Kultainen nuoruus: Kurkistuksia nuorten hyvinvointiin ja sen tutkimiseen

This collection of articles is based on the Finnish Youth Research Network’s research project, 15-19- year-old young people in Finnish Society, which was conducted during the years 2003–2005. In this project different dimensions of the lives of 15-19-year-old Finnish young people were analysed in terms of young people’s own social environment on the one hand, and in terms of the space defined by structural aspects of society on the other. The project included a wide variety of subject areas: the culturally defined age structure and overcoming it, multiculturalism and racism in young people’s everyday life, the significance of youth projects in social work, the effects of residential areas and family background on young people’s academic careers, the effects of parents’ work on young people’s well-being, and changes in young people’s consumption cultures in the information society. New sub-projects were also attached to this project, continuing into 2006.

The academic fields of sociology, pedagogy and psychology were represented within the project, with research methods including evaluation and action research, participant observation, individual and group interviews, media analyses, textual analyses, and survey and statistical analyses. Because of the diversity of fields and methods involved, the articles in this publication concentrate on presenting the methodology used in each study.

The collection includes four articles which are based on qualitative research. The applied research methods, their foundations and the associated theoretical considerations, however, diverge from one another in such a way that the articles open many different perspectives regarding qualitative research. The articles here take into consideration the multiple phases of concrete research processes, ethical questions associated with the research and its subject area, and possibilities to draw conclusions on the basis of the data that has been collected and analysed.

Sinikka Aapola-Kari’s research approach is discourse analysis with a particular object: public images of successful young people, smoothed down for research. In her article, Young Heroes and Heroines? Successful Young People in the Media Spotlight, Aapola-Kari notes that discourse analysis is not a method which can be automatically and uniformly applied; it must rather be sensitive to the subject area in question and it always bears something of a resemblance to the researcher applying it. She presents her own application with its grounds and nuances in a precise and enlightening manner. Particularly interesting within the analysis is the way in which Aapola-Kari tracks the image of “the average young person” implicitly given in contrast to the media image of young success stories. In addition to age, gender is taken in here as a particular element of analysis.

Anne-Mari Souto’s research project, which her article is based on, has its roots in the study of the racist youth culture in the city of Joensuu, and in Exit – a recent intervention project there conducted by youth workers and researchers. Souto has continued the study of racism and everyday multiculturalism at school in Joensuu. In her article, Everyday Racism and Participatory Youth Research in the Everyday Life of a Multicultural School, she describes the demands ethnographic research in a school places on a researcher. Souto justifies her approach with a ethically challenging emphasis on interventionist action research being the only morally acceptable, and methodologically possible, approach for this sort of research target – at least for her personally. Her descriptions of the field work phases in the study – conflicts, provocations, cries for help, being challenged in two multicultural schools – open a living, even intervening picture of everyday racism at school and the anti-racist researcher’s encounters and conceptual pressure conflicts there.

In her article, Young People in a Racist Culture – Using Ethnographic Interviews as a Research Tool, Sini Perho describes, considers and weighs her methodological choice of using an ethnographic interview technique – and the field work that goes with it in terms of being with the interview subjects and getting to know them – in relation to her object of research: the racist youth culture in Joensuu. In her article, Perho brings out important themes regarding the production of interview data. She considers, among other things, how ethnographic interviews mean the production of information together with the young people being interviewed, respecting the young people’s own expertise, but also challenging their viewpoints at times. Many concrete examples from her research diary and quotes from interviews shed light on Perho’s careful considerations. In her article Perho also presents her research findings regarding young people’s different ways of relating to the racist sub-culture and its – rather surprising – core element: ”ordinariness”. According to Perho, ”ordinariness” for these young people in particular means placing immeasurable value on not being different from others.

Jaana Lähteenmaa’s subject is more marginal than mainstream in Finnish youth research, but her method, superficially speaking, is quite a common one. In her article, A Home in the Countryside – Young People’s Perspectives on East, West and South, Lähteenmaa broadly considers the limits of the data acquired using her choice of methods. Lähteenmaa has studied the images young people have of the different sorts of rural areas they come from around Finland – isolated regions, traditional agricultural areas and areas which are effectively satellites of Helsinki. The primary data for this study comes from essays written by young people on the subject, with the research background coming from the author’s previous study involving extended participant observation in a particular municipal youth center. The themes of the essays were formulated by Lähteenmaa herself, based on initial hypotheses which arose out of her observation experience. In this article she progresses from considering ethical problems towards an actual analysis, and then to a presentation of is problem areas. What ultimately is at issue in essays about a sensitive subject written to order for a researcher by school children? What conclusions can and cannot be drawn from them? Lähteenmaa also presents her research findings, i.e. the key elements of young people’s images of and ways of relating to their home towns.

In terms of research based on quantitative methods there are three articles in this publication. Timo Kauppinen has studied the educational career choices of young people living in different districts of Helsinki based on registry statistics, i.e. Statistics Finland’s longitudinal data file of employment statistics. In his article, Analysing the Influence of Districts through Multilevel Analysis, Kauppinen has analysed educational choices according to residential district on the one hand, and according to family background on the other. As a method of statistical analysis he uses multilevel analysis. Using multilevel analysis enables one to relate variations between districts to variations between individuals. Kauppinen’s results show that although there seem to be regional differences in young people’s average level of academic accomplishment, the region itself is not a significant factor in explaining these differences. Family background has a far greater value than the educational structure of one’s residential area in predicting the academic careers of individual young people in Helsinki. On the other hand, the local educational structure provided a nearly complete explanation for regional differences in educational accomplishment which remained after factoring for family background in Kauppinen’s study. This shows that families which have risen above a certain level of education tend to choose to live in particular parts of the city, at least to some extent.

In her article from the field of psychology, Young People in the Family: A Diary Study of Everyday Family Life as Experienced by Working Parents and their School-age Children, Marjukka Sallinen analyses young people’s and parents’ relationships as seen within the family. This article looks at the everyday life of working parents and their school-age children by studying their diaries. Special items of interest in this article are integrating work and family life, emotional transfer and family well-being. These matters are investigated using both quantitative and qualitative materials and methods. In addition to matters of content, Sallinen describes the diary method, which uses mobile communications technology, considering its suitability for youth and family studies. On the basis of quantitative analysis, families appear to be quite functional and healthy. Qualitative analysis (content analysis), for its part, gives a more complicated picture of families’ everyday life. The primary factor in the dynamics of everyday life, especially where mothers are concerned, was seen to be time and especially the lack thereof. Sallinen states, however, that work alone does not seem to cause stress to such an extent that it can be seen in the children’s fundamental well-being. On the basis of Sallinen’s research, everyday life seems rather to be a challenging matter of strategically dividing one’s time between work, family and leisure.

In the final article here, Young People, Mobile Phones and Consumer Cultures – Comparing Finland and Rio de Janeiro, Terhi-Anna Wilska has analysed the significance of mobile phones in young people’s consumer cultures in two very different environments: Finland and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The research method used here is quantitative comparative research; the analytical methods, factor analysis and multi-variable variance analysis. Important questions in this article include how much the social structure and developmental level of the society influence young people in adopting new technology. The research results show that young people give mobile phones remarkably similar meaning in both cultures. Furthermore, especially in Finland, the mobile phone is not so much a significant individual part of young people’s consumer style but it is rather clearly linked to other forms of consumption. In Rio de Janeiro the most significant explanatory factor in telephone use turned out to be the type of school being attended, which in turn is strongly connected with one’s family’s socio-economic status. However the explanatory value of socio-economic status in Rio was surprisingly low considering the radical class differences which exist there. Using new technological products then, young people on opposite sides of the world create very similar consumer identities. While the social and cultural background factors are different, they do not necessarily limit the lifestyles of the digital age as they did those of previous generations.

The articles in this publication reveal the diversity of young people’s life circles: in a changing society family, environment, school, consumer cultures, new technology, membership groups, reference groups, differences between cultures and ethnic groups, as well as working life and hobbies present continually growing challenges in the lives of young people these days. As the pace of life gets faster and faster, many traditional structures are in a state of change. Young people end up continuously repositioning themselves in relation to their immediate circles and various institutions. Live paths are no longer as straight as before. On the one hand, diversity is indeed an asset and a possibility. Young people these days have more open doors before them than any previous generation has had. On the other hand, contemporary society also expects more of young people, on the individual level in particular. At the same time, differences between individuals in terms of social and economic starting points have grown. In spite of its numerous opportunities, youth is no longer a ”golden” interim period of waiting for adulthood with its responsibilities to arrive. One of the greatest challenges for youth research these days is to map out young people’s ever diversifying life circles as broadly as possible, using a variety of different methods. That has been the goal of our research project and also of this publication.