Situation
Adults often describe a good youth environment in upper secondary education as parties and Friday bars. This applies, among other things, when politicians describe the new epx, and when they put forward proposals on how vocational education and training programmes can be made more attractive. However, there has been less focus on what young people themselves want across different types of upper secondary education programmes.
Complication
Epinion has therefore examined what makes a youth environment attractive to young people themselves on behalf of Danish Vocational and Upper Secondary Education Colleges. Young people’s perspectives on the social, academic and physical youth environment were explored through an in-depth mobile ethnographic study and a large-scale survey of more than 10,000 students. The study shows that young people are calling for a wide range of activities, both in large gatherings and small groups, from sports days to creative workshops.
Recommendation
Based on the study, Epinion recommends that schools do more to support different forms of community, both through activities and through the physical environment on and around the school. Schools can usefully involve students in the planning, so that they experience a sense of co-ownership. If schools create settings for both smaller and larger communities, and communicate clearly about them, the likelihood increases that more students will thrive and feel a sense of belonging to the school, and that fewer will therefore drop out.
Read more results from the study (in Danish) here.
