MOTIprojektin järjesti AME 2025 -konferenssissa symposiumin ”Educating youth purpose with a beyond-the-self orientation”, jossa puhujina toimivat tieteellisen ohjausryhmän jäsenet. Symposiumimme keräsi salin täyteen kiinnostuneita osallistujia ja jälkeen kuulimme sen olleen osana konferenssin parasta antia!
Yllä olevassa kuvassa puhujat onnistuneen symposiumin jälkeen (vas.) Kendall Cotton Bronk, Doret de Ruyter, Elina Kuusisto, Päivi Honkatukia ja Sanna Vehviläinen.
Lisäksi MOTIn tieteellisen ohjausryhmä kokoontui MOTI-tiimin kanssa keskustelemaan projektin etenemisestä (kuva alla).
Tässä symposiumin esitysten tiivistelmät englanniksi:
AME 2025 SYMPOSIUM – Educating youth purpose with a beyond-the-self orientation
Elina Kuusisto (Organizer and Chair), Tampere Institute for Advanced Study, Tampere University, Finland
Global crises, uncertainties about the future, and diverse career paths make adolescence and young adulthood a challenging stage of life. We build on William Damon’s theory of life purpose, which understands beyond-the-self purposes as a crucial aspect of human well-being and positive youth development. This symposium discusses educating youth purpose with a beyond-the-self orientation from the perspectives of purpose studies, moral education, career counseling, and youth studies. This interdisciplinary symposium provides theoretical, educational, and societal implications to support other-oriented purposes among adolescents and young adults in today’s societies.
1 Moral Youth Purpose: What It Is & Why It Matters for Youth
Kendall Cotton Bronk, Claremont Graduate University, USA
Purpose formation, or the process of determining how one wants to contribute to the broader world, is the natural partner to identity development, or the process of figuring out who one is. Both processes get underway in earnest in early adolescence. This talk will discuss what a purpose in life is, emphasizing the beyond-the-self dimension of the construct, and it will address recent research that highlights the importance of moral purpose to the social good and to the healthy development of early adolescents.
2 A defence of education for a morally qualified purpose in life
Doret de Ruyter, University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, the Netherlands
This presentation aims to refute three points of critique against the idea that assisting youth to find a morally qualified purpose in life is a responsibility of teachers. First, although finding a purpose in life is a profound psychological need of adolescents, assisting them is not an educational responsibility. Second, even if purpose is best conceptualised as having a beyond-the-self dimension, this dimension does not have to be moral (it could also be aesthetic or economic only). Third, it could be argued that teachers should not be given this responsibility, for this would be a form of unjustified moral influence.
3 Rethinking work and future when designing life according to purpose. A career guidance approach
Sanna Vehviläinen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
My presentation examines young Finnish eco activists’ interpretations of work, career and the future. The data comes from the Finnish sub-dataset of an international project “Representation, lifestyles and student perception of the future in the context of the ecological change” which is carried out in the UNITWIN network under UNESCO, and led by Professor Cohen-Scali (CNAM, Paris). My analysis examines the ways in which organizing their life around a core purpose (saving the planet) has called for a reinterpretation of categories such as work, future, and meaningful life. In the analysis, I will use subject-scientific approach.
4 Discussant: Purpose from the perspective of youth studies
Päivi Honkatukia, Tampere University, Finland
In my talk I will ponder whether and how the “purpose” could be discussed from the point of view of sustainable well-being. This conceptualization analyses well-being in a holistic way covering both material dimensions such as substance of living or security, and subjective dimensions such as sense of belonging, being respected and being able to do meaningful things in life – participate in society as its respected members. Well-being is intrinsically a relation phenomenon involving social and ecological relations alike. Analysing purpose from this kind of perspective necessitates taking young people’s voices and views on society surrounding them seriously and listening carefully to their views – especially when they present critique towards the existing organization of social life.