Making Youth Innovation Visible: An Actor-network Theory Study of the Relationship between Education Environments and Youth Innovation and Youth Innovativeness in Skåne

Abstract: In the European Union, innovation policies have called for boosting the innovative capacity of youth through education. Despite all efforts made towards this end, however, European economies still find youth innovation to be scarce. This scarcity exists in the region of Skåne too, and is evident in the increasing youth unemployment rates. The objective of this thesis is to shed a new light on this situation through exploring the relationship between the education environment and youth innovation and youth innovativeness in Skåne. I have employed participant observation as the ethnographic strategy to study two case-studies from Skåne: Redesign and Clothing Library ‘Morpheus’ and an educational plumbing practice session. I have used a variety of methods, including interviewing, video recording, notes taking, photography, following of material objects, and following of Facebook activity. I have employed actor-network theory as the theoretical and analytical tool for this thesis. The analysis of the plumbing practice session brings out the problem of visibility: the ways this education environment functions as a network, make it difficult for outsiders to identify the youth innovativeness which exists there. The analysis of Morpheus points out that youth innovation is a network effect which happens through spreading a youth’s idea or project outside of the education system by becoming linked to various material and human actors. This thesis recommends that, in order to boost youth innovation and innovativeness, policy makers should inspire education environments to make their innovative youth, their innovative ideas and projects, visible to society through linking them with external actors, both human and nonhuman, that can make their project grow, gain strength, and attain independence.