Tutkimuskohteena Suomen evankelisluterilaisen kirkon nuorisotyön itseymmärrys
Keywords:
Church youth work, education, self-understand, social pedagogyAbstract
Youth work within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland has its roots reaching back over hundred years, to the genesis of Finnish civil society. Today, the church educational activities and youth work have consolidated their position and claimed their place as important partners in many respects. In the early stages of the work, as well as the subsequent phases of change, the greatest concern has been thinning of Christian values and family upbringing while the historical structural changes (urbanization and industrialization) created the need for social (diaconal) youth work. The foundation of the work has been and still is the church’s spiritual work. In different eras Christian education, spiritual work and social youth work have in practice received different interpretations. This has led to different understandings and emphases of the motives and starting points of the work. I am beginning to write my doctoral thesis about the progression of thought and self-understanding of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland youth work in the 20th century. The goal of my research is to define how youth work has been interpreted and how it has been justified during the 20th century. Importance of this topic is based on the assumption that attention to the youth works self-understanding helps to identify and organize the work in the current social change. In addition, the topic can be considered important, particularly because of the critical reviewing and evaluation of the relevance of church’s operations by the church and congregations own operatives as well as third parties. In my study, I try to understand how the church youth work has been perceived in different times and my aim is to do it through a social-pedagogical formation of knowledge and reference framework.
