Dear conference guests,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you all to the conference Youth – Voice of the Future. This conference is the final event organized within the program of the Icelandic presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers 2009...

Dear conference guests,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you all to the conference Youth – Voice of the Future. This conference is the final event organized within the program of the Icelandic presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers 2009.

Active participation

One symbol of freedom in our society is the active participation of our citizens and their right to form and express their views.  In these difficult times of the financial crisis, this freedom has never been as important.  This means that young people must be empowered to participate in their society and be enabled to take more control and responsibility for their own lives.  This is emphasized in the UN convention on the rights of children and gives us a  foundation we can build on. To be aware of this right is the first step, then we can move on towards action and implementation.  

Participation by all is a key element in the implementation of the rights of the child and must be especially emphasized when we talk about the diversity of young people who are affected for example by disabilities, immigration or social exclusion.  Opportunities for active participation of children in an empowered manner are to be found everywhere and must be supported at every chance.
We now have a challenge on our hands that is apparent among 16 – 19 year olds.  Demographic changes show us that the western world is aging, meaning that voting power is shifting towards issues that matter for the older society.  Young people typically show less interest in traditional politics and are less participative at both the local and national levels, when we look for example at voter turnout and other indicators like participation in meetings, membership in organized movements and other traditional social venues.  While our society has been built upon rigid bureaucracy and hierarchical structures, we are now looking at networks flourishing through the internet where new ways of participation are created.
So to simplify the challenge at present; how can we create a society that meets the needs of young people on their own terms?  Are young people encouraged to be a part of our society or are they excluded? Are young people offered the chance to present their views without being censored? Do we enable young people to tell us the future they see with their own voice?

Youth research, youth act and advisory committee for youth studies

Over the next two days we are going to discuss youth research, but the meaning of this concept is not always clear. Is "youth research" simply any research that includes young people in some fashion or should we limit the concept to research that explicitly takes the history, conditions and culture of young people as its primary frame of reference? What should be the role of policy-making relative to the empowerment of young people and giving youth an autonomous voice in policy discussion?
In 2007 the Icelandic parliament issued legislation on youth. The aim of this legislation is to support the participation of children and young people in youth activities. In accordance with this legislation I have established an Advisory Committee of Youth Research in order to further respond to these and other current issues. The aims of the board are:

• to clarify what we mean by “youth research”,
• to strengthen the community of Icelandic youth researchers at different academic institutions,
• to increase the diversity of Icelandic youth research in terms of methodologies and research questions and to build bridges between youth, youth policy and youth research,
• and to find ways of increasing the transparency and equity of using limited state resources to support vibrant and diverse youth research throughout Icelandic society.

The Youth Council (æskulýðsráð) has also taken an initiative to strengthen the Icelandic youth research community, with the first Icelandic Youth Research Conference scheduled to take place in Reykjavík next Friday. This conference is arranged by the Youth Council and the universities and includes both Nordic and Icelandic researchers in the field of youth research.

Youth research in Iceland

Iceland has a strong tradition in youth research. The first large-scale study of the opinions and behaviors of Icelandic children was conducted in 1968 when Icelandic television started and had only reached some parts of the country. Professor Broddason at the University of Iceland has followed the development of media use among Icelandic children for over forty years and has contributed greatly to the international literature on media use.
We have also seen very strong longitudinal studies of adolescent risk behaviors such as the work of professor Sigrun Adalbjarnardottir who has followed a cohort of Icelanders from childhood in 1995 to adulthood fifteen years later. This has greatly enhanced our understanding of the causal role of attitudes and peer influences on well-being and risk behaviors.
Iceland has furthermore taken part in the two major international studies of well-being among children and adolescents, projects that reached over 40 countries including Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In 1990 Iceland joined the WHO-project Health Behavior in School-aged children, a project that monitors a wide range of issues related to the health and well-being of youths by conducting surveys at 4-year intervals. Iceland was also a founding member of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs and has played a key role in the administration of this important project sponsored by the European Union and the Council of Europe.
Building on this proud tradition of youth research is one of our major research projects this year. This project involves comparative research of young people in the Nordic countries, specifically students aged 16 to 19 years old. This project will be introduced and discussed here at this conference. This is the first time a research project like this has been carried out in all of the Nordic countries at the same time, although of course there has been research carried out in this area in the countries individually. This kind of research on young people has been conducted  systematically in Iceland since 1992, so a large database is now available in this area. The results have been used in policy making both at the municipal level and the state level.

Thanks

It is a great pleasure for us to be a part of this Nordic co-operation and it is our hope that this is only the beginning of further co-operation in Nordic research on youth issues in general.
During this conference we will have discussions on how we can use research like this as a tool in policy-making on youth issues. Participants in the conference have different backgrounds and we hope that this can be the start of fruitful discussions on these matters. The young people that are with us here today have prepared themselves for these discussions, and we look forward to hearing their views on the issues.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank the Nordic research team for their contribution to this project with special thanks to the  researchers at the Icelandic Centre for Social Research and Analysis (R&G). I also want to thank all the lecturers and organizers for all their work leading up to this conference. I know that interesting lectures will be presented, and I trust that a constructive and fruitful dialogue will develop during the conference. I hope that our foreign guests have a pleasant time here in Iceland and I wish all of you the best in your work here at the conference and in your future work on the important issues concerning  youth in the Nordic countries.