The role of social capital in education of young people's in stigmatized neighborhood – a Danish case

Author(s):

Vibe Larsen(presenting / submitting)Üzeyir Tireli(presenting)Tekla Canger

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 10, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-25

15:30-17:00

Room:

OB-E0.01

Chair:

Mark Hadfield

Contribution

In Denmark 15-18% youth drops either out or do not even start a youth education after elementary school. These young people can be described as youth at risk but consists of different groups of young people. They are included in their own social networks but in risk to be excluded in the broader social networks in the society. It is a mixed group consisting among others of young people from ethnic minority and working class backgrounds. In addition, the group consists also of young people whose parents have received public benefits for a long time, and of young people living in vulnerable areas, including the rural areas. Dropout complexity thus has an ethnic and social bias (DS 2010). It has social, economic and human costs too.

Working with this group of young people's education is a challenge for the professional social workers for exampel in the youth clubs or in the local area. The complexity of intersectional categories as gender, etnicity, social class have an impact on the professional understandings of the youth(Sørensen 2013, Staunæs 2004) there is no a single political and pedagogical 'fix' and there is not single fact that can explain the lack of education or social exclusion among this group of young people, but the explanation must be based on the combination. But is not only the background of the youth but also the way different categories is produced in the interaktion of the youth, the professionals and the politics.

Based on an ongoing research project, in our presentation, we will argue that education - in broader terms - should also be concerned with the young people's social life and social relationships, because they have a potential for change in themselves. Futher the local community and the youth life outside the clubs and the school are important to understand the social relations. Decisions and changes in life often occurs in the networks and often outside the official and bureaucratic institutions. It is rare that one consults for example public actors before a marriage, buying a property, changing schools etc.This challenge the professional work which is embeded in a structure of history of the welfare state in Denmark.

One's social network has great importance for the individual's social life. The young people's social life and education may therefore not be thought separated from their social network and relationships. Phil (2013), Putnam (2001) and others sees a certain causality between social bonds within families and networks and education and training.

Method

Our study is based on an ethnographic fieldwork and takes its points in the youth Clubs and the local area. It consists of a number of observations within the youth and social workers in the club and semi-structured interviews with youth and the professionals. Furthermore, we have interviewed a number of teachers and pupils in the school(Ambrosius 2003). The theoretical framework in the project draws on different orientations, which allowed us to understand social inclusion and exclusion as complex social processes. The theory of social capital is inspired of Putnam and Coleman’s concepts of social network, community and social capital. R. D. Putnam focuses on the function of social capital for communities and the impact of social ties and relations. For Coleman social capital is a key explanatory concept of social mobility through a focus on family relations and community relations and argues why some pupils perform better than others in school. As late modern sociologists as Baumann have repeatedly emphasized, that our time is characterized by a huge degree of uncertainty, ambivalence and contingency, where the primary competence demanded is, the ability to handle the “chaotic” present and future. This requires that the young people do not bind themselves to one specific education and work – as well as social Networks. The theory of Bauman gives the possibility to study how the youth manage these challenges of modern life and how it affects the meaning of social Capital (Bauman 2001). Another orientation is therefore the impact of local areas and ethnicity in relation to the construction of the youth social communities. Here we draw on the theory of L. Wacquant and his concepts of advanced marginality and territorial stigmatization (Coleman 1990, Putnam 2001, Wacquant 2008).

Expected Outcomes

Preliminary results indicate that the youth at risk in our case have very strong bonding capital and it is very crucial for them. They have very tight and binding relationships in their (ethnic and social) networks. They also have a strong family capital. They experience a real interest from parents / family side, and family put all in (even though the families are poor) for their kids can get an education. The field of education (represented in our case by an elementary school and a leisure club and a number of youth workers), by contrast, very little focus on the importance of young people's social networks and capital. Their resources (in the form of bonding capital) is not significant to the school or youth club. The professionals are challenge by the complexity of the construction of social networks of the youth. Youth Club is nevertheless more concerned with youth network relationships than school, but it is exercised in such a way that the social hierarchies and exposed positions are reproduced. However, it is important to point out that the school and youth club's lack of inclusion of young people's social relationships and capital is a broader issue and has something to do with the general policy of education.

References

Ambrosius, U ( 2003) Pædagogisk etnografi : forskning i det pædagogisk praksisfelt. Hans Reitzels Forlag Baumann, Z (1999) Globalisering - de menneskelig konsekvenser. København Hans Reitzels Forlag. Coleman, J ( 1990) Foundation on social theory. Harvard University Press. Cambridge Mass Pihl, M.D. (2013): Unge uden uddannelse har flere ansigter. Størstedelen af unge uden uddannelse har en svag hjemmebaggrund. Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd. Putnam, Robert (2001) Social Capital: Measurement and Consequences. Isuma: Canadian Journal of Policy Research. http://www.policy.ca/policy-directory/Detailed/Isuma-Canadian-Journal-of-Policy-Research-1209.html. Statistisk Tiårsoversigt 2013 (2013) Tema: De unges levevilkår. Danmarks Statistik. Staunæs, Dorthe 2004: Køn, etnicitet og skoleliv. Frederiksberg: Forlaget Samfundslitteratur. Sørensen, Niels Ulrik Sørensen, Hutters Camilla, Katznelson, Noemi & Juul, Tilde Mette (red.) (2013) Unges motivation og læring. - 12 eksperter om motivationskrisen i uddannelsessystemet. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag, 2013. Wacquant,L ( 2008) Urban Outcasts: a Comparative Sociology of Advanced.

Author Information

Vibe Larsen (presenting / submitting)

University College Capital

Kbh N

Üzeyir Tireli (presenting)

University College Capital, Denmark

Tekla Canger