Lokaali ja globaali nuorisopolitiikka, 5 op

This course is organized by YUNET – Finnish University Network for Youth Studies.

We will take 30 students (5 from each member university) to the course.

Enrollment time: 4.12.2023 – 12.1.2024.

The 2010s and early 2020s have witnessed turbulent changes in Arab Mediterranean countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The notion of youth has garnered high levels of interest, aspirations, and concerns with regard to young people’s roles in social change. In this context, their transitions and particularly transitions to work, are especially framed as a challenge, but also as an opportunity.

This course explores the issue of youth employment and school-to-work transitions in the Middle East and North Africa. The students familiarize themselves with the main social, political, economic, and cultural trends affecting the young people’s transitions from education to employment in the region today.

In the course lectures, esteemed international scholars present their recent and ongoing research on different aspects of the course topic. Scholars are: Ragui Assaad, Samuli Schielke, Mustapha Raji, Fatma Raach, Linda Herrera, Marko Juntunen, and Yahia Benyamina.

The course covers approaches from large-scale structural issues and processes to the dynamics of precarious work and everyday life in small settings. These issues are approached by discussing different perspectives from youth research, labor market research, educational sciences, anthropology, and sociology. The cases presented in the course also provide the particularities in the region since each of the 22 MENA countries has its own policies and labor market realities.