The aim of this postdoctoral project is to explore young people’s subjective reasons for participating - or not participating - in Danish youth clubs and to examine how subjective and societal conditions shape their participation in everyday life contexts - both within and outside the youth clubs - as seen from their own perspectives.
In the Danish welfare state, youth clubs are among the first institutional settings where young people can freely decide whether or not to participate (Petersen, 2024). While the aim of the youth clubs is to attract young people by offering voluntary and socially inclusive environments (Hansen, 2014), participation rates are declining - particularly during the transition from leisure-time clubs to youth clubs[1] (EVA, 2018; Børns Vilkår, 2025). This trend creates a (market-like) competition with other forms of everyday activities (Ringskou et al., 2020) and necessitates a pedagogical approach that responds to current youth-related challenges as well as to young people’s own desires, engagements, and perspectives on participation (Gravesen, 2024; Lindström, 2012; Schultz, 2022, 2024). The decline in participation further unfolds in a broader societal context marked by increasing individualisation (Krogh, 2022; Pless et al., 2015) and widespread concern about youth mental health and loneliness (Görlich et al., 2019; Katznelson et al., 2022; Schultz, 2025).
Participation in meaningful communities during adolescence is widely recognised as an important factor in supporting young people’s social and personal development (Goossens & Marcoen, 1999), promoting well-being (Cahill, 2015; Vance, 2018), and preventing loneliness and social exclusion (Larsen et al., 2023; Lasgaard, 2010). Although research in youth clubs remains relatively limited in a Nordic context, existing studies indicate that participation in youth clubs can support young people’s social and personal development (Petersen & Sørensen, 2021; Schultz & Michel-Schertges, 2025) and have a positive effect on their experience of well-being (Eriksen & Seland, 2020; Ringskou et al., 2024; Schultz, 2025). Moreover, research suggests that pedagogical practices in youth clubs are built on a broad understanding of learning - one that extends beyond academic knowledge acquisition - and through this framework, youth clubs offer supportive and socially inclusive environments, while also creating opportunities for co-determination and democratic formation (Fredriksson et al., 2018; Hansen, 2014; Langager, 2011; Petersen, 2024; Petersen et al., 2019; Petersen & Sørensen, 2021; Strobel et al., 2008). Furthermore, youth clubs appear to play different roles in young people’s lives: for some, they offer supplementary support, and for others, they form the very foundation of their leisure life (Petersen, 2024). This highlights the importance of understanding how opportunities for participation are shaped and experienced in practice, and why some young people choose to participate and others not to participate in youth clubs.
This further draws an important attention to what young people do in their leisure time when they decide not to participate in youth clubs, as this perspective offers potential for understanding how they organise and navigate their everyday lives and social practices. Situated within the broader field of youth research, the project is particularly concerned with young people’s everyday lives and how these unfold in and across different contexts. By focusing on participation in institutional settings offered within the Danish welfare state, the project contributes new knowledge about how young people engage with, navigate, or disengage from these opportunities for community and participation, and how this relates to their broader everyday engagements.
The project aims to address the following research question:
How do young people reason their participation and non-participation in youth clubs, and how does youth pedagogy shape their opportunities for participation in and across the youth club and other everyday social contexts?
The theoretical and methodological foundation is grounded in the traditions of critical psychology and social practice theory (Dreier, 1979, 1999; Holzkamp, 1983, 1985; Holzkamp et al., 2013; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). These perspectives inform the analysis of young people’s participation in youth clubs as situated within their broader conduct of everyday life. The concept of conduct of everyday life (Dreier, 2011; Holzkamp, 1998) highlights how young people actively navigate their involvement across various social contexts, seeking to create coherence in their lives. This includes attention to both participation and non-participation, informed by the subjective reasons and everyday conditions shaping young people’s decisions (Højholt et al., 2014; Petersen, 2021). A decentred analytical approach (Dreier, 2008) is central to this theoretical framework, emphasising that young people’s participation or non-participation in youth clubs should not be analysed in isolation but in relation to the broader social and societal contexts that shape their conduct of everyday life.
Additionally, the project builds on a theoretical understanding that young people have a fundamental need to form bonds with others and to experience a sense of belonging (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Wulf-Andersen et al., 2023). The concept of belonging is closely aligned with social practice theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), where participation in various social practices is understood as a continuous process of identity formation and negotiation of meaning (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Mørck, 2006). Attending to belonging as situated practice (Gravett & Ajjawi, 2022; Larsen et al., 2023) enables an analysis of how participation and a sense of belonging is not merely an individual issue, but a consequence of the (in)accessibility and structuring of social practices, such as youth clubs. From this perspective, belonging is conceptualised as a dynamic and relational phenomenon that evolves over time and is shaped by the conditions for participation (Gravett & Ajjawi, 2022).
Finally, the theoretical framework is expanded with Lefebvre’s (1991) spatial theory, which provides a conceptual perspective of youth clubs as socially produced spaces. Lefebvre identifies three dimensions of space: perceived space, conceived space, and lived space. These dimensions are used to analyse how youth clubs are not simply neutral backdrops for social life, but spaces that are shaped by, and simultaneously shape, young people’s everyday practices, relations, and sense of belonging. Lefebvre’s theory compliments the critical psychological and social practice theoretical framework by enabling attention to how material, institutional, and lived spatialities intersect in young people’s conduct of everyday life.
In line with the project’s theoretical grounding, practice research is employed as the overarching approach to exploring young people’s subjective reasons for participating or not participating in youth club leisure-time activities (Dreier, 1996; Mørck, 1995; Mørck & Nissen, 2005). Practice research emphasizes collaboration between the researcher and the participants, who are regarded as co-researchers in the research process (Mørck, 2006; Mørck & Nissen, 2005). Holzkamp (1998) argues that the subject should not be treated as an object of investigation but as an active agent in the production of knowledge. This approach calls for an active involvement of young people in developing knowledge about how youth life unfolds across different contexts, and what appears to be significant from the standpoint and perspective of the young people themselves (Dreier, 1993; Petersen, 2021; Schwartz, 2005, 2014).
With practice research as the overall methodological framework, methods from the qualitative research tradition are applied (Jensen & Christensen, 2005; Mørck, 1995). Over a period of approximately 1.5 years, ethnographically inspired field work will be conducted, following 7th and 8th grade students in two different schools. This will involve participant observations in schools, leisure-time clubs, and youth clubs, with the ambition of generating embedded and embodied knowledge (Lagermann, 2014) of how young people’s participation is motivated and experienced across different contexts of their everyday lives. During the same period, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with both the young people who choose to participate in youth clubs and young people who choose not to. These interviews will focus on the complex everyday lives of young people across various contexts, and on how participation in youth clubs may be perceived as relevant to their daily conduct of live (Dreier, 2008; Holzkamp, 1998; Petersen, 2020).
By also supplementing the semi-structured interviews with photo-narratives (Böök & Terävä, 2014; McKee et al., 2024), the project aims to explore what appears important for the young people in relation to motivation and perceived relevance for participating in leisure-time activities. According to Böök & Terävä (2014), the use of photo-narratives is a way of giving ”…participants a voice and encourages them to share their views and experiences with the researcher” (p. 612).
The project adheres to the ethical guidelines outlined in the Danish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (UFM, 2014) as well as Aarhus University’s policy for research integrity, freedom of research and responsible conduct of research (AU, 2019), thereby emphasizing an ethical framework grounded in honesty, transparency, and accountability. Particular attention is given to the relationship between the researcher and the participant, and to the trust that is required in this type of research - especially as the young participants provide access to their everyday lives (Lagermann, 2020; Petersen, 2020).
The project is funded by Ungdomsringen. The project is formally enrolled at the Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University, within the department of Educational Anthropology and Educational Psychology. The postdoctoral project will be carried out with an active engagement in Nordic and international research networks throughout the three-year period.
The results of the project will be disseminated through publications in Nordic and international academic journals and presentations at international conferences.
