Leisure and youth clubs’ work with young people of ethnic minority background living in socially deprived housing areas: creating processes of hope and empowerment through social pedagogical work

Kirsten Elisa Petersen

doi:10.14324/111.444.ijsp.2021.v10.x.010

Abstract

This article gives an analysis of social pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs, physically located in so-called socially deprived housing areas in Denmark. The pedagogical work is especially aimed at young boys of ethnic minority background. The article draws on empirical research from a project exploring leisure and youth clubs’ impact on children and young people’s well-being and opportunities for development when growing up in socially deprived housing areas. The social pedagogical work seems very closely related to societal issues moving into the pedagogical everyday life of the leisure and youth clubs. These clubs, besides embracing the children and young people’s active leisure life in communities with other children and young people, are thus also instrumental in helping and supporting the children and young people to cope with an everyday life that features experiences of stigmatising and inequality-shaped living conditions. The social pedagogical work is analysed from the perspectives of the pedagogues and young people, taking their point of view to what seems particularly significant to the well-being and development of the young people based on Scandinavian-German critical psychology. This is integrated with Paulo Freire’s notion of hope and empowerment, which is the analytical framework within the context of social pedagogical work concerned with how the young men develop belief in themselves for them to complete their education, get a job in after-school hours and refrain from involvement in crime and gang-related communities.

Highlights

This article focuses on social pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs, aimed at young men of ethnic minority background1 who grow up and live their everyday lives in socially deprived housing areas.2 The article is based on an empirical study of leisure and youth clubs in three different socially deprived housing areas in Denmark,3 and in this context is centred on the part of the empirical material concerned with the young men’s perspectives on participating in the communities of leisure and youth clubs (Højholt, 2016, 2018; Kousholt, 2016)
This article has developed empirical knowledge of social pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs aimed at young men from ethnic minority backgrounds
The theoretical and analytical points emphasise how the work of leisure and youth clubs physically located in socially deprived housing areas is inspired by the social pedagogical tradition in a German and Nordic context that has focused on after-school activities aimed at children and young people in vulnerable living conditions (Bouverne-De Bie et al 2019; Jensen, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

This article focuses on social pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs, aimed at young men of ethnic minority background1 who grow up and live their everyday lives in socially deprived housing areas.2 The article is based on an empirical study of leisure and youth clubs in three different socially deprived housing areas in Denmark,3 and in this context is centred on the part of the empirical material concerned with the young men’s perspectives on participating in the communities of leisure and youth clubs (Højholt, 2016, 2018; Kousholt, 2016). Leisure and youth clubs are seen as a social community of practice that takes place in a variety of social structures with different parties’ interests and positions, and in the analyses of social pedagogical work, pedagogues, children and young people must necessarily be included as active participating subjects (Holzkamp, 2013).

Results

Conclusion