In this project funded by the Academy of Finland (2019–2023), we seek to identify and test ways in which adolescents can find and cultivate significance in their lives, understood as perspectives and actions that connect the adolescents’ personal interests with activities and projects for a just and equitable world. The adolescents will take the position of agents actually redesigning their activities by means of projects. This will be accomplished with the help of Change Laboratory interventions conducted in two schools. The 14-year old middle-school students will be the central agents of change.
Phelan & al. (1998) identified three worlds of adolescents: family, peers, and the school. What matters is how the youngsters manage transitions between the three worlds. This project draws on cultural-historical activity theory and significantly expands Phelan’s model. We recognize two additional spheres of activity in the lives of young people, namely social media and civic activity. The search for significance is an expansive process of learning. It requires the overcoming of encapsulation of the worlds by cultivating projects selected and designed by the adolescents.
The project seeks to answer the following research questions:
The first Change Laboratory is conducted in the Pitäjänmäki school in Helsinki in the fall of 2020. The participants are 8th grade students. The project will trace and identify different trajectories of search for significance among the participants. The analysis will focus on the participants’ actions and instruments of boundary-crossing across their different spheres of activity. The project will generate a new, interventionist model for promoting sustained search for significance among adolescents.
Leader of the project "In search for significance" is professor Yrjö Engeström.
Engeström, Y., Rantavuori, P., Ruutu, P., & Tapola-Haapala, M. (2022). The hybridisation of adolescents’ worlds as a source of developmental tensions: A study of discursive manifestations of contradictions. Educational Review.
From future orientation to future-making: A difficult move in the formation of adolescents’ transformative agency.
Nuorten omaa toimijuutta koskevat itsekategorisoinnit: Tutkimustuloksia ja metodologisia pohdintoja.
Nothing happens until something moves – embodied interaction of adolescents in the Change Laboratory intervention.
Merkityksellinen elämä – näkökulmia sosiaalityön koulutukseen
Why do I come to school? – Adolescents’ projects in a Change Laboratory as sources for improved school attendance.
What can school give? Toward an opening a black box of school subjects (poster presentation).
Muutoslaboratoriotyöskentelyä nuorten kanssa – kanssatutkimuksellisia reflektioita.
In search for significance: Fostering movement across the five worlds of adolescents.
From mental future orientation to material future-making: A Change Laboratory for adolescents’ transformative agency.
Merkitystä etsimässä: 8.-luokkalaiset nuoret muutoksen tekijöinä.
Between formal and informal in school – Developing a fantasy role-playing game in a Change Laboratory.
Finding life beyond the classroom walls: De-encapsulation in a Change Laboratory supporting adolescents’ search for significance.
Yhdessä merkitystä etsimässä – nuorten Muutoslaboratorio koulussa.
Nuorten näkökulmia vertaissuhteiden haasteisiin.
Expanding school learning through students' own initiatives.
Developing a role-playing game in a Change Laboratory: Three lenses on the “Brotherhood of Steel” project.
What can school give? Towards opening the black box of school engagement.
The “Brotherhood of Steel” project – Adolescents developing a role-playing game in a Change Laboratory intervention in school.