Tekijät

• Advisory Council for Youth Affairs (Nuora)
• Finnish Youth Research Society. Finnish Youth Research Network

Asiasanat

adolescents, attitudes, cultural activities, illegal drugs, leisure time, satisfaction, time budgets, values

Sisällön kuvaus

The main themes of the Finnish Youth Survey Autumn 1999 were cultural services and the Internet. The young people responding to the survey were presented with questions on for example their attitudes towards various cultural services and drug abuse. In addition, a target population of Finnish adults aged between 30 and 64 were asked about their use of cultural services.

First, the respondents were presented with questions on cultural services. They were asked how much various things (e.g. youth work, libraries, or theatrical activities) should be invested in, if there were more latitude in the Finnish economy. Views on Finnish cultural life, graffiti, and the price and quality of cultural services were queried. The respondents also indicated how much they thought various services should cost.

The significance of cultural services in the respondents' lives was surveyed. Questions charted the importance of art museums, rock concerts, and American movies on the TV in view of spending leisure time. The respondents were also queried about how different cultural services helped them to cope at their work or studies. In addition, they were asked how often they had attended different cultural events or institutions, for example opera or sports events, in the past year.

The rest of the questions were only targeted at young people, and they were related to the use and availability of drugs. The young people were presented with a set of attitudinal statements for example on the punishability of drug use and access to drugs. They gave their views on how likely they considered that young people would try drugs if offered them. They were also asked to what extent different reasons affected the negative attitude towards drugs shown by young people who do not use drugs.

Background variables included the respondent's age, gender, region of residence, education, and economic activity.