“Our Task is to Engage as Many Young People as Possible Just to Occupy their Time”: Youth Policy Subjects’ Models of Developing Niches of Agency in the Russian North

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2025.1.2532

Keywords:

youth, youth well-being, ontological security, niche of agency, youth policy, subjects of youth policy, North-West of Russia

Abstract

The article focuses on models for the development of the niches of agency used by subjects of youth policy to address issues of youth well-being in the regions of North-West Russia. Considering the debate about youth well-being in general and specifically in the Arctic regions, the authors use the niche of agency approach, according to which power structures of the Northern regions can widen their share of agency when the view of the subject from the inside diverges from the center’s concept of regional development. The empirical material is presented by 65 interviews with experts from six cities of the Northwestern Federal District (Kaliningrad, Pskov, Arkhangelsk, Petrozavodsk, Murmansk, Syktyvkar): representatives of the power structures of regional governments, education system, tourism, business, regional employers, and youth movements. The authors identify 3 models for developing niches of agency deployed by subjects of youth policy to maintain and develop youth well-being. The specificity of the activist, staff, and parent model is determined by the location of the judgments of youth policy agents along the tension vectors reflecting the agents’ ideas about youth and the process of implementing youth policy. 

Acknowledgments. The research «The choice of life strategies by talented young people and their role in enhancing the competitiveness of Russian regions as a response to global challenges of the 'brain drain'» was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, № 21-18-00122.

We thank the project leader Elena Omelchenko, as well as colleagues who participated in collecting field data: Dmitry Omelchenko, Svyatoslav Polyakov, Evgeniya Kuziner, Daria Petrunina. We also thank all the guides and informants who took part in the study."

Author Biographies

Ms, HSE University

  • HSE University, St. Petersburg, Russia
    • Cand. Sci. (Soc.), Research Fellow at the Center for Youth Research

Anastasiia S. Andreeva, HSE University

  • HSE University, St. Petersburg, Russia
    • PhD student
    • Trainee Researcher at the Center for Youth Research

Natalia S. Soloveva, HSE University

  • HSE University, St. Petersburg, Russia
    • PhD student
    • Junior Researcher at the Center for Youth Research

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Published

2025-03-10

How to Cite

Lisovskaya, I. V., Andreeva, A. S., & Soloveva, N. S. (2025). “Our Task is to Engage as Many Young People as Possible Just to Occupy their Time”: Youth Policy Subjects’ Models of Developing Niches of Agency in the Russian North. Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes, (1), 83–106. https://doi.org/10.14515/monitoring.2025.1.2532

Issue

Section

SOCIOLOGY OF YOUTH