Between resignation and future prospects – a research programme on educational pathways and learning processes among young people in stigmatized urban settings in Gothenburg

Summary

The ambition is to create an understanding of the experiences and the world of life that constitute the self-understanding of young people who are at risk of becoming ineligible for upper secondary school, to draw attention to how the informal learning that takes place in young people’s own cultural communities can act as an inspiration for pedagogical innovation in school, and to look at local collaborative projects between schools, businesses and communities in vulnerable suburbs.

Subproject: No access for unauthorised persons

The sub-project has the ambition to create an understanding of the experiences and the world of life that constitute the self-understanding of young people who risk becoming ineligible for upper secondary school and thereby having damaged future prospects. School research, with a few exceptions, has not been interested in this social psychological dimension (Runfors, 2003; Rosales, 2011). We believe that this knowledge is crucial to developing the understanding required to reverse the trend.

Sub-project: Culture and informal learning as a second chance

The sub-project is interested in the positive development that, in parallel with bad grades and crime, is emerging in Swedish suburbs today. This project focuses on the new youth organisation which, based on culture and public education, wants to give hope and self-respect to young people in vulnerable neighbourhoods. The project will also examine how the informal learning that takes place in the young people’s own groups can serve as an inspiration for pedagogy in schools. How does the local community meet this new cultural movement and how can this movement together with, for example, residential colleges for adult education and adult educational associations offer those who have failed in the formal education system a second chance?