Browsing by Subject "nuorisotyö"

Many adolescents participate in youth work activities in their leisure time. The mission of youth work is to support socialization of adolescents in their leisure time in a changing society. This study examines how adolescents’ snack practices show in youth work. The aim of this study is to consider junior high school adolescents’ snack practices and action in the youth center. The purpose of the study is get knowledge about what do adolescents eat for snacks and what kind of a role do snacks play in the youth center. This theme was selected because youth center snack practises have been studied very little. The study questions are: 1. What kind of snack practices do junior high school adolescents have? 2. What do junior high school adolescents think about the snack practices in youth center? 3. What kind of snack practices can be found in youth centers? The research method was qualitative and research data was collected using two different methods a the youth center in Vantaa. Using observation I observed about 70 junior high school adolescents during six weekdays. Structured internet-enquiry was answered by 23 junior high school adolescents from which eight were girls and 15 were boys. The method of analysis was material based content analysis. Three important themes was found as the research results. The themes were the social impact of food, the comforting impact of food and food rules. The study revealed that almost half of the adolescents in junior high school ate snacks every day. The most popular snacks were sweet and savory cereal products. Adolescents discussed about snacks and they enjoyed eating together. Adolescents were very satisfied about the offered snacks and almost half of the activities and almost half of adolescents felt that it was very important that the youth center offered snacks free of charge. Snacks were also used as an incentive to motivate the adolescents to participate in different chores in the youth center. Teaching adolescents to prepare healthy and easy snacks is an important task in the field of home economics education.