Ung men inte ungdomlig. Barn- och ungdomsdiskurser inom och i samband med den svenska scoutrörelsen

Abstract

Young but not Youthful. Child and Youth Discourses on the Swedish Scout and Guide Movement

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze child and youth discourses within and in relation to the Swedish scout and guide movement. Starting points are that ideas about children and childhood affect the everyday life of children (James & James 2008) and that researchers have not been so interested in the “ordinary” in youth culture (Schoug 1994). The method is inspired by discourse analysis. Newspaper articles about, and brochures from, the movement during 2007–2009 are being analyzed.

The result indicates that scouts can be described as well-behaved, decent or sinful. They can also be described as boring and geeky or young and youthful. The brochures demonstrate that the movement wants to profile itself as a youth organization. It has problem recruiting young people and tries to change its image by borrowing symbols from other youth cultures. Paradoxically this leads to a conclusion that the scout movement’s youth are not seen as youthful by their own organization. They cannot signal youthfulness by themselves. This reflects one aspect of a dominating youth discourse. You cannot be counted as youth if you are seen as well-behaved. To be young is to break norms.