Data: pupils and students as respondents

The primary data for this study comes from a survey (Hirsjärvi et al. 1997, 184) conducted in different schools and universities in the Barents Region in November and December of 1999.²⁰ In Finland data was collected in Lapland; in Sweden, in Norrbotten; in Russia, in the Republic of Karelia and the counties of Archangelsk and Murmansk; and in Norway, in Nordland and Troms. The target group of this study was defined as pupils and students in the Barents Region. For this reason the survey was carried out in four different levels of education: com-prehensive schools, vocational institutes, upper secondary schools and universi-ties.

The total amount of questionnaires in the start was 2100. For Finland, Norway and Sweden 500 questionnaires were sent to each country, with 600 questionnaires being sent to Russia due to its having a higher population than the other countries involved in the survey. Questionnaires were delivered to schools by local research partners. Respondents all had the possibility of answering questions in their own mother tongue. For various reasons, 452 questionnaires came back blank. For example, some students refused to fill in questionnaires, or there was a poor flow of information among teachers in some schools. All to-gether 21 questionnaires were rejected, because they were filled in improperly or because it could be assumed that information was given jokingly or in an inten-tionally absurd manner. There were also three respondents who were too old for the research purpose, i.e., over 30 years old.

Following table shows the amounts of the questionnaires in the beginning of the data collection and the total amount of acceptable questionnaires returned from each country.

Table 1: Amounts of accepted and rejected questionnaires

Questionnaires Completed Rejected Lost Total

Finland 373 11 116 500

Norway 284 7 209 500

Sweden 383 3 114 500

Russia 587 0 13 600

Total 1 627 21 452 2 100

Age of the respondents varied between 14 and 30 years old. The majority of the respondents, 78 %, were 15-20-year-olds in the year 2000, when the data was preliminary analysed. This being the dominant age group in the survey, the most common educational background among respondents, 41 %, was to still be studying in comprehensive school. We must then bear in mind that the opinions

20 Most parts of this chapter, depicting the survey data, have been published earlier in the au-thor’s internet publication (Soininen 2002).

41 of pupils in comprehensive schools are the primary determinant in the survey results. Respondents in vocational training were the smallest group in the survey.

The respondents were 46 % male; 54 % female. Again, for obvious reasons, the most common marital status among respondents was single: 84 % defined themselves as such, with another 11 % choosing the options of “engaged” or

“cohabiting.” Only 1 % of the respondents were married. The remaining 4 % did not want to state their marital status. Very few respondents of this age group classified themselves as divorced or widowed. Just 2 % of all informants had children of their own. 76 % of the respondents still lived with their parents at the point of research. Russian respondents showed a tendency to keep living with their parents for longer than those from other countries.

Looking at the data set as whole, respondents parents’ educational back-grounds were in general much as would be expected. All different levels of edu-cational are quite equally represented among both the fathers and mothers of respondents. Respondents’ mothers, however, tended to be a slightly more edu-cated than their fathers. About 24 % of respondents’ mothers had university de-grees, whereas for fathers the figure was about 20 %. Fundamental differences can be seen when comparing parents’ educational background in different coun-tries. First of all, both the mothers and fathers of Russian respondents had uni-versity degrees more often than respondents’ parents in other countries. 37 % of Russian respondents’ mothers had university degrees, compared with 24 % for the survey as a whole. Likewise among the fathers, of Russian respondents’ 32

% had graduated from a university, compared with 20 % for the survey as a whole. Secondly, the mothers and fathers of Finnish and Norwegian respondents have very similar educational backgrounds to each other. Respondents’ mothers and fathers in Norway and Finland were characterised by the fact that they had very few university degrees; vocational training being the dominant form of edu-cation among them. There were also a rather high percentage of Finnish and Norwegian mothers whose education has gone no further than elemen-tary/comprehensive school. In Finland this percentage was 21; in Norway, 20.

These are rather high numbers when compared to overall figures for mothers in the data; all together about 13 % of respondents’ mothers have only elementary or comprehensive school diplomas.

The educational background of respondents’ parents’ raises expectations of an even higher number of highly educated young people in the Barents Region, since young people today are educating themselves more than in previous gen-erations. Average educational attainment is continually increasing and today’s young people tend to be considerably more educated than their parents (Järvinen 2001, 60-62). It can also be assumed that since respondents and their parents belong to different generations, they have different local opportunity structures, different demands for their occupations and working life and different collective experiences of education its necessity. In addition to this, different generations have their own possibilities, ideas and representations in relation to their living environments and local resources. The significant difference between the gen-eration of our respondents and that of their parents is the socio-spatial history and social change which has increased mobility between regions (Riikonen 1995, 92- 93).

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It can also be anticipated that because of a rather high educational back-ground, migration alacrity among respondents will be rather high, because “it has generally been found that those who spend a longer time in education are more migratory than those who spend fewer years in school” (White & Woods 1980, 15). It has also been reported that children of lower social status are more likely to remain in their home region and those whose families belong to a higher so-cial class have more opportunities to choose their future place of residence. For this reason, the rather high educational background of respondents’ parents may also indicate that these respondents are able to choose their future place of residence, and possibly their future educational institutions, amongst cities which are located far from their childhood place of residence (Kytö 1998, 94).

Respondents’ living environments reflect the heterogeneity of the research area and venues: 54 % live in urban environments;²¹ 20 %, in municipal centres;

and 26 %, in the villages or scattered settlement areas. Living environments also vary among respondents from different countries: in Finland the vast majority of our respondents (74 %) live in municipal centres and in scattered settlement ar-eas, with only 26 % in what can be called urban areas; whereas in Russia the vast majority of our respondents live in urban environments (75 %) and villages (17

%) with only a small minority of living in municipality centres or scattered set-tlement areas. Norwegian and Swedish respondents were rather equally divided between rural and urban settings. In Norway 55 % of respondents live in urban milieu and 45 % in municipalities or remote area. In Sweden 44 % of respon-dents come from cities and 56 % from municipality centres, remote areas or vil-lages. The vast majority of the respondents (88 %) were born in the Barents Re-gion. The rest have moved to the area with their parents or, for example, in order to study in a university located in the region.

The influence of respondents’ living environments on the answers and the data is two-fold. First, nearly half of the respondents live in smaller places: mu-nicipal centres, villages or in scattered settlement areas. This would lead us to expect particularly strong migration alacrity. Secondly, the data reflects a sig-nificant amount of regional heterogeneity; i.e., variations in living environments.

The data encompasses both centres and peripheries within the research area, which in turn implies various reasons and motives for young people’s migration alacrity.

The questionnaire has provided both quantitative and qualitative data. The qualitative data was collected using open-ended questions. Respondents had the opportunity to answer in their own words, in their own language. Open-ended questions generated various styles of answers. It is worth of mentioning that re-spondents from different countries had clearly different styles of answering and dealing with the issues asked about. Russian respondents tended to write the most, giving extensive responses to more questions and longer answers than those from other countries. They also speculated more about possible alternatives

21 This portion can be regarded quite sufficient, since the settlement pattern in the Barents Region is to a great extent urban in nature (Wiberg 1994, 35). However, the urban residence is more common in northwest Russia than in other areas of the Barents Region. In northwest Russia peo-ple live mostly in large or middle-sized towns, whereas the general pattern in other parts of the Barents Region is that the population lives in different types of settlements spread over an exten-sive area.

43 than other respondents. Characteristically in their answers, the place where they lived at the moment of research was compared to the other cities in their home country. Often these comparisons were with bigger places than their current home town. Norwegian respondents answered in a rather cursory style, discuss-ing only one aspect of the issue, if anythdiscuss-ing. They emphasised the meandiscuss-ing of nature and the personal freedom that nature offers in the answers to many ques-tions. In general, in the Norwegian context nature is a central cultural symbol and factor in the construction of national identity (Wiborg 2001a). Finnish re-spondents were quite diplomatic and answered only what they were asked, using short answers. These respondents were quite unanimous in their opinions. Swed-ish respondents had expressed themselves briefly and strongly. They used strong verbs, such as hate, more often than respondents from other countries.

In reading this research one should keep in mind, that the survey data is a sample (see, e.g., Suutari 2002, 54; Raunio 1999, 194) of the opinions of young people living in the Barents region. The opinions and attitudes reflected in this research are only those of the research population – of young people living in the given places in the research area. This data is strongly situational, and it does not enable us to make valid generalisations, but it does give us quite a good stand-point from which to view the main trends in these young people’s attitudes.

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