Processes of Precarious Living Conditions: Young Men of Ethnic Minority Background Growing up in Socially Deprived Housing Areas in the Danish Welfare State

Abstract

This chapter focuses on young men of ethnic minority background, especially young men with refugee and migrant background from the so-called non-Western countries, who grow up and live their childhood and youth in socially deprived housing areas in Denmark. The chapter is based on a research project, which has followed children and young people as well as pedagogues in leisure and youth clubs located in three different socially deprived housing areas. In this context, a particular preoccupation has been addressing the opportunities, which the leisure and youth clubs have to offer in terms of supporting and helping young people, who live in vulnerable and socially marginalized positions. The chapter explores more specifically how some young men of ethnic minority background seem to be subject to vulnerable and socially marginalized living conditions related to dealing with their schooling, education, and later on access to the labor market and the opportunities to create good and safe living conditions in the Danish society. Young men who at the same time growing up in housing areas designated as socially deprived housing areas in the Danish welfare state, which is characterized annually by the residents’ lack of education, lack of affiliation to the labor market, as well as crime.

1. Introduction

Although Denmark along with the other Nordic countries is considered one of the least unequal societies in the world, measured by the GINI coefficient, there is a general consensus that economic and social inequality also exists in the Nordic countries [1, 2] and that this inequality has been increasing over recent decades [3, 4].

This may appear paradoxical, given that Denmark and the other Nordic countries traditionally belong to the so-called social democratic welfare model [5] or the so-called Nordic model. Gerven [6] clarifies four key areas that seem to characterize the Nordic model: universal welfare state provision, comprehensive public service, high labor market participation, and gender equality in both policy and practice.

In particular, the comprehensive public service, which, among other things, includes children and young people’s schooling and education, including children and young people’s association with public institutions, such as day care, school, and leisure pedagogy, is characteristic of the Nordic model. A central focus on child and youth policy applicable to all the Nordic countries is their argument to create equality for all children and young people. Equality that is particularly emphasized through institutional arrangements managed by state and municipal, such as day care and schools, which are also of high quality, where the opportunities to create equality take place through the entire education system.

The results from a research project¹ that has explored the upbringing and everyday life of children and young people in various socially deprived housing areas in Denmark, based on the leisure and youth clubs that children and young people participate in after school and in the evening, show that despite of the welfare state’s children and youth policy with a focus on equality-creating efforts through pedagogy and education, there are nonetheless groups of children and youth, and especially children and youth with an ethnic minority background², who grow up in socially deprived housing areas facing difficulties gaining access to, for example, good day care services, good schools, education, and jobs³ [7, 8, 10].

Several studies, both in an international context and in the Nordic countries, have pointed out that children and young people growing up in socially deprived housing areas more often live in conditions represented by growing up in poverty, ethnic minority background, and everyday life in housing areas often identified in urban and housing sociology research as housing areas for urban marginalization forms that at the same time seem to be concentrated in isolated and demarcated territories [13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21]. These housing areas are identified to have a high proportion of children and young people with ethnic minority background, especially from non-Western countries [7, 8, 10, 13, 22, 23, 24, 25].

Wacquant’s [26] urban and housing sociology analyses show how these isolated and demarcated housing areas, which encompass the poor and most vulnerable citizens in society, are characterized by advanced forms of marginalization processes connected to territorial stigmatization, as the central symbolic characteristic. Wacquant points out how the symbolic characteristic of the area includes a vivid awareness of being “reduced to a wretched space that collectively disqualifies them” ([26], p. 176).

In Denmark, these housing areas are listed by successive governments on an annual official list under the Ministry of the Interior and Housing, a list that is colloquially called a ghetto list, although different governments often seek to find other official designations for these housing areas, for example, list of vulnerable public housing areas, including a list of particularly vulnerable housing areas or areas characterized by so-called parallel societies, where groups (often with an ethnic minority background from non-Western countries) live outside normal society.⁴

In accordance with paragraph 61a of the Public Housing Act, the Ministry of the Interior and Housing in Denmark publishes this list of the housing areas on 1 December each year. The list includes social housing areas that have at least 1000 residents and fulfill two of the following four criteria: (1) The proportion of residents between 18 and 64 years of age without connection to the labor market or education surpasses 40% measured as the average for the past 2 years, (2) The number of convicted for violation of the penal code, the gun law or the law about psychedelic drugs are at least three times above the national average measured as the average for the past 2 years, (3) The proportion of residents between 30 and 59 years of age who solely has a basic education surpasses 60% of all residents in the same age group, (4) The average gross income for taxpayers between 15 and 64 years of age in the area, excluding students is less than 55% of the average income of the same group in the region.⁵

From the first list in 2012 and up to 2018, an additional criterion on the list was “the proportion of immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries.” However, this criterion has not been found on the list of socially deprived housing areas since March, 1, 2018, when the government presented the plan “A Denmark without parallel societies—No ghettos in 2030.” The plan included, among other things, a number of initiatives targeting the areas in Denmark “where parallel societies are most widespread and where the efforts so far have been insufficient.” The government’s strategy for a Denmark without ghettos in 2030 focused on four areas of action: “It is the physical demolition of vulnerable housing areas, more firm control of the tenant composition in the housing areas, strengthened efforts by the police and higher penalties, as well as a good start in life for all children and young people.”⁶

In particular, the media is periodically filled with stories about some of these socially deprived housing areas, which seem to be connected to young people (often young men) involved in vandalism and crime, and are also connected to gang-related communities, which cause unrest and concern. In some housing areas, for example, ambulances, firefighters, and police cannot drive in without rocks being thrown at them, and it is often said that the crime rate is higher in these housing areas compared to other housing areas in Denmark,⁷ just as visitation zones are periodically set up by the police in or around some of these housing areas.⁸

In the three different housing areas in Denmark, where the research project followed children, young people, and pedagogues in the leisure and youth clubs, these stories about the disadvantaged housing areas were also dominant ([7, 8, 9, 10] in review). During the course of the research project, there were thus reports that this particular housing area suffered from “a lot of problems with gangs,” or that this housing area suffered from “a lot of vandalism, for example, because young boys, as young as 12 years old, stand by the roadside and throw rocks at buses and motorists’ windows when they drive by,” or “this particular housing area especially has a long criminal record.” Both heads of leisure and youth clubs and the pedagogical staff who participated in the research project point out that growing up in this housing area (in particular) seems to make everything much more difficult for the children and young people, and especially for many of the boys and young men.

The pedagogical staff also point out—across the three housing areas—that many of the children and young people have had an upbringing marked by difficulties, for example, parents’ lack of affiliation to the labor market, parents’ lack of education, conflicts at home, many children and very little physical space as well as parents who do not have enough strength to take care of their children in everyday life. Most of the children and young people who are associated with the various leisure and youth club activities are children and young people with an ethnic background other than Danish, and primarily immigrants and descendants of immigrants from non-Western countries.

As one of the heads of leisure and youth clubs says during an interview: “there are many ethnic minority children and young people who manage very well in society, but there is also a group who have severe difficulties and find it difficult to cope in society—and they are often concentrated here with us” (Interview with head of leisure and youth club in the housing area Bluegarden).

These children and young people identified by both management and pedagogical staff in the three housing areas, also seem to be supported by several studies that point to the fact that children and young people with an ethnic minority background make up the group of children and young people who are most at risk in Danish society in relation to school, education, and jobs. Boys and young men, who are descendants⁹ of immigrants from non-Western countries, seem to be the ones who have difficulties completing primary school, and youth education, as well as a permanent affiliation to the labor market. For example, figures from Statistics Denmark¹⁰ show that only 33% of male non-Western immigrants have a primary school education aged 25–64, while this applies to only 7% of western immigrants and 19% of men of Danish origin.

Likewise, among the 22-year-olds, 17% of the men of Danish origin have completed a vocational education, while the corresponding proportion is only 5% among male non-Western descendants. For the 20–24-year-olds, it is almost one in four who have neither an affiliation to the labor market nor the education system. These are primarily boys/young men with an ethnic minority background and who are descendants of immigrants from non-Western countries.

In addition, calculations show that crime in 2019 is 51% higher among male immigrants and 139% higher among male descendants of non-Western backgrounds than among the entire male population. In terms of different types of offenses, it turns out that the index for male descendants from non-Western countries is highest for criminal offenses—and especially for violent offences—as it is almost three and a half times as high as for the average of all males when corrected for the age composition. For male immigrants from non-Western countries, the index for both violent and property crime is almost twice as high as the average for all men.

In a Danish context, Ejernæs [28, 29] has pointed out that as a result of increased immigration and the development of the Danish welfare state, a new growing class appears to be developing, the “precariat,” which based on Standing [30] and Wacquant [18, 19, 20], points to a contraction of the English words “precarious” and “proletariat.” Both Standing’s [30, 31, 32] and Wacquant’s [18, 19, 20] and Wacquant et al. [21] analyses show how this growing class mainly consists of immigrants and descendants from non-Western countries, who work in insecure and poorly paid jobs, often without education, and at the same time at risk of being in socially and politically marginalized positions in relation to the rest of society.

With inspiration from Wacquant’s thesis on advanced marginality and precarious living conditions [18, 19, 20, 21] and Standing’s [33], Standing’s [31, 32] analyses of the precariat, this chapter explores how we can understand young men’s movements into, or struggle not to enter into precarious living conditions, seen from the young people’s own perspectives, but also how the pedagogical staff in the disadvantaged housing areas work to support the children and young people to maintain schooling, support for education and leisure jobs, and constantly be aware of helping the children and young people to live a life outside the disadvantaged housing areas.

With this, the ruling question for this chapter is to explore how both the pedagogical staff and the young boys and men experience and act in everyday life, as well as what strategies children, young people, and the pedagogical staff in leisure and youth clubs use to deal with territorial stigmatization processes and the risk of movements into precarious living conditions? The chapter begins with a closer exploration of Wacquant’s [18, 19, 20, 34, 35, 36] understanding of the precariat, which includes territorial stigmatization processes and the sociospatial isolation mechanisms that seem to both create and maintain specific groups of people in precarious situations characterized by uncertainty, vulnerability, and marginalized living conditions. Standing’s [37] analyses of the precariat are also used as an analytical category in particular understanding of how children and young people seem to be caught in so-called “precarity traps” at an early age ([37], p. 26). This is followed by an elaborating presentation of the research project’s data and from there the analyses of both the pedagogical staff, as well as the experiences of the children and young people framed by the pedagogical work in the leisure and youth clubs that are physically located in the three housing areas. The pedagogical staff in the leisure and youth clubs begin the analyses, with a focus on how the pedagogical work is based on the patterns of urban marginality and ethno-racial inequality, which characterize these housing areas. Then, follows the children and young people’s experiences of growing up in these housing areas and contributes to point out the contours of precarious living conditions, which already seem to begin in early childhood and are followed through youth life, through many experiences of difficulties in terms of schooling, leisure jobs, and education, and at the same time prevention of movements into crime.

2. Territorial stigmatization and precarious living conditions for (some) children and young people in the Danish welfare state

With inspiration from Wacquant [19, 20, 34, 35, 36] theory of advanced marginalization, this chapter sets out to frame how specific housing areas, selected by urban and housing policy initiatives in the Danish welfare state, are designated as explicit housing areas characterized by specific difficulties, for example, juvenile delinquency, ethnic minority women not affiliated to the labor market, or children who do not attend nursery school or learn the Danish language, as well as political concern about the development of parallel society, in which ethnic minority groups in these housing areas seem to live separated and isolated from the rest of society.

While several Nordic researchers rightly point out that we cannot directly copy Wacquant’s [19, 20, 34, 35] theory apparatus connected to advanced marginalization in specific urban and housing areas and transfer this to the Nordic countries characterized by a strong welfare state, there are nevertheless several points in Wacquant’s theory of territorial stigmatization processes that can be retrieved across the Nordic countries.

The segregated housing areas are discussed, among other things, in a Swedish context by Lunneblad and Sernhede [38] when they point out that despite the extensive research that exists on segregation and simultaneous poverty problems, the tendency still seems to be connected to the fact that socially deprived housing areas must be understood as parallel societies controlled by criminals and to which immigrants have adapted to the norms that govern these housing areas. In a Norwegian context, Rosten [39] points to the importance of how the spatial stigma and symbolic structures that create, develop, and maintain specific housing areas in advanced marginalization processes seem to become important for young men with an ethnic minority background in particular, who as strategy takes on a special masculinity where “playing ghetto” becomes a possible way of dealing with the fact that you live in a local community that is looked down upon by people from outside, and that you yourself cannot always feel sure is good for you either [39]. In a Danish context, Hansen [40] has similarly pointed out how housing areas in the Danish welfare state have been transformed in tandem with the advanced urban marginality and the politics of gentrification that have concentrated stigmatized populations in segregated areas of the city ([40], p. 1).¹¹

Wacquant et al. [21] emphasize how some housing areas are affected by territorial stigmatization, which seems to constitute the key symbolic feature of advanced marginalization. According to Wacquant [19, 20], the characteristics of the advanced marginality of the post-Fordist era—the fragmentation and desocialization of wage labor, the disconnection of the poor from the economic conjunctures, the rise of precarious jobs and inequality, and the spatial concentration of poverty—have fostered a transformation of the organization and experience of space itself.

“Second territorial stigma has become nationalized and democratized, so to speak: in every country, a small set of urban boroughs have come to be universally renowned and reviled across class and space as redoubts of self-inflicted and self-perpetuating destitution and depravity. Their names circulate in the discourses of journalism, politics, and scholarship, as well as in ordinary conversation as synonyms for social hell.” ([21], p. 1273).

By Wacquant [18, 19, 20, 34, 35, 36, 43] and Wacquant et al. [21], territorial stigmatization is connected to both Goffman’s [44] theory of stigmatization and Bourdieu’s [45] work with the concept of symbolic power. Stigmatization is defined by Goffman as encompassing various forms of human characteristics designated as particularly undesirable in individuals or groups of individuals and which are formulated as “discrediting differentness” flowing from the ordinary gaze of others in face-to-face interaction ([21], p. 1272).

Goffman points out that stigmata can be linked to the body, people’s individual characteristics, as well as tribal affiliation “transmitted through lineages,” however, Wacquant et al. [21] take inspiration from Goffman to also add the physical place where people live as something also available for exposure to stigmatizing looks and actions that add to the other stigmata. The territorial stigmatization of physical places in urban and housing areas, Wacquant [34, 35, 36] connects to the formation of new social groups, including the precariat. In this context, symbolic power is connected to Wacquant’s analyses of how some groups in society have the power to designate physical places, which are then exposed to derogatory and stigmatizing mention, and how these physical places are particularly related to the formation of new social groups, for example, the precariat, that seems to congregate in these housing areas.

As an analytical category, the term precariat is formulated by both Wacquant [19, 20, 34, 35, 36] and Standing [31] as comprehensive groups living under exposed and uncertain life conditions, with affiliation to the labor market marked by short-term employment, without security, and at the same time affiliated to jobs that do not require education. Wacquant’s analyses is based on understanding of the precariat as “miscarried collective that can never come into its own precisely because it is deprived not just of the means of stable living but also of the means of producing its own representation” [36], but at the same time, he connects the precariat to those urban and housing areas, which are marked by territorial stigmatization processes, as areas in risk of developing and maintaining the residents in precarious living conditions and thus constitute, in this context, a relevant analytical category.

At the same time, Standing [33, 46], Standing [31, 32], although from a different theoretical point of view than Wacquant, in his analyses is concerned with the fact that the new precariat takes place in the increased immigration in the European countries, as well as changes in labor market policy, which seems to create a new class consisting mainly of immigrants, the young and the low-educated.¹² This class is termed the precariat, which at the same time includes new forms of proletarianization and is characterized by uncertainty. Uncertainty that is created and maintained through a lack of job security. Standing [47], Standing [32] points out that this lack of security can be linked to social development to which the precariat encounters, among other things, uncertainty in relation to employment, income, qualifications, and protection of the employees who, for example, work in dangerous, isolated and exposed jobs. In this context, Standing [32] further points out how some groups of ethnic minorities, including immigrants and refugees, are at risk of belonging to the precariat. Standing analyses [32, 37] how these groups, across the countries, are regarded as second-class citizens and not as citizens, and are also covered by many national laws and rules for what they must—and especially must not.¹³

However, the essence of the analytical categories of stigmatized housing areas and movements into precarious living conditions for some children and young people is the fact that these must be seen in the context of the Danish (and Nordic) welfare state, which is characterized by the fact that “the state is present” in the housing areas also designated as special housing areas marked by special difficulties. Several Nordic researchers point to how the welfare state steps in and formulates housing policy goals and guidelines, which are to prevent, for example, children and young people from acquiring an education, prevention of movements into crime, as well as support and help the area’s residents in order for them to take an active part in shaping their housing area in more positive ways [38, 39, 40].

In a Danish context, these housing areas thus undergo extensive social housing initiatives in these residential areas, for example, with a focus on improving daycare and school attendance for children and young people, helping with leisure jobs, as well as increasing the employment opportunities for the residents in these areas.¹⁴ However, Kamali & Jönsson [51] bring up a relevant point as they argue for how the Nordic welfare states have undergone extensive reorganizations and reforms legitimized by both political and administrative demands for “increasing efficiency, increasing professionalism, decreasing welfare dependency and cheaper gowernance” ([51], preface). These reorganizations and reforms are characterized as neoliberal movements in the Nordic welfare states, which at the same time also seem to have an impact on children and young people, especially those growing up in socially deprived housing areas characterized by poverty and inequality. Thus, Hansen [40] points out that “The politics of urban marginality are individualizing and racializing, and in a way demonizing the poor populations, considering poverty as self-inflicted, the poor as lazy, unwilling, morally corrupt, and as potential thieves and welfare cheaters. As such, the poor residents are officially categorized as nonhumans, noncitizens” ([40], p. 10).

3. Data and method

The research project elapsed in the period 2018–2019 with the participation of pedagogical staff, as well as children and young people from leisure and youth clubs located in three different socially deprived housing areas. Leisure and youth clubs have been established in all three housing areas, as well as drop-in centers for young people holding various pedagogical efforts. Some of the efforts function as traditional leisure and club efforts [52], but the majority of the efforts have also been extended to deal with different measures that sprung up directly contextualized by challenges that the pedagogical staff consider to be connected to children and young people growing up in these specific housing areas, for example, efforts that prevent crime and vandalism as well as efforts that focus on homework assistance, job searching, and efforts that, so to speak, move out of the housing areas through association with other leisure and sports activities in the municipality.

For the sake of anonymization,¹⁵ the different housing areas have been given the invented names, Bluegarden, Greengarden, and Applegarden. The three housing areas share common features, as they are all periodically covered by the list of socially deprived housing areas, and all three include many citizens with an ethnic minority background from non-Western countries. For children and young people with an ethnic minority background, these include both refugees and immigrants, as well as descendants of immigrants, from many different countries, for example, Syria, Pakistan, Turkey, Albania, Morocco, Palestine, Macedonia, and Somalia. In several of the leisure and youth clubs, there are solely children and young people with an ethnic minority background, and one of the employees in Greengarden specifies that in this club there are “at least 25 different nationalities” ([9] in review).

For the geographical location of the housing areas on the Danish map, they are typically located around the larger cities in Denmark and can be further clarified through the Swedish researcher Sernhede’s [17, 53] analyses of stigmatized metropolitan areas in the suburbs in the Swedish society. Sernhede [17] points out, with inspiration from Wacquant’s [34, 35], that the key factor seems to be social stratification, which is clearly marked in spatial segregation, in which some urban and housing areas include very wealthy residents while other housing areas delimited to poor citizens and constitute so-called multiethnic housing areas in the Swedish welfare state.

Thus, Bluegarden, Greengarden, and Applegarden are also examples of housing areas to be covered by the term multiethnic housing areas, which appear (sometimes invisibly) demarcated from other urban and housing areas. The pedagogical staff in the various leisure and youth clubs, as well as children and young people, point to this demarcation, although from different angles. For the pedagogical staff, for example, the importance of “helping the young people to get outside the housing area and participate in activities, jobs and training” or the importance of “learning about the Danish society” is pointed out, while several of the young people point out how their housing area is the “best place to live” and they rarely seem to express a need to get outside the area’s invisible boundaries.

The project’s data includes three leisure clubs, three youth clubs, and two drop-in centers. In a Danish context, drop-in centers are defined by being a physical place, where young people can attend and participate in various activities, and with the attachment of pedagogical staff. Drop-in centers are typically open in the evenings and offer free of charge for young people—often also young people over 18 years of age. The difference between drop-in centers and more traditional youth clubs is thus them being offered free of charge for young people and the participation of young people over the age of 18.

All municipalities in Denmark have several leisure and pedagogical offers for children and young people often unfolded through various forms of leisure and youth clubs.¹⁶ Leisure and youth clubs are aimed at children and young people approx. 12–18 years old and includes children’s and young people’s free time outside school hours, in the afternoon and evening, and is not connected to children’s and young people’s school life [52]. In relation to the parents’ expenses for their children’s participation in leisure and youth clubs,¹⁷ this varies from the different municipalities, and it is also possible to apply for so-called financially free space,¹⁸ so that children and young people are able to participate in leisure activities, independently of parents’ income. In a Danish context, a report from the Danish Evaluation Institute, EVA [54] points out that children and young people with an ethnic minority background are more likely to be enrolled in clubs than ethnic Danish children and young people, which also seems to apply to the other Nordic countries [25, 55, 56, 57].

This is substantiated by a report from the Danish Evaluation Institute from 2018, which states that it is primarily young people in school-leaving age, whose parents have less education, as well as young people with an ethnic minority background and young people of one-parent families, who make use of club offers. Furthermore, the report’s studies identify that boys more often than girls as well as young people with an increased risk of so-called socio-emotional challenges are more likely to be enrolled in a club [9, 52, 58].

The research project is based on various qualitative methods to collect data material for the project, consisting of a total of 38 semi-structured interviews, which include three individual interviews with managers from each of the three institutions involved, three focus group interviews with 15 pedagogical employees, also divided between the various institutions in the 3 housing areas and 8 focus group interviews with 20 children and young people. The eight focus group interviews with children and young people include interviews with children and young people across the three housing areas, typically the participation of between three and four children and young people in each interview.

As additional data material for the research project, questionnaires have been sent out to all employees and partners in and around the involved leisure and youth clubs in the three housing areas. All employees, managers, and business partners have answered these questionnaires, which were often distributed at the beginning of meetings, where time was set aside for the forms to be answered and returned.

Ethnographically inspired fieldwork has also been carried out in the various clubs in the three housing areas ([7, 8, 9] in review). The fieldwork has, among other things, including participation in the daily life of the leisure and youth clubs in the afternoon and evening, together with the children and young people, as well as participation in staff meetings of the pedagogical staff, as well as in collaboration meetings with schools, administration, police, and participation in supervision and general work meetings, in which the pedagogical work is planned.¹⁹ The ethnographically inspired fieldwork has generally been guided by a focus on the visibility of housing social structures, which form the framework for leisure-time pedagogical work, as well as the lived lives, among children, young people, and pedagogues. The fieldwork, along with the pedagogical staff through their work meetings, their organization of pedagogical initiatives, and their collaborative relationships with, for example, school, administration, and parents, point to a specific preoccupation with creating opportunities for the children and young people in terms of schooling, education, and job affiliations. Opportunities that must constantly be promoted, developed, and supported and whose built-in uncertainty seems to have been created based on the advanced marginalization, which at the same time takes place in these housing areas [34, 35].

The analytical readings of the data material, in this context, are concerned with exploring how the patterns of urban marginality and ethno-racial inequality, as well as precarious processes, seem to be retrieved in the Danish welfare state, already among some children and young people at an early age. Precarious processes can be set in motion before children and young people even enter the labor market. They are also in their childhood and youth at risk of being caught in what Standing terms the precarity traps ([37], p. 26). These traps seem to be connected to growing up in these housing areas and can further be captured through poor or inadequate schooling, lack of leisure jobs, the risk of movements into crime and difficulties in completing further education, and later a permanent connection to the labor market. In particular, the analyses show how some of the children and young people are highly at risk of being in a pre-precariat, which includes processes of poor or deficient schooling, including many and often negative experiences with school life, as well as experiences of failure to maintain further education, and at the same time a linkage to growing up in these housing areas.

4. Pedagogues’ work in leisure and youth clubs located in socially deprived housing areas: preventing movements into precarious living conditions

The research project’s analyses of the pedagogical work in the leisure and youth clubs contribute overall to showing how societal and political understandings form a direct framework for the pedagogical work in the youth clubs. Managers and pedagogues refer to and justify their pedagogical work by focusing on inclusion in relation to the societal and political exclusion and separation policy characterizing the present social and housing policy, especially in relation to refugees and immigrants. This policy and the results that follow from it seem to constitute a fundamental context for the pedagogical staff who work in leisure and youth clubs with children and young people [24].

It is obvious that the pedagogy relates to the societal circumstances and to the consequences of living in a “ghetto” with the accompanying separation and exclusion that is experienced as a result. However, the pedagogical staff does not seem to spend much time challenging the state and municipal policies, which govern the housing area itself, for example, the housing policy criteria, which define a socially deprived housing area, which results in some housing areas being on the list of socially deprived housing areas or removed from the list.

“We are on the ghetto list. We’ll have to see what that brings along. But there is no doubt that it will result in some changes in relation to the composition of residents. Intensive work must be done on how to get citizens out… (interview with manager of the leisure and youth club, Applegarden).”

“The area is not on the ghetto list because it does not meet the criteria for the size of the housing area. It is too small an area. But the area meets the criteria on all other parameters. Including crime, unemployment (75% of the residents are without connection to the labor market), and level of education—parameters that are indicated as massive problems” (interview with manager of the leisure and youth club, Bluegarden).

Both research interviews, participation in work meetings, as well as fieldwork in the leisure and youth clubs in the three housing areas, contributed to identify the fact that both management and pedagogical staff are very aware that the pedagogical work implies special challenges and problems.

The special challenges and problems seem to appear uniformly across the housing areas and were particularly linked to the fact that the pedagogical staff pointed out that they worked in a “socially deprived housing area,” in which many children and young people suffer from difficulties in growing up and in their everyday life.

Thus, both management and pedagogical staff point out what they believe to be characteristic of their work in the leisure and youth clubs, with direct reference to the geographical location of the housing areas. Emphasis is placed on how the various housing areas periodically “struggle with” various forms of crime, including vandalism, drug sales, and young people, who gather on corners and areas, where they “take up a lot of space” and create “insecurity” in relation to other residents in the area.

The pedagogical staff in the three different housing areas justify their pedagogy directly in the extension of considerations about helping, protecting, and developing the children’s and young people’s competencies as a fundamental part of their pedagogical work. They work to prevent crime, vandalism, and insecurity in the housing areas, and they work to ensure that young people are connected to the labor market and the education system.

There seems to be a special knowledge of how to enter into precarious living conditions for these groups of children and young people, as the very special thing, which is the subject of the pedagogical work.

Many of the efforts are about counteracting “the cultural and spiritual poverty,” which is one of the consequences of growing up in these housing areas. The children must have some experience and knowledge. As one of the managers points out during an interview, it is important to work pedagogically to create opportunities for the children and young people for them not solely to stay in the housing area but also to relate to the surrounding society. “Culture and television news. That they know what is happening out there in reality” (interview with manager, leisure and youth club, Bluegarden).

“…If we want them to be integrated into society, they must also have a better understanding of society—and that is sometimes the way. We’ve also been to the theatre, we’ve been to concerts, we’ve been to the Academy of Music, where some of our young people were to perform” (interview with manager from leisure and youth club, Applegarden).

“We have seen that it has been necessary. Because otherwise, it was like trying to wipe up the water under a running tap, it doesn’t help. We just kept going, so instead of turning off the tap, and then wiping up” (interview with manager from leisure and youth club, Applegarden).

“Of course, we work with the community that we have in the house, but we also work with the larger community called Denmark. You are a part, you are a citizen, you should not be an anti-citizen. In other words, we don’t say that to them, but we work toward making them citizens” (interview with manager from leisure and youth club, Applegarden).

The pedagogy itself seems to work in two simultaneous tracks—or a double view. Partly a leisure and club pedagogy, which is traditional and focuses on leisure and club activities, as these appear in leisure and youth clubs in general across the country. Sports, music, socializing, computer games, trips out of the house, etc. form the basis of an invitation to the leisure and youth club community [24, 59].

At the same time, the pedagogical view of the importance of doing something special and helping the children and young people in their lives is constantly present in the pedagogical work. This can be special efforts with a focus on homework assistance, leisure jobs, and help to apply for education, but it can also be in the understanding that when the leisure and club efforts are physically located in these housing areas, then an extra effort is needed in relation to the children and young people. This opens up the possibility of preventing social exclusion processes and increasing the opportunities for the individual young person to be included in the surrounding society—outside the residential areas.

If the children and young people are estimated to have social, emotional, or learning difficulties, and at the same time have an ethnic minority background, it seems as if it “can hit twice as hard.” Several of the employees point out in both the questionnaire survey and through focus group interviews that this can be described as “double problems”social difficulties and ethnic minority background— especially for some of the young boys in the different housing areas. These double problems make the young boys vulnerable and exposed in their everyday life both in relation to well-being and development, but also in relation to cooping in school, in the company of other young people, and make them vulnerable in relation to movements into crime and gang-related groupings in the local housing areas.

On the other hand, a lot of time is spent on working to prevent precarious processes as a potential risk for children and young people, as adults, to live in precarious living conditions marked by lack of education, no connection to the labor market, and a life isolated in these housing areas, characterized by social exclusion and marginalization.

Both the pedagogical staff as well as management in the three housing areas point out that this; creating better opportunities for the children and young people for them to “cope” in life, is at the center. Although the traditional understanding of leisure pedagogy seems to constitute the external framework for leisure and youth clubs, the efforts inside the clubs are highly concentrated on helping to create better living conditions for the individual child and the individual young person.

5. Precarious processes in everyday life in socially deprived housing areas for some young people

For some young men with an ethnic minority background, precarious processes seem to begin long before their connection to the labor market. Growing up in socially deprived housing areas and having difficulties in gaining access to good schools and completing the final exam, as well as participation in associational life and leisure activities outside the housing areas, seem to constitute a way into the precarious labor market, not only for some immigrants with an ethnic minority background, but also for some descendants of immigrants, that is, the young people who on the whole all have grown up in Denmark, have attended primary school, and had opportunities for upper secondary education and beginning further education.

The precarious processes seem to include movements associated with lack of or poor schooling, several upper secondary educations, which have not been completed, difficulties in finding work or changing periods in work with low-paid jobs, which do not require special educational qualifications, but also a lack of expectations or hope of being able to complete an education and get a permanent job with a good income. Many of the young men attending the youth clubs and the drop-in centers have experienced involvement in crime, for example, vandalism, theft, drug sales, or assault.

While several Nordic studies have pointed to everyday life in housing areas [17], as well as the gendered aspect [39], the analyses of the data show the importance of the fact that children and young people experiencing and handling the housing area differently, across their age.²⁰ Different strategies appear to be linked to age, while the vast majority of the children and young men indicate that they live in a place associated with a lot of crime. For the very young people in the leisure clubs, interviews indicate that they are preoccupied with avoiding involvement in crime but at the same time an understanding of it being present in various forms of appearance.

It is across the housing areas and the young people’s stories—especially the very young boys—in which they tell about a daily life, where trouble and crime are constantly present:

“Not because you want to, but if you’re outside with your friends, if the club isn’t open. If we were outside, and someone said something stupid, then I could easily be fighting, because this club was missing.”

“It sounds like it’s very easy to get involved in crime, when you put it that way?” (interviewer)

“Walla it is easy.” “If you have this childhood friend who is older than you, then you become a criminal yourself, then you become like him.”

“If the club had not been open on Mondays and Tuesdays and such, I think all of them in here, might have ended up in crime. Because there are a lot of (city name) boys, who commit crime (…) they are like a magnet, you know, you just go to them. So, if I hadn’t attended this club, I think I would have become like that” (from a focus group interview with young people from Bluegarden).

Several of the young boys also have many experiences with older brothers, or others, who are “criminals.” More precisely, the term “criminal” seems to encompass many different actions; from hanging out on the street and “making trouble,” to moving into groups of young people, who stick together, and are “enemies” with the ones from another housing area, to participating in burglaries, assaults, robberies and “taking substances.”

A strategy to deal with these experiences in the local housing area, as a place considered to be “easy to become a criminal,” seems to be the possibility of having a physical place to stay together with friends and with the pedagogical staff. The leisure clubs in the afternoon, across the three housing areas, are full from the time they open until they close. There are many children and young people there playing on computers, making music, and also many different sports activities take place across the housing areas.

The children and young people point out that it is important to be in the club. This is where you “hang out with your friends,” and it is also here that the pedagogues are “perfectly okay” to be with. The pedagogues “play football” with the young people and the pedagogues are also pointed out as someone who is “trustworthy,” who has “computer skills,” or who “helps” if needed.

At the same time, the place where the young boys live is also a “good place” even if there is “crime.” Several of the young boys have in common that they grew up together in the housing area and have lived there all their lives. They point out that all their friends live there, their family, including grandparents, uncles, or cousins.

During the fieldwork in the leisure club in Greengarden, where the leisure and youth club is physically located in the middle of the housing area, the young boys point out of the windows, and can show where they live, where their grandparents live, or their best friend, who “lives in the stairwell right next to it.” We take a break from playing billiards, drink soft drinks, and talk about “living here with your best friends.” “That’s the best thing about living here” (from fieldwork notes in the leisure club in Greengarden).

Although Greengarden from the outside looks like a large housing area with a long row of identical blocks of flats, the young boys can still point out that “there is a lot of crime down there.” Down there points to a place further down the road, perhaps 500 m, where someone who “commit a lot of crime” live. One of the strategies for these young boys is to stay away from “down there.” “We stay up here,” “here it is best to stay,” seems to be the shared story (from fieldwork notes in the leisure club in Greengarden).

Wacquant et al. [21] point out how different strategies of the individual resident or groups must be analyzed with reference to social positions, which can be connected to, for example, class, life situation, and ethnicity, but age is also pointed out as a factor, which becomes important for strategies to deal with stigmatization in housing areas.

One of the key findings, which stands out in the data material, in relation to the analyses of how the children and young people act on the local stigma, associated with the specific housing area, is the difference in age, especially in terms of how the young boys are handling the stigma of their housing area, a stigma that is spoken of as a place where “crime takes place.” Among the young boys, there seems to be an omnipresent knowledge that crime is connected to these housing areas, but also that it takes place in “this block of flats,” or down at the “other end,” and not “up here, where I live.”

6. Being young and at risk of precarious living conditions

In the data material, which includes both focus group interviews with young boys in the leisure clubs, as well as the young men in the youth clubs and drop-in centers, differences in age seem to appear, as a factor that seems to have an impact on how they perceive and handle their experiences of the housing area in which they grow up and live.

While several of the very young boys are preoccupied with avoiding getting involved in “crime” and seem to use the leisure club as a stamping ground, there also seems to be a period of the young boys’ everyday life, where precarious living conditions loom on the horizon, provided they do not stay out of crime. If you become a “criminal,” then you “destroy” your future, or if you do a crime, it will affect your “schooling,” the young boys explain. Precarious living conditions, in which you lose the opportunities for schooling, education, and work, seem to preoccupy the consciousness of several of the young boys, which is also supported by several of the pedagogues in the leisure club. Standing [37] characterizes how precarious processes can include experiences of being without a secure identity or a sense of development achieved through work and life choices.

Several of the pedagogues point out that it is important to “hold on” and offer “alternatives to crime.” It thus seems as if there are several traps that one can be caught in, along the way through childhood and youth life, traps that seem endless to overcome once one is caught up. Standing [37] uses the term traps as “a combination of poverty traps exploitation and coercion outside the workplace, and precarity traps that amounts to a tsunami of adversity [37, 47] analyses are concerned with the working lives of adults and insecure living conditions, especially associated with a lack of rights in working life, the concept of traps, associated with children’s and young people’s schooling, education and working life, also seems to be identified, especially in terms of the young boys and men.

The pedagogical staff, across the three housing areas, point out that growing up in these housing areas is in many ways difficult for children and young people. There is “nothing wrong” with the children and young people, but they must have support to “step out of the housing areas” and “live their lives.”

Through leisure and youth pedagogical work, strikingly appear stories about giving children and young people the competencies and skills to “cope in life,” for example, by completing primary school, obtaining a secondary education, perhaps also an apprenticeship, and eventually a permanent job ([7, 8, 9, 24] in review).

But several traps seem to be able to be identified by the pedagogical staff; growing up in socially deprived housing areas, attending schools that do not have the resources and time to give young boys and men a good education, as well as the risk of moving into crime, are all precarious processes, in which the children and the young people can be caught and entangled in traps. All these traps seem to be present for the young boys and young men, and the pedagogical staff is constantly preventing the children and young people to be caught up in these traps. The young men from the youth clubs and drop-in centers point to their experiences with these traps. “Not having completed school,” “having committed crime,” and feelings of abandonment and powerlessness.

“It is my own fault,” says Hassan, for example, during the fieldwork in Greengarden’s youth club, where we sit together with one of the pedagogues, Michael, who has helped Hassan to apply for upper secondary education. Hassan tells how he started to “commit crime,” and at the same time started to “cut school,” but also about how he has been “stupid,” and now “has pulled himself together.” Michael has helped and got Hassan into an upper secondary education, so now “no more acting stupid,” as Hassan puts it (from fieldwork notes in Greengarden’s youth club).

Thus, the data material points to the fact that a difference can be identified in relation to the young people’s age—while the young boys to a great extent emphasize the community in the leisure club and the importance of avoiding involvement in “crime,” the older young men are to a far greater extent aware of precarious living conditions associated with the risk of lack of education and lack of work. The differences in age should not necessarily be perceived as a physiological age difference but must be seen with reference to the societal ways in which the welfare state has arranged the overall education system, and in which the youth period deals with choosing education, completing education, and becoming associated with the labor market.

Getting an education is the most important thing, to “cope,” or to “become something,” seems to preoccupy many of young people, but there is also an experience of having been in situations or periods, where it seemed hopeless. To cope thus also rests on the shoulders of lived experiences of not “having coped.”

7. Concluding remarks

Inspired by Wacquant’s theoretical work connected to advanced marginality, which in symbolic form seems to emerge through territorial stigmatization processes, this chapter has focused on children and young people who grow up in socially deprived housing areas in Denmark. Children and young people, all of whom have an ethnic minority background, and who live their everyday lives in these housing areas characterized by stigmatization and marginalization. The chapter’s analyses show how specific urban and housing areas in Denmark stand out as housing areas that, on the one hand, are identified as holding specific difficulties, for example, with crime, people without a connection to the labor market as well as stories about so-called parallel societies, and on the other hand, is woven into welfare state policies. Welfare state policies, which include both social housing and pedagogical efforts and massively present in the physical space, as in no other urban and housing areas in Denmark and in all aspects of the lives of the people who live in these housing areas.

Wacquant [19, 20, 34, 35] emphasizes that processes of territorial stigmatization can neither be viewed as a static condition nor a neutral process, but something that highly functions through housing policy decisions—in the Nordic context, particularly connected to the public housing sector, and delimited to special housing areas designated as having special difficulties with, for example, unemployment, lack of education, and crime, as turning factors.

Thus, this chapter is based on three housing areas in Denmark, where welfare state policies have designated these housing areas as deprived, and with a specific view to the upbringing and everyday life of children and young people in these housing areas, as well as the work of pedagogues with the children and the young people in the locally rooted leisure and club facilities.

There is nowhere in the data material where the children and young people identify the housing areas they grow up in as places they do not want to live, although both the young boys and men refer to the risk of crime as an omnipresent condition to be dealt with. Strategies for dealing with local stigma seem to highlight how the housing area provides a community for the children and young people, across the three housing areas. The community is both about living close to one’s “best friends” and living “close to one’s family.” At the same time, there seems to be experienced attention to how “easy” involvement in crime is in this housing area, or perhaps rather that it requires something special from the young boys to stay out of it. As actively acting young boys, the movements into the leisure club seem to provide a form of protection, which at the same time provides opportunities to participate in leisure activities, such as sports, computer games, and music with friends and pedagogical staff. For the older young men, who are on their way into adulthood, their experiences, however, include stories about how difficult it can be to create a secure future for yourself, through school, education, and work. The precarious existence, or the contours of it, seems to be connected to lack of schooling, lack of upper secondary education, several interrupted educational courses, the risk of or actual movements into crime, and experiences of having difficulties in finding a spare time job.

At the same time, the analyses show how the pedagogical staff takes on the local stigma in their work in the leisure and youth clubs. In particular, the emphasis on supporting and helping children and young people to move out of the risk of not completing primary school, not obtaining leisure jobs, and upper secondary education, as well as crime prevention efforts, fills the pedagogical strategies aimed at helping children and young people.

With the concept of precariat, this chapter’s analyses show how young men with an ethnic minority background experience processes of exclusion from school, education, and the labor market. And at the same time points to the importance of recognizing the connection between the individual subjective experienced point of view and perspective in contexts with wider and deeper societal structures of social and economic inequality.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for their comments. I also wish to thank the children, young people, and pedagogical staff who contributed to this research project.

Appendix

As described in the chapter, the analyses of the pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs geographically located in socially deprived housing areas are based on a number of research methods collectively placed within the qualitative research tradition. Ethnographically inspired fieldwork has been carried out in the leisure and youth clubs, across the three housing areas, which has included participation in the daily pedagogical life, but also participation in staff meetings, collaboration meetings as well as supervision meetings. In addition, individual semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews were carried out with management and pedagogical staff across the three housing areas, and focus group interviews with children and young people in the leisure and youth clubs. The data material also consists of a questionnaire survey aimed at both management and the pedagogical staff in the three housing areas, but also aimed at a number of collaboration parties, including school, SSP, housing social workers, and administration.

The questionnaire survey was aimed at management, pedagogical staff and relevant parties, in and around the pedagogical leisure-time work in the leisure and youth clubs across the three housing areas. The questionnaire partly involved questions about education, work tasks, employment duration, as well as more specific questions related to the individual employee’s daily work tasks. A number of these questions were thus related to the pedagogical work in everyday life; what the work consists of, which pedagogical efforts are organized and how does a week look like, for example, in relation to opening hours, activities, and work tasks. In addition, the questionnaire also included questions about the participating children and young people in the leisure and youth clubs, for example, age and gender, as well as questions about cooperation with parents, as well as schools, SSP, social services and other relevant parties.

Common to both the individual semi-structured interviews as well as focus group interviews with management and pedagogical staff, is the structure of the interview guide as it involved a series of general questions particularly concentrated on defining the pedagogical work in everyday life, structures and conditions for carrying out the pedagogical work, the importance of leisure pedagogy in socially deprived housing areas, as well as an exploration of the ways the pedagogical staff act in and with the conditions and opportunities they consider to be present in everyday pedagogical work.

The same applies to the structure of the interview guide related to focus group interviews with children and young people. The interview guide was built around questions primarily focusing on the children’s and young people’s descriptions and narratives of why they participated in the leisure and youth clubs, what was particularly important to them from their points of view and perspectives, as well as exploration along with the children and young people, what seem to be challenges, dilemmas and difficulties related to growing up and living in the various housing areas.

The research project’s ethical guidelines.

All children, young people, and the pedagogical staff, as well as the specific institutions and housing areas that have participated in the research project, are anonymised in accordance with the current guidelines.

The research project has been notified to Aarhus University/The Danish Data Protection Agency and complies with Aarhus University’s guidelines for responsible conduct of research (Responsible conduct of research and freedom of research (au.dk)) and the Data Protection Agency’s guidelines for conducting ethical research.

The research project also complies with the formal guidelines for safe storage and proper handling of data/GPDR (Protection of personal data (GDPR)) (au.dk)

In Danish.

Petersen KE, Sørensen LH, Sørensen TEM, Ladefoged L. Fritids- og ungdomsklubbers betydning for børn og unges hverdagsliv og fællesskaber i udsatte boligområder. København: DPU, Aarhus Universitet; 2019.

Petersen KE. Pædagogers arbejder med ustyrlige unge, eller unge i ustyrlige problemer. Fritids- og ungdomsklubber i udsatte boligområder. Nordiske Udkast. 2020;49(1):40-51.

Petersen KE, Sørensen TEM. Fritids- og ungdomsklubbers betydning for børn og unges trivsel og udvikling. Forskningsoversigt. Pædagogisk Indblik: Aarhus Universitetsforlag; 2021

.

In EnglishPetersen KE. Leisure and youth clubs’ work with young people of ethnic minority background living in socially deprived housing areas: creating processes of hope and empowerment through social pedagogical work. International Journal of Social Pedagogy. 2021;10(1):10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.ijsp.2021.v10.x.010.

Petersen KE. Youth clubs working with children and youth at risk for school failure – how to prevent exclusion from school. International Journal of Inclusive Education. 2023 in review