The project aims to investigate engagement and valuation among children and young people in Nordic contexts from a social pragmatic perspective. Being able to engage and value is a prerequisite for empowerment and quality of life. Who and what inspires young people and who do they look up to? What do young people consider good and valuable? How has school prepared them, and how do they view independence and responsibility? Researchers and educators need to understand these issues to recognize children and young people. Childhood and adolescence are studied through various investigations, and data on young people's quality of life in school and upbringing were collected qualitatively/quantitatively in 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021, before and after COVID-19. Additional data collections are planned.

Since the 1990s, Norwegian youth culture has changed. Young people have become more well-behaved, and they are less rebellious or in conflict with authorities and older generations than in the past. In recent years, we have seen social movements and young communities that originate from personal experiences, and the affective is linked to political arguments and mass mobilization. Examples include Greta Thunberg, Fridays for Future, the global demonstrations in 2019, Black Lives Matter, the MeToo movement, and so on. However, these movements are not something young people are imposed on from the outside; they are something young people create and reconstruct through participation and engagement. They create affective, interest-based, or legitimate communities through physical and digital relationships.

Inspired by new pragmatic perspectives, we study how young people value and negotiate valuation and community in spontaneous situations. The project examines, among other things, well-being, safety, friendship, social life, future prospects, and the importance of recognition.

The project is part of the work of the research group BULKIS, led by Jan Frode Haugseth.

Haugseth, Jan Frode, og Eli Smeplass. 2022. «The Greta Thunberg Effect: A Study of Norwegian Youth’s Reflexivity on Climate Change». Sociology.