Pragmatic, pious and pissed off: young Muslim girls managing conflicting sexual norms and social control

Self Cite

In this chapter we investigate changes in ideas about pupils, learning and motivation over a period of 30 years. Our starting point is the longstanding public concern over young people’s lack of school motivation. We ask what ideas about young people, as pupils and with respect to learning and motivation, can be traced in educational reforms, curriculum documents, and parent-teacher conferences. Drawing on Foucault’s work on governmentality and pastoral power, we argue that there has been a shift from an idea of the pupil as driven by intrinsic motivation and capable of governing her own learning process, to an emphasis on external control and goal-oriented learning. Paradoxically, the aim of these external forms of control is to foster individualised, intrinsic motivation and self-discipline. In keeping with this ideal, parent-teacher conferences become an arena where pupils are steered towards particular individual goals through specific forms of soft power. In a final section, we discuss how Norway’s latest educational reform, with its ideal of self-regulation, may reinforce trends towards individualisation.

Section: Introduksjonunclassified

Selvbestemmelse og selvregulering: Nye elevidealer for ungdomsskolen

Smette¹,

Hegna²

2021

Self Cite

Section: Introduksjonunclassified

Norsk ungdomsforskning: Røtter og samtidsforståelser

Pedersen¹,

Ødegård²

2021

Throughout the 1950s, as psychology, sociology and criminology developed as academic disciplines in Norway, researchers within these disciplines began publishing scattered reports on youth. In the 1970s and ‘80s, The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (the so-called Birmingham school) became a global inspiration for youth researchers. In Norway, the Centre’s studies on e.g. style and resistance in particular were replicated by qualitative youth researchers. However, the establishment of UNGforsk in 1991 fundamentally changed the youth research milieu in Norway. Over the course of a few years, a group of 15–20 researchers developed a secure base and continued to publish studies based on qualitative interviews and fieldwork. However, the defining features of the milieu were representative surveys of youth in numerous local communities and a large and national representative longitudinal study – Young in Norway. The participants in this study are now in their mid-40s and are still followed up in surveys and register data. UNGforsk gradually became part of the Norwegian Social Research (NOVA) institute at Oslo Metropolitan University. After 30 years, the youth research section still remains the key youth research institution in Norway. A rich and solid infrastructure of regular national surveys (UNGDATA), annual conferences and a Nordic youth research journal has developed through the institute. Its research is continually cited in mainstream Norwegian media, and the researchers regularly take part in expert groups developing Norwegian youth policy.

Section: Introduksjonunclassified

Nye seksualiteter, nye kjønn?

Pedersen¹,

Slagstad²,

Soest³

2021

Fifty years ago, the concept “sexual script” was coined to describe sexual activities as social and learned interactions. Such scripts gradually change, however, and result in what we may label “generational sexualities”. Drawing on such theory and the Young in Oslo data set, we show that age of first heterosexual intercourse, perhaps contrary to expectations, has increased over the past two decades. We also show how debut age reflects sociodemographic and area-related characteristics in Oslo: Adolescents in the wealthy areas have a lower sexual debut age than those living in less affluent parts of the city. This pattern, however, varies with factors such as immigration, religion and the use of alcohol and social media. Further, we show that one in five no longer define themselves within the traditional homo-hetero dichotomy. We discuss whether gender identities have become more fluid, and we show that the term “queer”, with its connotations of exploration, openness and inclusion, has become popular, as opposed to older terms such as “lesbian”, “gay” or “bisexual”. Thus, strong social forces shape adolescent sexual behaviours, but sexual scripts, and sexual and gender identities, seem to allow for more variations than before.