Youth on the Move – Revisiting the ‘vulnerability zeitgeist’ in an era of market-oriented education 2014-2017

In this research project we ask how politics and practices shape the interests of children and young people themselves, including those who are outside of formal education and work. We are also dedicated to developing research by critically analyzing cross-sectional politics and educational practices regarding school-to-work transitions. We explore how they influence those individuals who are considered as vulnerable or at risk. More importantly, we argue that by shining the light on the ways in which transitions of vulnerable young people are constructed by policy makers, professionals, academic researchers and young people themselves, ideas and assumptions about transitions that tend to be taken face value without critical challenge can be challenged, thereby creating more room for young adults’ own interpretations, responses and actions.

Also, to better understand the societal implications of how such differences such as gender, class, disability, sexuality and cultural background unfold in young people’s lives, needs further attention. We study the politics and practices in terms of discursive power by acknowledging the relation of knowledge, discourse and power as productive and regulative.

In this research project we combine and develop further collaborative and multi-sited ethnography. We follow the ideas of some recent poststructural ethnographers who deconstruct ethnographic-related concepts, such as data, field, research(ing) subject and voice. It is important to keep in mind, that we are not studying the participants of our research. Rather, we are investigating a topic – an object of knowledge – and constructing knowledge together with our participants.

Project researchers

Post doc-researchers:

• Elina Ikävalko: Becoming a ‘young hero’ – Peer support as a technique of changing mental health policy
• Tuuli Kurki: Mental health and psychosocial support programmes for refugees and asylum seekers
• Maija Lanas: Active Equality in Education – Rethinking disturbing behavior in school

PhD-researchers:

• Kristiina Hannukainen: Knowing capitalism, knowledge and subjectivity in Higher Education
• Ameera Masoud: Shaping identities of young migrant learners through Finnish integration policy and practices
• Katariina Mertanen: Back to Society. Education as normalising governance of youth considered ‘at risk’ of social exclusion
• Anna Mikkola: Early childhood education and the gendered constuction of subject(hood)
• Kalle Mäkelä: Governing young people through neoliberal management – A Genealogy of vulnerability of young people in Finland

International partners

• Prof. Kathryn Ecclestone, Prof. Dan Goodley, senior researchers China Mills, Lisa Procter and Kirsty Lidiard, Critical Educational Psychology Centre of the Human, University of Sheffield.
• Prof. Lisbeth Lundahl’s research group, Umeå University.
• Prof. Maria Olson & Prof. Sara Irisdotter Aldenmyr, University of Dalarna.
• Prof. Eva Bendix Petersen, Roskidle University
• Prof. Paola Valero, Stockholm University
• Prof. Val Gillies, University of Westminster
• Dr. Karen Pashby, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Postdoctoral researcher and lecturer Maija Lanas, University of Oulu.

Cartography of international collaboration:

• Three international symposiums (2014-2016)
  • symposium at the 44th NERA congress titled “A global epidemic of mental ill-health? Interdisciplinary perspectives on the educational implications of reconfiguring social, economic and human crises” (Brunila, Ecclestone & Lundahl, chairs, 2016)
  • International symposium on youth transitions, ECER conference 2014 (Brunila & Lundahl, chairs).
  • Projectisation, Marketisation and Therapisation of Equality Policies. Exploting Justice -Symposium, University of Gothenburg (Brunila, keynote 2016)
• Youth & Wellbeing -seminar at Stockholm University (Brunila & Ecclestone, keynotes, 2015)
• Young people, Transitions and the Ethos of Vulnerability -seminar, Dalarna University (Brunila invited speaker, 2016).
• Several workshops related to vulnerability and youth-education
  • Crises-workshop (2015)
  • Youth on the Move – revisiting the vulnerability zeitgeist, University of Sheffield (Brunila, invited speaker, 2014)
  • How to write about silence and/or agency. JustEd biannual conference, Lillehammer (conference paper Ikävalko & Mononen-Batista Costa)
  • Becoming a ‘young hero’ – Peer support as a technique of changing mental health policy in Finland and England. ECER conference 2014, Symposium ‘Youth on the Move, Porto (Ikävalko, conference paper)
  • Nuoreksi sankariksi? Nuorten aikuisten vertaisryhmätoiminta osana mielenterveystyötä. Kasvatustieteen päivät 2014 (Ikävalko, conference paper).