Do youth juries enhance youth political and societal participation?

Lessons from the Vaasa experiment

Authors

  • Harri Raisio Social and Health Management, University of Vaasa, Finland
  • Seija Ollila Social and Health Management, University of Vaasa, Finland
  • Pirkko Vartiainen Social and Health Management, University of Vaasa, Finland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v15i3.16171

Keywords:

Youth jury, Deliberative governance, Youth involvement, Finland

Abstract

The civic engagement of young people can be considered problematic in Finland. Still, the issue might be that youth actually are interested in politics and societal issues. They merely are not interested in the existing methods of political and societal participation. As a path forward the youth jury is tested in the Vaasa experiment. The underlying thought is that it would be something other than “politics as usual” and thus be more interesting to youth. So far only a few youth juries have been implemented and analyzed worldwide (e.g. Carson et. al. 2004; Iredale et. al. 2006). As a result Vaasa youth jury gives strong validity to the theoretical presumptions of youth juries. Participation into the youth jury was seen as a positive experience by many jurors. As a path forward on increasing youth involvement jurors underlined the possibilities of youth juries. Jurors also showed signs of positive attitudinal changes towards societal and political participation. However attitudinal change didn’t take place towards interest in positions of trusts. This can be seen as an indication that it is not that youth are passive and not interested, but that there are not possibilities to influence which would be stimulating enough for them.

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Author Biographies

Harri Raisio, Social and Health Management, University of Vaasa, Finland

Harri Raisio is a post-doctoral researcher in Social and Health Management at the University of Vaasa. His research focus is on complexity theory and deliberative democracy, especially from the perspective of organizing welfare services. (Corresponding author, harri.raisio@uwasa.fi, P.O. Box 700, 65101 Vaasa Finland)

Seija Ollila, Social and Health Management, University of Vaasa, Finland

Seija Ollila, PhD, is university lecturer in Social and Health Management at the University of Vaasa. Her research interests are in management and leadership in social and health care, knowledge management, competence based management and managerial supervision.

Pirkko Vartiainen, Social and Health Management, University of Vaasa, Finland

Pirkko Vartiainen, is professor of Social and Health Management at the University of Vaasa. She has broad experience in research on key issues concerning social and health management both at the national and the international comparative perspective.

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Published

2011-09-15

How to Cite

Raisio, H., Ollila, S., & Vartiainen, P. (2011). Do youth juries enhance youth political and societal participation? Lessons from the Vaasa experiment. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 15(3), 41–59. https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v15i3.16171

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Original Articles

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