National youth program
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Croatia 2009 National Youth Program
INTRODUCTION
Youth in contemporary Croatian society Social and political circumstances, in which the young generation of today in Croatia is developing, are not significantly different from the ones at the beginning of this decade, when the basic guidelines of the national youth policy were conceived and adopted for the first time. Croatia is still a country facing a range of difficulties arising from the transition of political and economic system, which bring various and numerous risks, especially for young population. Simultaneously, Croatia is a transitional country in which the process of democratic consolidation and intensive preparations for the accession to European Union are taking place, which generally increases life opportunities and possibilities for young persons. Concerning youth, one should take into account that they are, as a separate social group, socially heterogeneous in accordance with the stratification of society of which they are an integral part. On the other hand, young persons share some common characteristics, among which is the basic belonging to a certain age group. This is the population from 15 to 30 years of age, which means that within the group of young people exist several age cohorts, which differ by the degree of maturity, and even formal rights recognized by the society. Here it is important to know that the stated age designation is not generally accepted, especially in official statistics, in which the population up to 25 years of age is most commonly perceived as the group of young people. However, findings of numerous researches in the world and in Croatia have shown that it is much more fruitful to perceive as young people the population up to 30 (and in some cases even up to 35) years of age, especially when various forms of social intervention aimed at improving the overall social position of young people are being considered. Young people as a social group share actual and ascribed social characteristics that determine their social role, the consequence of which is the insufficient integration of youth into the overall social life and their more unfavourable social status in comparison with the older population. Young people are in a specific transitional period in which the disproportion of psychophysical and social maturity is characteristic: they are no longer protected as children, and they still do not have all the possibilities and opportunities available to adults. Such situation makes them one of the most vulnerable segments of the population, which requires a special relation of the society towards their interests, problems, needs and life perspectives. Research insights in the world and in Croatia until today have shown that the transition of young people into the so-called world of adults is becoming more complex and longer- lasting. Institutionalized education lasts longer, contemporary technological changes ask for more qualified and flexible workforce, and economic developments cyclically cause an increase in unemployment, which mainly affects youth. The abovementioned processes result also in a slower entrance into the so-called world of work, i.e. slower socioeconomic independence, which forces young people to stay in dependent position. Difficult inclusion 120 into the professional work contributes to the prolongation of establishing of their own families, and therefore in Croatia, as in the majority of European countries, young people enter their first marriage at later and later age, and consequently, they get children later. Although all rights are granted to them upon reaching the age of majority, at the same time political (self)passivization and suppression of young people from decision-making positions take place, so their interests in the political arena are more or less successfully mediated by adults. Later and later overtaking of permanent social roles and exclusion or insufficient inclusion of youth in economic, political and social processes have as their consequence the insufficient social integration of the young generation. This means that young people’s potentials, as the most vital, most flexible and potentially most innovative and most creative segment of contemporary society, remain insufficiently used. Here one has to bear in mind that during the last half century, marked with the processes of modernization, in Croatia, the portion of young people aged 15 to 30 decreased from 27.7% (in 1953) to 20.6% (in 2001). Similar demographic changes also took place in the majority of European countries, and the trend of aging of population makes young people an additionally more precious social resource. Young people react to social marginalization in various ways – from unproblematic and occasionally resigned adaptation to given society, over distancing from the society ‘‘ruled’’ by the older generation, and a kind of shutting themselves in separate subcultural patterns of living, to open rebellion or development of delinquent behaviour patterns. Previously mentioned difficulties of growing up and social integration young people face in contemporary societies are even more expressed in so-called transitional countries. Young people there pass through a double transition: on one hand, this is a universal experience of maturing and transition from childhood and adolescence into the world of responsibility of adults, and on the other hand, there are changes of epochal nature initiated by the transition from one to another social system. Latter circumstances require reconsidering socialization mechanisms and social integration familiar to the generations of parents and grandparents of today’s youth in Croatia, as well as adopting some models more appropriate for the new age and European environment. The young generation of today in transitional societies cannot and does not want to inherit the social legacy of their parents. In other words, institutions, processes and social norms, that mitigated the transition into the world of adults to previous generations, are weakened, abandoned or in the process of fundamental transformation today. Therefore, young people in transitional societies are exposed to risks that were unknown to their parents, as well as poorly known to their peers in developed European societies. However, what is common to youth in developed and transitional European societies is that the societies, whose integral part their represent, treat them twofold: as a social resource and as a social problem (i.e., a group with problems). Based on such approach, national policies for youth are conceived as an organized set of social instruments and mechanisms aimed at improving the overall social status of young people and ensuring their optimal social integration. Such efforts are based on simultaneous appreciation of interests and needs of young people, as well as of each individual society as a whole. Appropriate foundation and implementation of the national policy for youth in contemporary society is especially important because of the known tendency of greater 121 individualization of young generation’s life orientations. This individualization is manifested by a dominant relying of young people on family resources in realization of life plans and ambitions, with distancing from society, i.e. its representatives. This tendency in transitional societies, where the process of outstanding social stratification takes place, whereby starting points of youth become significantly unequal, is especially unwelcome and brings to the forefront the support of society in realizing life plans of youth. By dominant orientation to personal and family resources, youth, as a distinguished social group that shares similar interests, problems and needs, is fragmented and atomized. Lack of relevant generational connection additionally weakens already poor social power of youth, so in the end they become disintegrated in two ways: within their own generation and within wider social community. In conceiving any national policy it is certainly important to respect the fact that young people are not a homogenous social group. Croatian youth mutually significantly differs by social background, conditions of family and wider socialization, educational accomplishments, socioprofessional status, lifestyles, life aspirations, political views, behaviour patterns, etc. The existing differentiations therefore require a national policy that will encompass the interests and needs of different (sub)groups of young people and that will ensure equally good life prospects for everyone. Download 0.9 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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