Northern perspective: on youth work research in Finland

Senior researcher, adjunct professor Tomi Kiilakoski

Finnish Youth Research Network

Finland

Building the tradition of youth research (Hoikkala 2014)

• There have been surveys on young people at least since the 1960s, which was a period of modernisation in the Finnish society.

• The peculiarity of youth work research in Finland has been close co-operation with the Ministry of Culture and Education.

– Clear connection to youth policy.

• Hybrid attitude which combines critical, methodologically sound academic research with different practical partnerships.

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Finnish Youth Research Society & Network

• The Finnish Youth Research Society was founded in 1988 to promote multidisciplinary youth research in Finland.– Board with 6 – 10 members and personal substitute members.

• The Finnish Youth Research Network was founded in 1999 to organize youth research at local, national and international levels.– Autonomous and independent scientific network: 60 % of the

funding by Ministry of Education and Culture, 40 % by NGO’s, private organizations, European Comission and other sources.

– 25 – 30 employees– Finnish journal of youth research, book publishing, seminars

and training, barometers, participation in Finnish youth policies.– Located in Asemapäällikönkatu 1, Helsinki, but researchers

working in other parts of the country as well.

Finnish Youth Barometre 2018

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Diagnosing the difficulties (Kivijärvi 2015)

• Sometimes it is claimed that youth research does not serve the practice.

• Mutual uncertainties:Youth workers don’t always know what to expect from the research. The researchers do not know how they could co-operate with the youth work practice.

• Currently there are no commonly shared strong theoretical traditions. Due to this, youth work research cannot be based on the pre-existing framework.

• There are no relations between research and youth work practice. There are, however, relations between individual researchers and youth work communities.

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What is youth work anyway?

Elements of youth work in Finland (Kiilakoski)

• Firstly, youth work is an age-specific activity – the way youth work relates to the target group is influenced by an understanding of what it means to be a young person in society.

• Secondly, youth work is about creating activities for youth who engage in the process of youth work on a voluntary basis.

• Thirdly, youth work creates spaces where young people can co-operate and have fun with their peer group. Youth work is about facilitating group activities of the young.

• Fourthly, the conception of youth work as education has been important in the history of Finnish youth policy. Recent theoretical and practical studies also emphasise this perspective; the discourse about youth work is thus influenced as well.

• Fifthly, youth work aims at promoting youth participation both within youth work and in society as a whole. This involves empowering youth and creating social structures that help them express themselves.

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Recent themes studied

• Methodology of youth work studies

• Intercultural learning and the impact of international youth work

• Curriculum of youth work

• Food education and youth work

• Smoking and youth cultures

• School bullying and school violence

• Co-operation of schools and youth work

• Rural youth and youth policy

• Cultural youth work and expressivism

• Participation, democracy, youth policy

• Conflict resolution in schools

• Youth work quality and evaluation

• Youth work and peace-building through the use of media

• Youth work on the move: ’railroad youth work’

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Methodological reflections

• Quantitative surveys on youth work

• Studies based on interviews

• Ethnographic studies

• Visual methodologies

• Action research, practice-based research, participatory action research

• Evaluations, studies on youth policy

• Research and development

The connection between youth work and youth research (Kiilakoski & Honkatukia 2018)

• Simultaneous, if not always shared history in Finland

• The development of youth work requires being able to know what the young want and need (customer knowledge)

• Common interest: young people

• Interpreting the urbanising Finland and new emerging youth cultures

• The golden triangle: joining a common project

• Researching youth work cannot really be done without researching young people as well: youth work research has been critised for being too interested on the worker perspective

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Current Debates and Trends

• The multi-professional co-operation is increasing. There has been a significat interest in the school-based youth work which has also been studied scientifically (Kiilakoskii 2014, Koulu on enemmän [School is more]). There is also integration of youth, employment, social and health policy within the creation of the youth guarantee model in Finland. In practice this has mean integrating outreach youth work and youth information and counselling to different Active employment policy measures.

• There has been an increase in the targeted youth work due to the increasing youth policy attention paid at NEETs and at social exclusion of the young .While the universal youth work services are still strong, the increasing financiation has to forms of targeted youth work has mean that the balance of the youth work has been shifted. In practice this has meant also that the target group of youth work has widened from 13 to 18 to young people ovet 20 as well.

• There have been efforts to promote participation of the young in different levels of society. Due to this, youth work has worked in different levels of local goverment and has been integrated to local decision making (thus moving from streets to the corridors of power, so to speak).

• Digital youth work has been developed, and the integration of on-line and face-to-face services has been developed. This development is far from completed, but a lot of resources have been put to this.

• There have been efforts to explicate the nature of youth work through productization, development of quality assurance, basic mission efforts, curriculum of youth work explication using bottom-up approach and using different theorical apparatuses, such as capability approach as developed by Martha Nussbaum.

• Multicultural youth work has developed strongly in the last two decades with the growing number of migrant young in Finland. In connection to this, there have been initiatives to promote human righst perspective in youth work.

Practice turn

• ”Describing what people do is, in fact, a theory-laden operation.” (Nicolini 2012)

• Zooming in: sayings and doings, interactional order, timing and tempo, tools, arfifacts, mediation, practical concerns, tensions between creativity and normativity, processes of legitimatization and stabilization

• Zooming out: which other practices influence, enable, constraint or conflict the practices; in which ways does the practice renew the social order; what are the interests, projects hopes and manouvres that led to there we are?

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Literature on Finnish Youth Work in English (open-access)

• Forkby, T. & Kiilakoski, T. (2014) Building capacity in youth work: Perspectives and practice in youth clubs in Finland and Sweden. Youth & policy 112. http://www.youthandpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/yandp112.pdf

• Gretschel , A. (ed.) (2016) Studying the Impact of International Youth Work. http://www.nuorisotutkimusseura.fi/images/studying_the_impact_of_international_youth_work_www_78_pages.pdf

• Höylä, S. (2012) Youth Work in Finland. https://www.humak.fi/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/humak-verkko-hoyla-youth-work-englanti.pdf

• Kiilakoski, T. (2014) Entrepreneurial Learning and Ethos of Youth Work: reflections on a difficult relationship. In Pantea, M. (ed.) Young People, Entrepreuship & Non-formal learning. https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1440&context=intl

• Kiilakoski, T. (2017) Saying, doing, relating – thinking about youth work practice in Finland. in Thinking seriously about youth work. And how to prepare people to do it. https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/1667851/Thinking+seriously+about+YW.pdf/6b620a71-f7be-cf80-7da9-17408a3960ba

• Kiviniemi, J. & Tuominen, S. (eds. (2017) Digital Youth Work – A Finnish Perspective. https://www.verke.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Digital-youth-work-a-Finnish-perspective_web.pdf

• Nieminen, J. (2013) A Finnish perspective: features of the history of modern youth work and youth organisations. In History of Youth Work, Vol. 3. https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/1667851/TheHistoryOfYouthWorkVol3.pdf/57009717-9c65-45c7-9714-df202038d607

• Nieminen, J. (2014) History of youth work as a profession in Finland. In History of Youth Work in Europe, vol. 4. https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/8437152/H4_Finland.pdf/dda3d481-87c1-42ff-95c4-83fed0be14c0

• Nieminen, Juha & Gretschel, A. (2018) The "Social" in Youth Work: Snapshots of Finnish Youth Work Policy and History. In History of Youth Work, Vol. 6. https://pjp-eu.coe.int/en/web/youth-partnership/the-history-of-youth-work-volume-6

• Nöjd, T. & Siurala, L. (2015) Youth Work Quality Assessment. The Self and Peer Assessment Model. http://www.nuorisokanuuna.fi/sites/default/files/filedepot/youth_work_quality_assessment_verkkoversio.pdf

• Peltola, M. (2010) Youth Work in Finland – Finding Ways for intercultural Opening. http://www.nuorisotutkimusseura.fi/images/julkaisuja/youthwork.pdf

• Siurala, Lasse (2018) Youth Work In Finland. In The Impact of Youth Work in Europe: A Study of Five European Countries. https://www.humak.fi/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Impact-Of-Youth-Work.pdf

• Siurala, Lasse & Sinisalo, Juha (2018) Impact of Youth Work in Finland. In The Impact of Youth Work in Europe: A Study of Five European Countries. https://www.humak.fi/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/The-Impact-Of-Youth-Work.pdf

• Wrede-Jäntti, Matilda & Wester, Cecilia (2018) CSYP in Finland –Essential elements, strategies and functionality within the youth guidance and service networks. In Needles in Haystacks. https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/1017981/1667851/Needles-In-Haystacks-WEB.pdf/b63de6f1-9dd6-66e6-9493-d1ed7aed6ec3

Ministry of Culture and Education on Youth Work: http://minedu.fi/en/youth

Finnish Youth Work Statistics: https://nuorisotilastot.fi/#!/en/frontpage/undefined/perus/choice-1/prosentit/whiteblue/Koko%20maa/Koko%20maa/table/suhde//null/kunta/donut/%5B%5D//%5B%5D//2016-2017/0?2

Youth Wiki, Finland: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/en/content/youthwiki/overview-finland