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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Philosophical and Youth-Studies Perspectives on the Participation Imperative

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In this article we analyse the concept of participation. The analysis is informed by both quantitative and qualitative youth studies conducted in Finland. To analyse different aspects of participation special emphasis is placed on the migrant young seeking asylum. Young can be seen as sometimes engaged and disengaged from the existing forms of participating. The results of the youth studies also show that there seems to be a gap between representative democracy and the peer-group-based forms of participation of the young. To analyse in detail how this gap can be understood, the theory of recognition developed by Axel Honneth is used to pinpoint different arenas of participation. Honneth’s levels of recognition – family, civil society and the state – can be used to reformulate the results of the youth studies, which show that personal relations and work life continue to be important for the young, while the interest in the traditional political participation is diminishing.