Browsing by Author "Haapaniemi, Sampo"

In a tightening economic situation it has become more difficult to find work or study place. This can create a threat that leads to the danger that young people are getting socially excluded from education and working life. Social exclusion has brought up a great concern in Finland. Youth guarantee is been used to prevent social exclusion and to improve adolescents' possibilities to have a degree after the basic education and be employed. One of the tools to prevent social exclusion is Youth guarantee which raises workshop activities that aim to support adolescents' life management skills, strengthening their involvement and preventing social exclusion. In the previous workshop studies it has been brought up that it would be important to study workshop activities in qualitative measures to get the voices of the people being in the risk of social exclusion to be heard. This study examines the way the young people that work in workshop in Tampere under the Youths start- project talk and how they give meanings to being part of the society, participation and how are they relating to the work shop activity. This study analyzed two group interview materials that are collected in Youth start workshops. There were eight young people that participated to this study. The material was analyzed using discursive analysis methods. The discursive analysis is built to the assumption of being context related, assumption of meanings being built using the language, assumption that several lateral discursios exist and to the assumption that use of the language has causes and it socially constructs the reality. In this research four repertoires were analyzed from the participants' discourses. These were being part of the society, participation, social exclusion and workshop repertoires. The tightening competition situation from the work and studying places showed up as a factor that in the adolescents' discourses caused insecurity and repetitive disappointment that had negative influence to their self-esteem and these factors can lead to even faster social exclusion. The Workshop appeared as a safe place, kind of like a second home where it was easy to come. Working in a workshop brought meaningful things to do and building blocks to build self-esteem and recover courage. Outside of the workshop social inclusion of the people going there it was considered to be shameful and even stigmatizing. Because of this factor it is important that the image of the workshop can be improved. In the light of this study it is important to improve the participation and feeling social inclusion of the surrounding world. The adolescents need to have real power and responsibility to decide and influence the matters that concern them in the workshop activities.