Youth, Participation, Leisure and Citizenship

Abstract

The purpose with this article is to describe, explore, and discuss texts that ten Swedish local councils present on their homepages from the perspective of leisure, influence and citizenship for youths. Content analysis is used as a method in order to understand the content and structure of texts such as political aims, strategical plans and budgets. The result of the empirical study shows that the picture of youth citizenship is neither uniform nor coherent, but rather complicated and contradictory. On the one hand, the image of young people is that they are presented as individuals who are creative, interested in and willing to take responsibility for matters which concern them. The image of youth is that they need to practice democracy in particular established structures. Young people are seen as individuals who need places to hang around, meet with their friends and have free access to activities such as listening to music, playing games or using the Internet. On the other hand the idea that the young generation needs protection and tutoring, to be watched over, controlled and sometimes guarded by social authorities is also expressed in the texts.