Et helt normalt perfekt selv. Konstruktioner af selvet i unges beretninger om mistrivsel

Abstract

Ungdomsforskningen har længe været optaget af spørgsmål, der vedrører unges identitetsdannelse. De seneste årtier har denne optagethed fået næring fra en række dagsordensættende samfundsvidenskabelige teorier, som har udvist en betydelig interesse for at udforske selvet, der tilsyneladende er blevet destabiliseret, rekonstrueret og rehabiliteret i en uendelighed. Selvet synes at have fået status som en slags prisme, som de samfundsvidenskabelige teorier anskuer de aktuelle samfundsforandringer igennem. Denne tilbøjelighed kan også spores i ungdomsforskningen, der i stigende grad har indkredset unges livssituation og orienteringsformer gennem studier, som fokuserer på de muligheder og begrænsninger, der præger unges selvkonstruktion i forskellige sociale og kulturelle kontekster. Det gælder også denne artikel, der med udgangspunkt i modernitetsteoretiske og poststrukturalistiske perspektiver på ungdomslivet retter søgelyset mod de udfordringer, som selvkonstruktionen afføder blandt en gruppe unge, der har mistrivselsproblemstillinger inde på livet, der på forskellig vis udtrykker sig i forhold til selvet. Med udgangspunkt i interviews analyseres de sammenhænge mellem mistrivsel og selvkonstruktion, de unge selv etablerer i deres beretninger om henholdsvis valg og selvkonstruktion, forestillingen om det perfekte ungdomsliv samt de selvoptimeringsstrategier, de anlægger for at dæmme op for det, de betragter som egne utilstrækkeligheder.
 
 
 ENGELSK ABSTRACT:
 
 Niels Ulrik Sørensen and Jens Christian Nielsen: A Completely Normal Perfect Self. Constructions of the Self in Young People’s Accounts of Lack of Well-being
 
 Youth research has been preoccupied by young people’s identity construction. Lately this preoccupation has been fueled by a number of agenda setting theories within social studies, which have made an equal number of attempts to deconstruct, reconstruct and re-conceptualize the self. The self seems to have become a prism through which social theories grasp important social changes. This tendency has also been prevalent in youth research, which increasingly tends to grasp young people’s lives and perspectives in terms of issues relating to construction of the self. Inspired by modernity and poststructuralist theories, this article explores the challenges relating to constructions of the self among a group of young people who fail to thrive and who understand and express this failure as a failure of their construction of their self. On the basis of qualitative interviews the article explores the connections they establish between important choices and construction of their self, their notions of the perfect youth life and their strategies to stem what they consider their own imperfections. 
 
 Keywords: youth, individualization, identity construction, self construction, lack of well-being, imperfection.

Beyond Pressure and Perfectionism – Student Struggles in Contemporary Denmark from the Perspectives of Educational Counsellors

“…While young people's mental well-being is affected by various factors, external as well as internal, and the causes for a lack of well-being are manifold, we suggest that the overall social focus on performance may be one of the major factors relevant to this development. A similar point is made by Sørensen & Nielsen [30] who analyze the self-construction of young Danes. The young people they have interviewed seem to experience no self-evident right to subjectivity, and to regard subjectivity as something they are obliged to earn and create themselves (Ibid: 44).…”

“…The analysis illuminates the ways in which counselors conceptualize and manage this development and illustrates that student everyday life, as well as counselors' role in the students' lives, have changed radically. Many of the counselors try to explain these new developments by pointing to not only increased pressures in the education system but also by alluding to changes in leisure time and family life, including parental roles [30]. Furthermore, counselors are concerned about the increase in diagnoses among young people in general, as well as about indications that more students than before use performance-enhancing drugs.…”

“…We did not notice any differences between the experiences of male and female counselors, the main differences had more to do with the amount of time they had worked as counselors. While the interviews have belonged to different research projects, their focus and content are similar, addressing the themes also paramount in recent literature regarding student pressure and performance [2,30].…”

Præstation og eksistens: Unges kampe med og mod sig selv

“…Min hensigt har ikke vaeret at vurdere kvaliteten af de forskellige idealer, men at vise, at og hvordan de unge forholder sig til sig selv og deres praestationsorientering. Til forskel fra ungdomsforskerne Sørensen et al (2017), der i deres interviewundersøgelse af unges praestationsorientering finder, at unge "anlaegger en raekke forskellige strategier for at overskride uperfektionen og bevaege sig så langt hen imod den perfekte normalitet som muligt" (s. 39; se også Sørensen & Nielsen, 2014), har mine analyser peget på, at de unges eksistens udgør et problem, som de forholder sig til, kerer sig om og kaemper med.…”

“…Aktuel ungdomsforskning beskriver et ungdomsliv karakteriseret ved praestation (Bakken Sletten & Eriksen, 2018;Bjønnes, 2018;Eriksen, 2021;Gjellesvik & Madsen, 2021;Katznelson et al, 2021;Katznelson & Louw, 2018;Madsen, 2018;Skagestad & Madsen, 2015;Sørensen et al, 2017;Sørensen & Nielsen, 2014). Samtidens ungdom er blevet betegnet som "generation praestation" (Bakken et al, 2018;Madsen, 2018) og som en "sykt seriøs ungdomsgenerasjon" (Hegna et al, 2013), mens samfundet er blevet beskrevet som et "praestationssamfund" (Petersen, 2016) med "konkurrencestaten" som dets strukturelle og politiske bagtaeppe (Pedersen, 2011).…”