessary1. Targeted measures are offered for unemployed as
well. They have to register as job applicants, report minutely their activities and travels,
take part in training and accept a job addressed to them for getting full benefits and
services. All of this calls for young people’s own activity, agency and participation.
The participation duties with the adult guidance and control are activated and intensified
whenever a young person is considered to be at risks and in need of targeted support.
This form of demanded participation is often hidden in the youth participation discussions.
Yet, many authorities and professionals working with young people are familiar with the
regulations and controlling measures, because they are part and parcel of their work
challenges and in the need of constant justifications. Respectively the service providers
are obligated to offer certain support measures for the young people in a given time limit,
for example in the child welfare and employment services. This illustrates the idea of
reciprocal rights and responsibilities of the state and citizens even the position of the
service provider is more powerful in many respects than that of the individual service
recipient whose options are limited by the conditionality of the support. A threat of
withdrawal of support measures is a strong driving force for participation. Participation
duties may also be introduced as advisable rather than strictly obligated for the young. For
example unemployed young people who are making individual action plans in dialogue
with an administrator are tutored to show their flexible character as a service recipient and
thus, their profitability for ongoing investments (Born & Jensen 2010).
The fourth and last ideal type may first appear as an anomaly - low degree of choice in a
context free from official governing – but with this type we refer to consequences of poverty and disadvantage and to youth actions or inactions often seen as marks of non-
1 According to the Basic Education Act (628/1998) all children permanently residing in Finland are subject to compulsory education. The parent or other guardian of a child must ensure completion of compulsory education. 99,7 percent of the children complete their compulsory education and get the diploma. (Finnish National Board of Education.)
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participation in or exclusion from society. Young people are agents and they make choices
but, paraphrasing Karl Marx, not in circumstances of their own choosing. Thus there may
be structural barriers to active citizenship. Options among which people have to choose in
order to participate and make a difference in their life can be restricted and all poor:
nonconformist, detrimental or illegal activities on the outskirts of society, away from official
supervision and support.
The widespread rioting and looting in several English towns in August 2011 can in part be
seen as an example of this kind of limited and marginal participation that has its roots in
social inequalities and deprivation, youth unemployment, racism and ethnic conflicts. From
the point of view of public officials such activities are interpreted simply as manifestations
of gang culture and criminal opportunism that form a threat to the security and wellbeing of
the society, violating the progression of bio-political project. However, these kinds of
activities reflect not only freedom of official governing but also deeper disconnection and
dissatisfaction with society, its values and the official institutions such as the police forces.
(See Smith 2011.)
This model, comprised of aforementioned four ideal types, can be further illustrated by
applying it to school context. While the comprehensive school requires school aged
children to participate to the education, in the minimum, by being physically present there
are different ways to participate to school work. Participation may involve engagement with
formal school decisions making (ideal type 1), student activism at school related to e.g.
environmental issues (type 2), participating to disciplinary measures of the official school
(type 3) or participating to counter-school cultural activities like playing truant (type 4) (e.g.
Thomson & Holdsworth 2003; Wyn 2009). Here it is essential to acknowledge that the two
latter types of participation are not simply a matter of free and deliberate choice from the
individuals’ point of view but can be inflected by student’s experiences of school culture as
aggressive or indifferent (Smyth et. al 2004; Aaltonen 2011).
We wish to concentrate here on the third type of participation that will be elaborated in the
next chapters by theorizing it further and illustrating it with a study example. This type
forms the most complex and contradictory area of youth participation where relations of
power and obedience, “common good’ and individual aspirations are contested and
negotiated. It also explains why normative policy expectations of youth participation are
often difficult to fulfill: these initiatives have strong educative and socializing goals based
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on some implicit view of ideal citizen, but this ideal is not openly discussed. In the final
chapter we will return to discuss the model and its coverage.
Imposed participation for generating self-responsibility and -control
Focusing on ‘imposed participation’ that stands in the institutional-official quadrant of the
model aims at making visible the art of governing in contemporary societies that sets
individual agency and responsibility to the central position. In the liberal democracies, all
the young people are wanted to be equipped with the abilities of adult citizens: autonomy,
self-direction and self-control. Without these qualities the full participation and integration
into society are seen as incomplete. Nevertheless, it is often demanding for young people
to meet these requirements due to unequal resources and structural societal changes that
impede linear transitions – such as global economic imbalances, high youth
unemployment and insecure and precarious work opportunities.
Former links between the education and employment are loosened – even excellent
qualifications do not guarantee employment. At the policy level these difficulties are often
individualized, and employability- and self responsibility-promoting measures of support
are provided for young people. (Walther 2005; Pohl & Walther 2007.) Moreover, the
controlling and categorizing elements have been strengthened in youth services as well as
in political and media discussions (Satka et al. 2007). Governments trying to find answers
to the societal uncertainties are increasingly focusing on identifying risk-factors and risky
young individuals who are contrasted with the middle-class majority and whose lives are
deemed to be in need of intervention (see Foster & Spencer 2011; Jones et al 2004). In
the welfare states these interventions are justified by the statutory obligations of the
officials, individual rights for social protection or by economic calculations. The measures
of support are named for example as early intervention, secondary prevention or
rehabilitation.
The tendency to intensify control over young people’s life, and develop depressing
procedures for ‘at-risk-youth’ coexists with the public initiatives that embrace the ideas of
youth participation and partnership. This illustrates the confusions inherent in
contemporary youth policies. (Milbourne 2009.) For example, according to Muncie (2006;
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788) the field of youth justice “appears as forever more hybrid: attempting to deliver a
complex and contradictory amalgam of the punitive, the responsibilizing, the remoralizing,
the inclusionary, the exclusionary and the protective”. Hence, it is understandable that
young people in different supporting and steering measures may find the expectations laid
on them perplexing and unfair.
In principle, the more precarious are the risks the more intensive are the interventions, and
the more young peoples’ capacity of agency is in doubt, the more intensively it will be
required of them. (Dean 1999, 168; Castel 2007, 50; Sulkunen 2009, 188; Sulkunen 2011).
For example, in child protection services, drug rehabilitation and medical care young
people may have to take part in the restrictive measures such as drug tests; frisks and
checking of possessions (see Kouvonen 2010). Here, young people are primarily the
objects of protection and control, but there is also room for their adaption, rejection or
collaboration. The reactions and actions of young people in the controlling measures make
them potentially participative subjects.
In practice different technologies of citizenship and agency are used to shepherd young
people to plan their future, control their lifestyles, and orient their behavior. (Dean 1999,
168; Miller & Rose 2008, 48 - 50.) For example school children and their parents may have
to sign up a contract where they promise to act according the rules of the school or rules of
the game are introduced to young people in youth projects, written down and sanctioned
whenever seen necessary. Whenever these kinds of responsibilitative measures are
exploited without negotiation possibilities and power signed over to subjects, the idea of
free participation or equal contracting is highly illusory. (Määttä & Kalliomaa-Puha 2006.)
Generating partnership with young people is seen as a successful technique for involving
them in their own governing. The practical applications of contracting are debatable,
sometimes also unsuitable for the target group2, only alleviating their subordinate position.
Here the relations of domination can be hidden under the discourses of voluntary
partnership (Sulkunen 2009, 180-181).
Blurring of voluntary participation and partnership to unequal power positions and illusory
negotiations is notable in the third type of participation in our model. When the discourses
of right-based participation possibilities and community engagement are incorporated into
more coercive and controlling fields of educational and labour policies – where the major
2 For example in the studied case of signing up a contract part of school children were illiterate (Määttä & Kalliomaa-Puha 2006).
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inputs and maximum output expectations lie in our societies – clear ambivalences are
created. In that way the third type of participation makes an interesting yet often neglected
area in the participation studies.
Participation in an activity offering support
In order to further concretize institutionally framed participation where the degree of choice
is low we draw on data produced in My Own Career (hereafter MOC, Omaura in Finnish)
that was an alternative way of completing comprehensive school.3 With its emphasis on
working life, it was intended for young people who were in danger of not graduating with a
diploma. The young people interested in coming to MOC applied there with help from their
teachers or school welfare officials. The key elements of MOC were individual planning,
external learning at work sites, and intensive study courses. The goal was to strengthen
the motivation of young people to study and to prevent their exclusion from the education
system.4
Applying the earlier introduced bi-dimensional model to examine the MOC activity
illustrates that the distinction between high and low level of choice is not clear cut. To
certain extend MOC is based on voluntary participation since the young people have to
apply to it and there are very little direct sanctions for those who omit to participate. At the
same time young people are identified to be in need of targeted support and although they
are able to refuse certain kind of support measures (e.g. youth psychiatric counselling) the
freedom of choice has its limits: if it were not this activity it might be another institutionally
framed solution.
Whilst they accept to participate in MOC activities that have a clear target, they are also
invited to acknowledge the broader rehabilitating aims of the project and the participation
duties that are mainly directed to individual lifestyle-related, future-oriented questions.
3 This section is based on Sanna Aaltonen’s study (funded by the Academy of Finland 2008-2010 and Finnish Youth Research Network 2011-2013) that explores what are the imaginable prospects and actual choices of ninth graders who are considered to be at risk to be marginalized from the educational system or from their peer groups. The data that are produced in metropolitan area of Finland consist of 32 thematic biographical interviews with 15-17 –year old young women and men who have participated in multi professional services offering support for young people in order to complete comprehensive school and to prevent marginalization.4 During the school year 2008-2009 the MOC activities were produced jointly by the Educational Department and the Youth Department of the city of Helsinki in four comprehensive schools in which MOC classes were provided on separate premises. The staff in each school included one youth worker and one or two special teachers who were responsible for organizing the activities during school days.
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Through participating to the project young people are made conscious of the societal
expectations concerning respectable citizenship. Further, they are expected to commit
themselves to the activities for a certain period of time or until they get the certificate. This
commitment is rewarded and fed by encouragement and joint incentives, and attendance
of young people is strictly monitored by the staff.
The overall aim of the activity is to rehabilitate young people, to foster autonomous
citizenship and civic skills that the young people are considered to lack. This task is
executed by involving young people to the activities on the daily basis by attending to
MOC-classes. Young people have a possibility to influence on the content of these
activities to certain extend: in MOC classes the curriculum follows the national one but is
still individually tailored.
Another option to influence and to participate in the decision making concerning one’s life
in MOC are the network meetings between the young person, his or her parent(s), staff
member(s) of the MOC and possibly other professionals such as a social worker who is
familiar with the young person. Thus, the obligation to participate, be heard as well as
guided is extended from the young people to the parents as well.5 The rationale for
including the parents in the activities derives from the outlook that it is not only the child
but the whole family that is in need of support. In these meetings individual plans
concerning education and life management are prepared for the young people and their
progress is regularly evaluated. The way young people are able to participate is to focus
on solving predetermined problems instead of setting problems which is seen as the most
active way to participate (see Borghi & van Berkel 2007). This was criticized by some of
the young people as an irrelevant obligation or non-participation from their point of view: “I
know it all already [reports on his behavior] so I don’t understand why I have to be there,
what is my role there. I just sit and listen to them”.
However, although the young people were not participating in the agenda setting and they
have very little to say in activity design (ibid.), they appeared to have allies. According to
the interviews with young people as well as the impression formed in the interviews with
the staff members, the professionals in the MOC had a genuine interest in the well being
of the young people as well as in the possibilities to further develop the activities. In this
5 This applies to general education as a whole: for example the statement on the web side of the City of Helsinki Education Department is that the department “considers it important that both students as well as their parents are able to participate in the development of schoolwork’ (Participate and Influence, 2012).
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sense, staff members can be seen as certain kinds of representatives of young people and
their views. (See Macpherson 2008.) Since the staff works as a link between young people
and the institutional level, a sense of alliance between the two parties may be a key for the
acceptance of the support measures on behalf of the young people. The activity was not
called My Own Career for nothing: its aim indeed was to pilot young people to become
involved in mapping their educational and professional careers. Young people’s active
participation is called into play – it is required for example during the external learning
periods at work sites – and an important criterion for choosing the participants to the MOC
activities is whether the applicant is considered to handle this responsibility. Thus,
although the activities are institutionally framed by the legislation on compulsory education
they, at the same, require and foster active participation from those who have been
labeled as passive and disinterested towards school.
In the context of compulsory education the starting point of the participation to MOC is
compelling since young people are strongly guided to get the school leaving certificate, but
at the same time their participation rests on their voluntary commitment to this particular
activity. While degree of choice of the participants on the one hand is somewhat limited
and officially framed their commitment, on the other hand, is fed by a broad degree of
choice concerning the pace and the variety of studies (e.g. activity based learning, small
group teaching, on-the-job learning and different learning environments). Thus, the
balance between the obligatory and optional activities, intensive frames and individual
tailoring; and binding rules and allying staff eased the tensions young people may have felt
in the MOC.
Conclusion
The aim of implementing the participation rights of all youngsters in various arenas of
society is commonly agreed – at the level of policy discussions, at least. Instead of solely
monitoring and advancing the fulfillment of participation rights, it is essential for social
scientists to explore different embodiments of youth participation. The goals of this article
have been to illustrate the varieties of youth participation and dismantle simplistic
understanding of youth participation as one-sidedly empowering and democratisizing
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opportunity. As showed in the earlier studies, youth participation opportunities are
unequally spread out and the implementation of the participation initiatives difficult in
practice.
Our model represents participation as multiform and complex concept, comprised of wide
range of actions and experiences. Youth participation may vary from the conventional to
unconventional, from officially governed to unofficially ordered, from socially accepted self-
interest to arousing, illegal disturbances that may lead to fundamental societal changes. If
we combine our model to Janet Newman’s distinctions in activating social policies (2007)
we may condense that the conventional type of youth participation equals with the idea of
active citizens, and informal and spontaneous youth participation instead with the activists.
The imposed youth participation equals with the activated citizens, and the forth type of
youth participation, consequences of disadvantage, with the ‘in-false-way-active’ or non-
active citizens.
The model can be used in youth studies that analyze the variety of positions given to
young people in society and in the services directed to them: how institutionally framed
these are, and is there individual volition or coercion emphasized. It also makes visible the
expectations laid on young people, and for their ways to participate and act; and explains
part of their possible experiences, options and constraints encountered in different
participation types. We can also contemplate what kind of civic skill are either promoted or
more or less unintentionally obtained through different types of participation. The
conventional youth participation in decision making obviously promotes skills needed in
formal decision making bodies while participating in alternative activities could be argued
to feed critical thinking-outside-the-box approach. Participating in services gives
participants an idea of negotiating with the officials and finding individual ways to cope with
the (expectations laid on them in) governing measures. Civic skills learned in participating
in detrimental activities, in turn, relate to getting by on a day-to-day basis.
Our analysis emphasizes the officially governed participation. In that context in general but
in relation to ‘required and imposed participation’ in particular, participation initiatives aim
at integrating young people to the existing social order. Young people are thus controlled
by their participation rights and obligations, guided to reach maturity, and govern and
responsibilitate themselves. Conventional and active participation of young people can be
seen as a requisite for full citizenship and adulthood – a way to earn freedom from the
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educative and controlling measures, which is fundamental goal in the liberal societies
(Dean 1999).
According to Hart (1992, 5) participation refers “to the process of sharing decisions which
affect one’s life and the life of the community in which one lives”. It is reasonable to
contemplate whether the objective of officially governed participation is to have that
opinion taken into account in matters affecting a community or is it more focusing on
affecting an individual him/herself? We argue that there is a divided understanding of
youth participation: those policy initiatives that are directed to young people categorized as
‘passive’ or ‘at-risks’ consist of imposed duties to reflect upon their own conduct and future
prospects, which is hoped to feed their active citizenship. For young people identified as
capable participation initiatives open up possibilities to influence in policy making. At the
policy level, there is a challenge to ensure that the rights to participate in communal and
political level are not denied from or made inaccessible for those who are considered to be
in the need of supportive measures.
In this article we have demonstrated that emphasizing youth participation solely as
empowering possibility may mask the harshness of the participation measures offered to
‘passive’ young people. Right-based and positively associated ‘youth participation’ -
concept can be used to further almost any sorts of policies and practices, also those that
exclude the most disadvantaged – accidently or purposely – or legitimate illusory
partnership arrangements that hide unequal power structures.
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