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Social communities of Youth and the Significance of these communities to Participation in Education

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(1)

Social communities of Youth and the Significance of these communities

to Participation in Education

Vibe Larsen, Üzeyir Tireli, Tekla Canger, Lone Brønsted, Charlotte Bie, Lise Aagaard Kaas, Tim Vikær Andersen, UCC

(2)

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Which social communities does the youth enter into? How are these communities talked of and valued by professionals and by the youth?

How do the professional agents, institutions, the educational practices and the urban space support or work against the social communities of the

youth?

How do the social communities affect the youth’s perception of being connected to or marginalized from education?

On this basis, what possible measures may be taken in educational practices regarding youth?

(3)

Conceptual framing

COMMUNITIES

In Danish: Fællesskaber

Defined by the interactions and the actions involved

Defined by space and place

At times interchanged with networks, groups, alliances

YOUTH

A diffuse term

Subjective or objective?

In our case: young people in transition

(4)

METHODOLOGY

A micro-sociological project frame

An ethnographic approach

Field work in a local school and the surrounding youth clubs

Semi-structured interviews with students, social educators and youth

An intervention – learning laboratories

consisting of 3-4 workshops with students of social education, teachers, social educators and other professionals working with youth

(5)

THREE PRESENTATIONS

• On space and place – how social community and local community are intertwined and form basis for an understanding of inclusion and

exclusion among youth in the last year of compulsory schooling

• On stability and change in lower secondary schools and its impact on professional

practice

• On learning labs as a means of embedding research in practice

(6)

Social community and local community

– how the relation between the two can have an impact on youths’ experiences of inclusion and exclusion

Tekla Canger, UCC Lone Brønsted, UCC Üzeyir Tireli, UCC

(7)

The presentation

• The scope of the presentation

• Social community and local community

• Social inclusion and social exclusion

• Characteristics of neighborhood and youth

• Three cases

• Local community and school

• Local community and youth clubs

• Concluding remarks

(8)

The scope of the presentation

• To argue that understanding social in- and exclusion in a school setting calls for an attention to what goes on outside of

school

• To argue that although social relations are

strengthened through local community,

this local community are also provide the

possibility for bonding communities that in

turn exclude as much as they form basis

for inclusion

(9)

Social community and local community

• The distinction between local and social community is an analytical distinction

• In this analytical distinction: local community being linked to place and social community being linked to space

• However, local communities breed social communities and social communities are embedded in local communities

• Communities can be seen as bridging communities or bonding communities (Putnam 1995)

(10)

Social inclusion and social exclusion

• An understanding stressing the complexity of in- and exclusion, including institutional

setting and societal structures as conditions shaping understandings of in- and exclusion

• An understanding that moves beyond what happens in a specific setting and that

challenges an understanding of inclusion being a pedagogical approach with the purpose of making space for all

(11)

Characterization of the neighborhood and of the youth

• Local community in this presentation equals the local

neighborhood that is home to a great deal of the pupils at the school

• Situated in a large city somewhat on the outskirts

• Characterized by a large number of immigrants,

descendants of immigrants, inhabitants on social welfare and a somewhat high crime-rate

• The youth – boys and girls of the ages 14-16 in their last year of compulsory school at the district school.

• All with minority background being refugees or descendants of immigrants and refugees from different parts of the world – mainly the Middle-East and Former Yugoslavia

(12)

Songül – out of the neighborhood – into group

Songül is a fifteen-year-old girl who is part of the class at the local school. She has been part of the class since 1st grade but has had a slip of a couple of years when she

lived in Turkey with her parents. She is one of the first girls I notice during my fieldwork as she is an active part of a larger group of girls who talk a lot, laugh a lot and tease each other in a crude as well as friendly manner. In the class the pupils have designated seats, but apparently not all the teachers know these seats or don’t enforce the

rule, because sometimes Songül sits at the table where her designated seat is, but most often she seeks the table of the girls with whom she laughs and jokes. Songül does not live in the aforementioned neighborhood, but most of the girls that she hangs out with in class do.

(13)

Majida – into the neighborhood – out of the group

Majida is also a fifteen-year-old girl in the same class.

As Songül she has also attended the school from 1st grade. Majida is not one of the first girls I notice in the school class, but she is one of the first ones I talk to.

First time we arrive at the school, we arrive during a

break, and Majida is sitting outside of the classroom and we start chatting. She tells me a little about her plans after ending 9th grade and about whom she hangs out with in school. In class she always sit at the same table, a table that holds her and two other girls. One of the other girls also stays at that table during different

lessons. During our six weeks in the school I do not see Majida interact with a lot of different pupils, and I never see her interact with the larger group of girls that

Songül hangs out with; most often she is seen with the other girl placed at her table. Majida has lived her whole life in the aforementioned neighborhood and is next-

door-neighbor to one of the other girls in the class, but does not hang out with the girls in neighborhood.

(14)

Fatima – into the neighborhood – into the group

Fatima is fourteen years old at the time of our fieldwork.

She is part of the larger group of girls and is as loud and outgoing as Songül. However, she also hangs out with the boys, particularly when they have to do school work.

Fatima has attended that particular class since 1st grade and lives in the local neighborhood. My first impression of Fatima was that along with being part of the larger part of the group of girls, she was also one of the loudest. During one of the first breaks I observed, she was the first to go to the class computer and put on music. She got to choose what they were going to listen to, and not till she left the classroom did one of the other girls get to choose music

(15)

Local and social community - inclusion

• Belonging to a local community can strengthen the relation between social

community in the neighborhood and social community in the school

• The transfer of social experiences is strong

• Since the local community is considered an informal and naturalized setting (by those

who are included) it provides opportunities for constructing bonding communities; eg. Fatima

(16)

Local and social community - exclusion

• Creates vulnerability for those who form part of the the local community but are excluded from the

social community; eg Majida

• In that sense local community can be seen to

enhance experience of exclusion; a sort of double exclusion:

• Those who do not belong to the local community has to work harder to establish and maintain social communities constructed in a school setting, since the informality of the local community shuts down the possibility for formal arrangements in the social community; eg. Songül

(17)

Local community and youth clubs

• Like school and neighborhood form basis for social in- and exclusion, so do the youth clubs

• The use of youth clubs among the youth is

dependent on locality and informality; are only used if they are in near, near vicinity

• They provide a frame for maintaining friendships, but do not as such form basis for social community.

• Insofar as the youth club is ’ultra-local’ (part of the local community) the employees take on another role and ideally serve as a ’transfer agent

between the youth clubs and the local community

(18)

Concluding remarks

• The relation between local community and social community in school, youth club and neighborhood is complex and cannot be said to single-handedly add to an improved

learning and living environment in school

• But… an attention by professionals towards the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion among youth in the paths between school, youth club and neighborhood might

contribute to an understanding of some of the difficulties that some young people in a

school environment experience

(19)

The impact of school changes in lower secondary school –

youth’s social relations and teachers support

Vibe Larsen Charlotte Bie UCC

(20)

Background

• Different structures are important to

understand the teachers and the youth’s

possibilities in the field of social relation in a school context

• One is the practice of pupils who leave the school class and pupils who begin in an

already established school class.

(21)

Changing schools

• I: Why have you been in three different schools?

F: I started in School A, but then my family wanted me to improve my

Arabic, because I was really bad at

Arabic, so they said that the school B

was good, but now it has turned bad,

and there was also Arabic there. So I

went there, but after that a while ... it

just became worse. So I moved to this

school C.

(22)

Political decisions

• Students in the Folkeskole have the right to a good educational environment. (Decisions

regarding this are spelled out in the Act on the Educational Environment for Students)

• An important factor in this regard is the extent of bullying that takes place at the school.

• ( Danish Ministry of Education

(23)

Why changing schools?

• It is mostly in the upper primary school and lower secondary school grade 7-8-9

• The pupil does not feel well in the class, or feels a lack of common understanding with their class mates

• The pupil has been bullied

• The parents are avoided of the academic level or the pedagogical practice at the school

• The parents want a school that gives their child an opportunity to improve their mother tongue or that focus on ’their culture’.

• They family moves to another town

• The pupil has other kinds of problems.

(24)

Different way of organizing the school

• Traditional public schools from grade 0 to 9

• Public schools (overbygningsskoler) which only have pupils from grade 7 to 9 ( Rikke

Brown followed this new organizational forms)

• Public schools where they create new grade 7 classes, taking pupils from several different classses at the same school and placing the pupils in new classes

(25)

Research questions

• How do these patterns of change and stability in the final year of compulsory school convince and construct the

teachers’ practice in supporting youth’s social relations in school?

• How does it impact on the possibility

for an included or excluded position in

the school?

(26)

The school case

(27)

The situation in the class

• There are 20 pupils in the class

• They have changed teachers many times

• In 7th grade they were merged with another class

• From 7- 9 grade 10 new students have

entered the class and about 5-6 has left

the class.

(28)

The teacher situation

First, I was just history teacher ... ... quite normal grade 7. Then I was in the class two hours every week ... But then their head

teacher, she said ... or she resigned after six months. And then there was like a rotation

around the organization in the lower secondary school, and then I went in as a Danish teacher and head teacher, along with Eva, we had to start up from the beginning. Or Eva should have started up with the another teacher

(29)

To work with a kind of community

• There has been an incredible amount of

work!! Just after the camp. There has been so much with the class, because there was

simply so much work ... But it is different to be at a school camp. .... They cannot really escape ... and therefore ... you'll have to do something ... So something just happens to the girls and their groups.

(30)

To be aware of the social life

I do not know what you can call it, but why they withdraw from these groups. What happened then, and so on. It's just not everything we can find out.

Sometimes we come in and make ... you could say that ... A detective work. Then we have someone we can ask, I sometimes ask Ali, and things like that. I do not ask directly how and what happens in the

classroom now. I ask around it; it sounds like a stitch, but it's not what it is. I go in and do this if it is

necessary, and then I suck information out, like: what's happening in the classroom, what happens here? And why is she so sad, or have you noticed that there are someone who is alone in class, and things like that.

(31)

What challenges the teachers’ practice?

• The school class is not only understood as a normal form of organizing the everyday life in the school, but also as a cultural understanding of the perfect setting for the social life of the pupils. It offers possibilities for some pupils to be a part of the great group, but at the same time it excludes others, because you need to have a lot in common to be a part of the group of class mates.

• The teacher in our case still works on improving relations and the social well-being in the class but is challenged by 10 new pupils the last 2 years, 5 who show up

sporadically, and already established groups in the original school class. So when social relations in school are emphasized from the political and the research fields, it puts a pressure on the teachers’ practice.

• In one way parents and the student look for a kind of stability in the school and at the same time some of them use the school system as if they were a kind of modern consumers.

• The educational politics in Denmark are influenced by an understanding that one can improve the academic level in the schools, by measuring effects, comparing schools and by the free choice of schools. At the same time it is emphasized that supporting the students social development , working with bullying in the school can contribute to increasing the academic level and to lower the drop-out rates.

(32)

LEARNING LABS AND SOCIAL IN- AND EXCLUSION OF DANISH YOUTH IN

EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS

Assistant Researcher Lise Aagaard Kaas (LAAR@ucc.dk) Assistant Researcher Tim Vikær Andersen (TIVA@ucc.dk)

(33)

Background for the intervention project

• Embedded in the UCC research on social inclusion and exclusion of Danish youth in educational settings

• Purpose: To make knowledge from research available to the practice field – the social worker and teacher

profession

• Ambition 1: To bring practitioners and researchers together to reflect upon the importance of social community among youth in relation to education - in order to qualify practice and in order to qualify the research project

• Ambition 2: Experiment with how research can inform practice - and have an impact on the professionals' understanding and actions in practice

(34)

Research question

’How may research on social community of youth interact with practice in order to

develop the professional understanding of the social communities among youth? And how might the reflections and analyses of the professionals contribute to improving the research process?’

• Imperative to find a methodological approach that support the idea that knowledge derived from the research project may serve to

promote reflection on the research topic and at the same time may challenge and verify the knowledge production

(35)

Theoretical and methodological framework

• Various surveys and discussions in the research group

concluded that we chose to be inspired by the framework of

‘learning labs’ as developed in a Danish context by Cathrine Hasse et al (2014)

• Learning lab draws methodologically on ethnographic

methods (Følstad, 2008) and is a ’place where people learn and develop through experiments’ (Hasse, 2014: 172)

• At this point the results and analyses are not completed to form the basis for a genuine learning laboratory/experiment - therefore, we have used the term ‘intervention workshop’

• Furthermore, the term laboratories may give associations to testing, developing and experimenting with concrete

materials. Instead, we work verbally with reflections, discussions and proposals for action measures.

(36)

Framework of the intervention workshop (1)

Participants:

• 2 Assistant Researchers: Presentation and facilitating

• 1 Researcher from the research project: Observer

• Participants: Students from the Academy Program in Youth Education

Background: Experience from the youth educational field

Part-time students with continued daily practice during their study

• Intervention Workshop day l: 4 participants

• Intervention Workshop day II: 5 participants

(37)

Framework of the intervention workshop (2)

• Cases: To reflect the participants practice to the empirical findings:

Based on two cases from the empirical data the

professionals' discussed perceptions of young people's social communities

Based on 2 cases from empirical data they discussed the professional's role in working with young people's social communities

• Posters: presentation of participants' work:

Part l: perceptions of young people's social communities

Part II: view of the professionals' role in young people's social communities

Part III: proposals for action measures in relation to young people's social communities

(38)

Preliminary findings:

Social communities

• Social communities are understood as affiliations:

communities are related to common interests or common social issues (for example ethnicity , religion, upbringing or geography)

• Young people can be participants in various social communities

• Observation: the professional knowledge language is characterized by everyday understandings

• Observation: the professionals' understanding of communities match the material in the research project

(39)

Preliminary findings: Participation

• The social workers play a key role in working with social communities

The youth club: young people's social communities is a central part of their work

At secondary school : ‘competence loss’

• Proposal for action steps: Football Tournament

• Understandings of participation : participation in social communities requires that you participate in the institution's official activities

Parallel participating: ‘you are not participating if you don’t participate in the institutions official activities’

Being enrolled: ‘we work with those who volunteer for activities’

(40)

Preliminary findings:

Intervention Workshop

• The framework:

The facilitation: creates motivated discussions

Space for conversation and participation

Posters: captures the essential

Cases: create a basis for discussion and reflection on their own practice.

Cases invite to discuss social communities in relation to ethnicity

Exercises: must be framed short and precisely

The facilitator: a withdrawn role or a participating role?

The participants dividends:

• Discussion and reflection on practice is perceived as valuable for the participants

• Have participants learned more about how to understand and work with young people's social communities?

• Contribution to the research project: insight into how educators understand their role and how they facilitate social communities

(41)

Next step

• An inter-professional intervention workshop with teachers, social workers , youth

counselors and teachers from high school

• The intention is to further develop the

intervention workshop in order to create ideas on how to work with young people's social

communities in order to strengthen participation in education

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