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

Abstract

This article gives an analysis of social pedagogical work in leisure and youth clubs, physically located in so-called socially deprived housing areas in Denmark. The pedagogical work is especially aimed at young boys of ethnic minority background. The article draws on empirical research from a project exploring leisure and youth clubs’ impact on children and young people’s well-being and opportunities for development when growing up in socially deprived housing areas. The social pedagogical work seems very closely related to societal issues moving into the pedagogical everyday life of the leisure and youth clubs. These clubs, besides embracing the children and young people’s active leisure life in communities with other children and young people, are thus also instrumental in helping and supporting the children and young people to cope with an everyday life that features experiences of stigmatising and inequality-shaped living conditions. The social pedagogical work is analysed from the perspectives of the pedagogues and young people, taking their point of view to what seems particularly significant to the well-being and development of the young people based on Scandinavian-German critical psychology. This is integrated with Paulo Freire’s notion of hope and empowerment, which is the analytical framework within the context of social pedagogical work concerned with how the young men develop belief in themselves for them to complete their education, get a job in after-school hours and refrain from involvement in crime and gang-related communities.