Research Projects

Research within the Finnish Youth Research Network consists of projects of various scope and duration, with around 20–25 researchers involved in these projects annually. The research activities are organised into focus areas that represent the themes and goals of the research projects and reflect the key perspectives of the Finnish Youth Research Network’s high-level scientific research and social responsibility.

1. Generational relations, life course and transitions
2. Democracy, equality, inequality
3. Youth work, youth activities, services for young people
4. Research by the Centre of Expertise for Youth Research
5. Regular data collection

The first three focus areas are thematic and the last two are defined on more organisational-focused principles. The research carried out by the Centre of Expertise for Youth Research forms its own, separate area on the basis of its funding and research. The regular data collection activities form a permanent area of the Finnish Youth Research Network producing quantitative and qualitative monitoring data on young people.

Generational relations, life course and transitions

This field of knowledge is based on the multidimensional examination of intergenerational relationships, life courses and transitions. Generations are studied in various environments and contexts that involve negotiations concerning conceptions of a good life as well as material circumstances and conditions. The generational perspective pays attention not only to youth generations, but also to questions of family and intergenerationalism and to transitions and tensions between childhood, youth and adulthood during a life course. Life courses and transitions are interpreted from the perspectives of personal experiences and social and institutional processes.

The perspective of life courses also means that the approaches of follow-up and longitudinal studies are more strongly integrated into the production of information within the Finnish Youth Research Network. This serves to ensure that the life courses of young people and interruptions in the course of everyday life can be identified more extensively.

Research activities

• Graffiti subculture - Gender, control and post-zero tolerance in Helsinki (2015–2019)

  Researchers: Malin Fransberg

• Kilju stories - compilation of memories (2019)

  Researchers: Mikko Salasuo, Malin Fransberg

• Ten generations of youth, three centuries: The history of generations of Finnish youth (2015–2022)

  Researchers: Mikko Salasuo

• Young people leading the way in the digital society (2018–2019)

  Researchers: Mikko Salasuo

• Youth Cultures and Wellbeing (2017–2020)

  Researchers: Mikko Salasuo

Democracy, equality, inequality

This field of knowledge examines issues related to democracy, equality and inequality. The research topics in this field concern social structures in the lives of young people, such as the areas of ethnicity, sexuality, family and politics, as well as social action, such as influencing in society and life in families and other close relationships. The domains of knowledge in this field mainly concern the institutional relationships and practices of young people. The research projects are interlinked by theoretical concepts: citizenship, social exclusion, discrimination, structure and human agency, embodiment, and resistance and deviance. This field of knowledge is characterised by complicated special issues related to research ethics with regard to sensitive topics.

Research activities

• A life of waiting - agency and social empowerment of asylum seekers arriving as minors in Finland in the 2010s (2018-)

  Researchers: Veronika Honkasalo

• Inmates with foreign backgrounds in Finnish prisons – ethnographic research on equality, unofficial hierarchies and coping strategies (2015-2019)

  Researchers: Helena Huhta

• PREACT - Promoting equal access and tackling discrimination against gender and sexual minorities in sport and physical education (2019)

  Researchers: Päivi Berg

• Promoting gender and culture sensitive career guidance (Potential, 2019–2021)

  Researchers: Jenni Lahtinen, Tommi Hoikkala

• Thoughts of NEET youth on the future, democracy and public services – additional sample of the Youth Barometer (2017–2020)

  Researchers: Sami Myllyniemi, Anu Gretschel

Youth work, youth activities, services for young people

This field of knowledge focuses on operational environments and services for young people and the underlying structural conditions. It examines the nature of services and their position in the field of youth policy as well as their significance for young people at the level of individuals, groups and communities. Special attention is paid to the status of young people and to their citizenship and participation opportunities, as well as to conditions for their human agency in independent activities and activities targeted at young people. More broadly, this field of knowledge concerns interaction between young people and society and the manifestations of this interaction in the lives of young people. The goal is to call attention to young people’s experiences and the need to adjust the starting points for youth work and policy so as to make them more relevant and meaningful to young people.

The methods in this field of knowledge range from traditional data collection approaches to developmental research and action research. Studies in this field often involve dialogue with various fields of youth work and policy.

Research activities

• NUPS Helsinki – youth work curriculum (2019)

  Researchers: Tomi Kiilakoski, Eila Kauppinen

• Similarities and differences in youth work (2017-2019)

  Researchers: Tomi Kiilakoski

• Sustainable wellbeing for youth in East Helsinki – Break the Fight! Opportunity to be heard - monitoring and evaluation of the #BTFEastHelsinki project (2018–2021)

  Researchers: Sofia Laine, Susanna Jurvanen

• Taking the multifaceted evaluation tool into use developed for open youth work (2018–2020)

  Researchers: Anu Gretschel

• The meaning of Jyväskylä. Youth work practices in the Middle Finland

  Researchers: Tommi Hoikkala

• Young people testing art. A study on the effects of the Art Testers initiative on young people (2018–2019)

  Researchers: Sofia Laine, Maaria Hartman

• Youth Wiki (2015-2022)

  Researchers: Karla Malm, Anu Gretschel

Research in the Centre of Expertise for Youth Research

The aim of the Centre of Expertise for Youth Research is to produce reliable and up-to-date research data on the living conditions of young people and the youth sector to support the decision-making within youth policy and the entire youth sector. The Centres of Expertise are new units that have been created by the Ministry of Education and Culture which will be developing the youth sector according to the aims of the National Youth Work and Youth Policy Programme (VANUPO) 2017–2019. The Centre of Expertise only makes up a small part of the activities of the Finnish Youth Research Network. The majority of the activities and the research will continue to be funded by the general grant from the Ministry of Education and Culture and research funding from other sources.

Research activities

• Equal opportunities of children and young people to have hobbies in Finland

  Researchers: Mikko Salasuo, Leena Haanpää

• Information requirements and assessments

  Researchers: Tiina Hakanen

• Services for NEET youth and their costs and allocation

  Researchers: Teemu Vauhkonen, Tommi Hoikkala

• The architecture of youth work education in Finland

  Researchers: Tomi Kiilakoski

Regular data collection

The Finnish Youth Research Network’s regular data collection is made up of four areas that meet the needs for quantitative and qualitative current data on young people. Instruments for collecting quantitative data are the Youth Barometer that is produced annually and A Study of Children’s and Young People’s Leisure Activities and the Youth Living Conditions Yearbook that are published in alternate years. Alongside the quantitative data collection instruments, the modelling of a qualitative longitudinal study is in progress in the Youth in time research project (2014–2025).

Research activities

• A Study of Children's and Young People's Leisure Activities

  Researchers: Mikko Salasuo, Sami Myllyniemi, Tiina Hakanen

• Youth Barometer

  Researchers: Sami Myllyniemi, Lotta Haikkola

• Youth Living Conditions Yearbook

  Researchers: Lotta Haikkola

• Youth in time - qualitative longitudinal study on young people (2014-2025)

  Researchers: Sanna Aaltonen, Sinikka Aapola-Kari, Matilda Wrede-Jäntti, Kaisa Vehkalahti, Elina Pekkarinen, Antti Kivijärvi, Tomi Kiilakoski, Jenni Lahtinen