The Journal of Youth Voices in Education: Methods Theory Practice

Editorial

David Thore Graveson — 2020-08-13

Betydningen av vennskap og sosiale relasjoner som ung

Ruth H. Waltila — 2020-08-14

This article examines the significance of friendship and social relations in young people`s lives. This is illuminated through two young women with low socioeconomic backgrounds, and their experiences from being children, youth and young adults. The article is written within the MaCE project, which is a cooperation between Norway, England and Denmark. We have used a qualitative, unstructured interview, called the indirect approach to interact with the youth. The goal of using this method is to gain insight into the informant's secret world by obtaining information without asking directly for it. Furthermore, we have approached these young women`s stories through a thematically analysis. The stories show that the informants` experiences with friendship or lack of it have great importance. A recurrent element is how the informants struggled to understand the social codes and often chose to be alone in order to avoid a possible rejection. This seems to result in a negative pattern, which seems to be hard to break out of. In addition, the informants often talk about the lack of friendship and social relations in the context of their feeling of loneliness and mental struggles. This is illustrated by Bourdieu's theory of social and cultural capital, as well as Søndergaard's theory of social exclusion.

Relasjoner som mulig risikofaktor

Marianne Vikanes

The relationships to the people around us strongly influence our development and contributes to shaping the adults we eventually become. In this article, we explore how the relationships within a young person's microsystem are of great importance. Through a qualitative inquiry and the narratives of a young woman, telling us about her life, we seek to understand the impact these relationships have had on her. The data, extracted from this study, has been examined utilizing the theories of Bronfenbrenner and Maslow as a framework. With their holistic perspective, we illuminate the different levels of vulnerability by considering the subject's continuous interaction with the environment. In conclusion, this article exemplifies how the presence of several negative relationships with regard to family and romantic interests can pose a considerable, cumulative risk of marginalizing and jeopardizing a young person.

Mobning som sociale eksklusionsprocesser – virkning og eftervirkning

Mette Elgaard Dyrholm — 2020-08-14

The debate about dropouts and marginalized young people is often narrowed down to being about socioeconomic status, gender, grades and educational level. The following paper contains a holistic analysis based on two interviews with two Danish young women who talk about bullying in their early school years. Even though, their narratives are different both women tell a story about the feeling of being excluded and ‘not fitting in’. The article will explore the phenomenon ‘bullying’ as an inclusion and exclusion process with great impact on both women’s adult lives. In their narratives we see how in- and exclusion processes can be both implicit and explicit, and throughout this paper we argue that both processes can be seen as bullying. The repercussions for both women are significant. We see Stine who developed a depression and reading difficulties, and struggles to make it through the educational system, and Marlene who positions herself as ‘different’ from the others and quits communities when facing difficulties.

Fra negativ social arv til mønsterbryder – Emmas fortælling

Hana Mohamed

This article is based on an interview with an informant named Emma. She has grown up in a negative social heritage and in the interview, we talked a lot about the consequences of this. Due to this, we have looked at the effects of social arenas as the family and the school system. Also, we looked at the meaning of the professionals in a young person's life and how they can help a marginalized individual. The indirect approach was used to make this interview and a part of the MaCe project that focus on marginalized young individuals.

Opplevelsen av tilpasset opplæring

Christine Vibe Langerud — 2020-08-14

In this study, we have chosen to look at young people’s stories about their experiences from school. We have examined how adapted learning has had an impact on the young learner’s motivation to do schoolwork. We have explored these issues through relevant theory and research on the field of motivation, as well as Maslow’s Theory of Needs and Vygotsky’s Theory of the Proximal Zone of Development. This study is part of an Erasmus+ project called Marginalization and Co-Created Education (MaCE), where the aim is to bring forth young people’s stories from their experience of school. Based on this, we did a qualitative study with the use of the indirect approach as a method. The goal of using this method is to let the young person share authentic stories and experiences. Without a planned set of questions, the young person could be the narrator of the conversation. We have interviewed three young persons about their experience from school. All of them mention the feeling of “not being seen” by their teachers, and the teachers did not take their needs for adaptation into consideration. Motivation is another topic that all of them mention. We will discuss the chosen theory and research in the light of the young people’s stories. In the analysis we will look at what influences young learners motivation, hence if adapted education, or the lack of it, is a factor that matters in a learning environment.

Vigtigheden i omsorgspersoners handlinger

Christian Delfs Lehmann — 2020-08-14

The three of us have all experienced how lack of caring skills have led to challenges in the professional practice. We have witnessed the negative consequences this may have for young individuals in social arenas. On the other hand, we have witnessed how young individuals, who have been met with understanding, gain a stronger perception of self, which positively changes their trajectories in life. In our interviews, we met three young people, from different backgrounds with both negative and positive narratives about themselves. This made us wonder about which factors affected their self-perception, and how positive relations can create positive prospects for the future. The purpose of this professional paper is to pass on the young people’s voices to those, who are interested in what happens when young people have positive and negative experiences in different social arenas, and how the lack of attention from professional caregivers impact their lives.

Å BLI SETT = Å LÆRE Lærer-elev-relasjon og dens betydning for faglig utvikling

Veronica Rønning — 2020-08-14

This article highlights how three young people emphasize the teacher-student relation regarding their academic development. The data were collected through unstructured interviews, based on a qualitative interview technique called the indirect approach. Common for these three youth is how they in different ways have struggled with math at school and talk about several experiences with different teacher-student relationships. The teacher`s ability to see them in their academic development zone seems to be crucial. By doing this, the teachers organize and support the student at the right level. Furthermore, they emphasize the importance of how the teacher leads the class. Altogether, the youth stories show that the teacher's ability to see students and be a clear leader in the classroom develops safe teacher-student relationships. To shed light and understand the experience of being seen and supported by the teachers, we have used Vygotsky's theory of the nearest development zone and Wood, Bruner and Ross's scaffolding theory. Furthermore, we highlight how the teacher leads the class through theories illuminating the difference between an authoritarian and an authoritative teacher style, and how these different styles impact the ability to see and help the students in their academic development.

‘We had dreams’ – In-between duty and ability A qualitative study of academic expectations and support from home within young men with minority background

Fathia Mahmoud Farah — 2020-08-14

This article’s main theme is high school dropout within young men with minority background. Studies show that this group of students are most likely to quit high school. Here, a young man with minority background is examined in order to answer the research question What does a young man with a minority background say about academic expectations and support from home? The young man, which is in his early 20’s, has begun, interrupted, and re-continued his schooling. He is now a student in vocational studies, and has been interviewed about his school experiences and support from home. This study is part of the project Marginalization and Co-Created Education (MaCE). Therefore, the qualitative method that has been used to get insight into this man`s experiences is the indirect approach. This form of data collection has enabled the informant to decide which topics from his school history he finds most important to share. The data analysis is based on a social constructivism, which means that the researcher's knowledge is constructed through the interaction between researcher and informant. However, it is important to point out that it is primarily the informant’s perspective that is emphasized in this study. The findings show that his parents seem to have high expectations of him to excel academically. This seems to have influenced the young man's view of himself. To sum up, academic support from home is absent, but the academic expectations appear to be enormous. Thus, the idea of academic success seem to make the move from the parents' home country worthy.

Anchoring and Breaking Points - Biographies of Young People without School-Leaving Certificates

Marlena Dorniak — 2020-08-14

What anchoring and breaking points shape biographies of young adults without school-leaving certificates? Which persons or events have helped them in the past to cope with difficult life situations? What positive experiences have they had? How do institutions, the educational system or society influence them? This work presents first results of a participatory research project in Germany, which involves young people without school-leaving certificates as co-researchers examining their personal biographies. The group worked on a wide range of topics to gain a better understanding of the whole context of their lives. The data obtained within a creative process in the research group, in group discussions, and in individual interviews is evaluated applying the Qualitative Content Analysis (Mayring, 2015). The Bioecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) does not only offer a theoretical basis for the formation of corresponding categories, but is also applied as a tool to work with the co-researchers to investigate multifactorial correlations for leaving school without a certificate.