Engagement, Growth And General Education in Norwegian folk high schools (ENGAGE)

ENGAGE investigates the impact and meeting of Norwegian Folk High Schools (FHS) on youth engagement and participation in society. It is the largest study on this subject to date, exploring a largely overlooked aspect in education research. The projects’ background concerns youth disengagement from education and working life (NEET), but also the growing recognition of the social dimension of NEET status, including young people’s loss of trust in the institutions surrounding them, and their lack of political engagement and social participation. Norwegian FHS are an addition to the formal education system, and are arenas for developing social skills including communication, conflict resolution and cooperation. Students live in dorms at the school with staff present on the premises 24h a day. There are no grades and exams, as schools aim to create a different learning space and different learning motivation, in addition to conduct general education and develop life skills. ENGAGE is a 5-year project with a project period from 1.11.2024–31.10.2029. The project group consists of researchers from NORCE in collaboration with researchers from USN and NOVA. We have a close collaboration with the Norwegian Folk High School Council, and a reference group consisting of Swedish and Danish expertise as well as representatives from all 5 FHS organizations for the 83 FHS in Norway. The project consists of three work packages. WP1 is a qualitative longitudinal in-depth interview study with students. WP2 is a large-scale survey among all students at all FHS in Norway, and all former students in the last 3 years. WP3 looks at register data among all this group, in addition to applicants to FHS who did not start school. We will collect data to look at the development among the entire group (around 30,000 young people) over a period of 10 years, addressing the knowledge gap about the importance of FHS for the individual, working life and society, from different perspectives.

The primary objective of ENGAGE is to investigate the impact and meaning of Norwegian Folk High Schools (FHS) in the light of societal engagement and participation among Norwegian youth. The project objectives are pursued by a broad methodological approach organized into three work packages (WPs): Longitudinal interviews (WP1): How does FHS as a bounded community shape young adults’ understandings of their “place in the world”, enable participation, belonging and a sense of mattering; and what aspects of an FHS year address or enable perceived conversion factors for life goal realization and aspects of active citizenship? Large-scale survey (WP2): How do variables related to societal engagement, relational and psychological wellbeing, change over the schoolyear among young adults at Norwegian FHS; and how do they perceive the impact and meaning of the social and educational aspects of the FHS experience on their current and future participation in society? Registry-based analyses (WP3): How do educational and working life pathways, and democratic and civic participation, of young adults who have attended FHS evolve in the years following the schoolyear, and how does it differ from their peers? And how do variables from the survey study relate to future participation in society? ENGAGE is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in psychosocial sciences, educational sciences, health promotion, sociology, and psychology. The research team will use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to address established knowledge gaps in the scientific literature on the challenge of disengaged youth that is highly relevant to policy and practice fields in education, learning and competence development.