"A ""room"" of their own - training cultural workers for facilitating rural youth culture"

<< Background >>In recent years, there has been a focus on that not all young people follow the flow towards the larger cities, and that there is a need to focus on the young people for whom rural life is an option. For those who choose to stay and for those who return after having ended their study, it may be a culture shock, as the present rural culture is based on other forms of relationships and traditions than those conveyed by the media and displaced friends. Studies from Netherlands andDenmark show that the youth have difficulties finding their own room for developing and participating in cultural life. ArlieHochschild has shown how the feeling of one's values being accepted, included, and taken seriously is important for thecohesion of society. These tendencies point to the need to systematically support the creation of a youth culture that can find its place in the already established more traditionally based rural culture. The Salto Youth Strategy produces a similar conclusion of the importance for the youth to have their own space, for enhancing their participation in democratic processes. Ex-ante need analysis in the three participating countries shows that cultural workers lack knowledge on what characterizes young people culture.<< Objectives >>The project included the following activities. Three Transnational project meetings, a need analysis, a pilot testing of a training course for cultural workers, and a policy recommendation proces, three student exchange visits and two cross country online seminars for policy makers, young people and cultural workers.<< Implementation >>R YOUCULT was methodologically based on citizen-based research and co-creation between young people, culturalworkers, regional partners, and university teachers. The project included the following activities. Three Transnational project meetings, a need analysis, a pilot testing of a training course for cultural workers, and a policy recommendation proces, three student exchange visits and two cross country online seminars for policy makers, young people and cultural workers.<< Results >>The project has two concrete outputs: A Handbook for a training course for cultural workers in rural settings and a policy recommendation report for more inclusion of young people in rural areas. Other results are the network created between cultural workers across countries, the learning that the students obtained, the insights in different understandings of culture and most important a common analytic platform for understanding rural youth across countries.