**4. Pedagogues' work in leisure and youth clubs located in socially deprived housing areas: preventing movements into precarious living conditions**

The research project's analyses of the pedagogical work in the leisure and youth clubs contribute overall to showing how societal and political understandings form a direct framework for the pedagogical work in the youth clubs. Managers and pedagogues refer to and justify their pedagogical work by focusing on inclusion in relation to the societal and political exclusion and separation policy characterizing the present social and housing policy, especially in relation to refugees and immigrants. This policy and the results that follow from it seem to constitute a fundamental context for the pedagogical staff who work in leisure and youth clubs with children and young people [24].

It is obvious that the pedagogy relates to the societal circumstances and to the consequences of living in a "ghetto" with the accompanying separation and exclusion that is experienced as a result. However, the pedagogical staff does not seem to spend much time challenging the state and municipal policies, which govern the housing area itself, for example, the housing policy criteria, which define a socially deprived housing area, which results in some housing areas being on the list of socially deprived housing areas or removed from the list.

"We are on the ghetto list. We'll have to see what that brings along. But there is no doubt that it will result in some changes in relation to the composition of residents. Intensive work must be done on how to get citizens out… (interview with manager of the leisure and youth club, Applegarden)."

"The area is not on the ghetto list because it does not meet the criteria for the size of the housing area. It is too small an area. But the area meets the criteria on all other parameters. Including crime, unemployment (75% of the residents are without connection to the labor market), and level of education—parameters that are indicated as massive problems" (interview with manager of the leisure and youth club, Bluegarden).

### *Processes of Precarious Living Conditions: Young Men of Ethnic Minority Background Growing… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110646*

Both research interviews, participation in work meetings, as well as fieldwork in the leisure and youth clubs in the three housing areas, contributed to identify the fact that both management and pedagogical staff are very aware that the pedagogical work implies special challenges and problems.

The special challenges and problems seem to appear uniformly across the housing areas and were particularly linked to the fact that the pedagogical staff pointed out that they worked in a "socially deprived housing area," in which many children and young people suffer from difficulties in growing up and in their everyday life.

Thus, both management and pedagogical staff point out what they believe to be characteristic of their work in the leisure and youth clubs, with direct reference to the geographical location of the housing areas. Emphasis is placed on how the various housing areas periodically "struggle with" various forms of crime, including vandalism, drug sales, and young people, who gather on corners and areas, where they "take up a lot of space" and create "insecurity" in relation to other residents in the area.

The pedagogical staff in the three different housing areas justify their pedagogy directly in the extension of considerations about helping, protecting, and developing the children's and young people's competencies as a fundamental part of their pedagogical work. They work to prevent crime, vandalism, and insecurity in the housing areas, and they work to ensure that young people are connected to the labor market and the education system.

There seems to be a special knowledge of how to enter into precarious living conditions for these groups of children and young people, as the very special thing, which is the subject of the pedagogical work.

Many of the efforts are about counteracting "the cultural and spiritual poverty," which is one of the consequences of growing up in these housing areas. The children must have some experience and knowledge. As one of the managers points out during an interview, it is important to work pedagogically to create opportunities for the children and young people for them not solely to stay in the housing area but also to relate to the surrounding society. "Culture and television news. That they know what is happening out there in reality" (interview with manager, leisure and youth club, Bluegarden).

"...If we want them to be integrated into society, they must also have a better understanding of society—and that is sometimes the way. We've also been to the theatre, we've been to concerts, we've been to the Academy of Music, where some of our young people were to perform" (interview with manager from leisure and youth club, Applegarden).

"We have seen that it has been necessary. Because otherwise, it was like trying to wipe up the water under a running tap, it doesn't help. We just kept going, so instead of turning off the tap, and then wiping up" (interview with manager from leisure and youth club, Applegarden).

"Of course, we work with the community that we have in the house, but we also work with the larger community called Denmark. You are a part, you are a citizen, you should not be an anti-citizen. In other words, we don't say that to them, but we work toward making them citizens" (interview with manager from leisure and youth club, Applegarden).

The pedagogy itself seems to work in two simultaneous tracks—or a double view. Partly a leisure and club pedagogy, which is traditional and focuses on leisure and club activities, as these appear in leisure and youth clubs in general across the country. Sports, music, socializing, computer games, trips out of the house, etc. form the basis of an invitation to the leisure and youth club community [24, 59].

At the same time, the pedagogical view of the importance of doing something special and helping the children and young people in their lives is constantly present in the pedagogical work. This can be special efforts with a focus on homework assistance, leisure jobs, and help to apply for education, but it can also be in the understanding that when the leisure and club efforts are physically located in these housing areas, then an extra effort is needed in relation to the children and young people. This opens up the possibility of preventing social exclusion processes and increasing the opportunities for the individual young person to be included in the surrounding society—outside the residential areas.

If the children and young people are estimated to have social, emotional, or learning difficulties, and at the same time have an ethnic minority background, it seems as if it "can hit twice as hard." Several of the employees point out in both the questionnaire survey and through focus group interviews that this can be described as "double problems"social difficulties and ethnic minority background— especially for some of the young boys in the different housing areas. These double problems make the young boys vulnerable and exposed in their everyday life both in relation to well-being and development, but also in relation to cooping in school, in the company of other young people, and make them vulnerable in relation to movements into crime and gangrelated groupings in the local housing areas.

On the other hand, a lot of time is spent on working to prevent precarious processes as a potential risk for children and young people, as adults, to live in precarious living conditions marked by lack of education, no connection to the labor market, and a life isolated in these housing areas, characterized by social exclusion and marginalization.

Both the pedagogical staff as well as management in the three housing areas point out that this; creating better opportunities for the children and young people for them to "cope" in life, is at the center. Although the traditional understanding of leisure pedagogy seems to constitute the external framework for leisure and youth clubs, the efforts inside the clubs are highly concentrated on helping to create better living conditions for the individual child and the individual young person.
