FES Youth in East Europe (YEE) studies

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), with its offices in Zagreb, Belgrade, Skopje, Bucharest, Sofia, Sarajevo, Pristina and Tirana has initiated, implemented and financed FES youth studies in East Europe (YEE). Studies from nine countries (Albania (2011), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014), Bulgaria (2014), Croatia (2012), Kosovo (2012), Macedonia (2013), Romania (2014), Slovenia (2013) and and Serbia (2015) are a part of a cross-national research project carried out by FES and collaborating researchers. In 2016, several new studies have been carried out, including in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Cross-national youth surveys from these countries are recent and investigate key common issues, providing insight into the lives, attitudes and practices of youth from sixteen East-Central European, Western Asian and Central Asian countries. Additionally, the quantitative datasets provide numerous possibilities to researchers from these countries and around the world to carry out their own analyses on the topics of their choice. The basis for a methodological approach were youth studies carried out in Germany by prof. Hurrelmann and his colleagues in 2002, 2006, 2010. Prof. Hurrelmann also served as a chief methodological consultant to researchers and study authors in these studies.

YEE surveys have a common substantive core with the following themes and sections included in the questionnaires:

• LEISURE AND LIFESTYLE (section A);
• RELIGION AND SOCIAL AFFILIATIONS (section B);
• FAMILY AND FRIENDS (section C);
• CONCERNS AND ASPIRATIONS (section D);
• EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT (section E);
• DEMOCRACY AND POLITICS (section F);
• GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT (section G);
• NATIONAL AND WORLD POLITICS (section H);
• DEMOGRAPHIC MODULE.

These common core themes and questions/items with majority of identical items enable cross-national and in-depth analyses of youth in East Europe. This is especially important since there are no such research endeavours and representative youth data available for this region. Finally, some of the national youth surveys also included additional items, which are not covered in other countries (see Table 1, questionnaires and SPSS datasets). Table 2 includes information on comparative (i.e. cross-national) publications employing FES youth datasets.

Table 1: FES Youth in East Europe (YEE) studies: Datasets, questionnaires, and youth reports (click on a country for available data).

Table 2: Comparative analyses and other publications employing FES Youth in East Europe (YEE) datasets.