Friends and peers are remarkably important to young people, and problems in peer relations are often causes of adolescents' emotional stress. The purpose of this study was to investigate adolescents' views about what it means to be excluded in peer group and how this kind of experience is linked to their emotional wellbeing. The study exploited qualitative methodology and the findings were based on adolescents' personal accounts of identifying themselves as "outsiders". The data were produced in dialogical interviews with 126 Finnish adolescents. As a result, four different types of being an outsider were identified. These were found to be closely attached to emotional stress and feeling of loneliness experienced by adolescents. The results imply that adolescents' loneliness should not be looked at as a single category but it should rather be put into the context of young person's own meaning-making, preferences of belonging, and personal biography. The study compliments earlier studies with qualitative insight and experiential accounts about adolescent's self-perceived experiences of peer exclusion. These could be valuable in practices of psychology, psychiatry, social work and youth work, in seeking to understand adolescents' lived worlds and their ways of interpreting peer interaction.

The public welfare services provided to children and young people in Finland have proved insufficient and costly. Some concerns have also been voiced about the ways in which measures intended as supportive end up labelling their recipients as ‘problem youth’. In response, alternatives to the dominant ‘early intervention’ paradigm have been developed, with emphasis on preventive support for children and youth in general. In line with these policies, this article introduces the idea of ‘positive recognition’, developed in our recent study. Drawing from recognition theories, and in collaboration with professionals working with children and youth, we have developed a theoretically informed practical approach to fostering children and young people’s wellbeing at large, as part of everyday professional practices in institutional and non-institutional settings, and explored its potential in the prevention of social problems and marginalisation among children and youth. The paper provides a brief overview of the theoretical background of positive recognition in the context of social pedagogy, introduces how the approach can be implemented in professional practices with children and young people, and discusses the potentials of these alternative welfare practices to social pedagogy in Finland and beyond.

The late modern change in young people's community life has meant moving from traditional, place-based communities towards more fluid and situational contexts of belonging. These youth-initiated attachments often build on amiable relationships that fall under the umbrella of "friendship". This paper analyses Finnish early youths' friendship narratives that were produced by sequential participatory methods. It introduces the dimensional and flexible spaces created in and through the participants' friendships. These indicate relational spheres of actual and imagined activities where young people engage with people and places important to them. As a result, the paper first shows how young people together with their peers develop committed ties of belonging that reach beyond physical connection, and how these ties constitute experiential spatial attachments. Second, it demonstrates how they also make friends with kin and non-kin adults and how these intergenerational friendships expand the variety of inclusionary spaces available to them. The findings provide alternative insights into young people's experiences and the practices of social and spatial inclusion. We hope they help to develop cross-generational inclusionary policies that acknowledge youths' amiable relationships as important potential in their lived communities.

The purpose of the current preliminary study was to examine the levels of perceived social support by adolescents in the US and Finland. American research has demonstrated that high perceived levels of social support can buffer adolescents against many negative psychosocial symptoms, such as depression, anxiety and low self-esteem and is a necessary resource in adolescent well-being (Demaray and Malecki, 2002). Research on social support in Finland has demonstrated similar effects. However, less is known about the potential differences in the perceptions of social support cross-culturally. Perceptions of the frequency of different sources and types of support were assessed in both countries ( n = 148 US, n = 144 Finland) via the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS; Malecki et al., 2000). US participants perceived higher levels of both source and type of social support. These preliminary analyses serve as a springboard for further cross-cultural social support research.

Children are often regarded as being supported and controlled by adults, rather than their peer groups. In contrast, drawing on research carried out in Finland, this article considers peers as a resource. Using mainly a 14‐year‐old’s oral narratives, it is shown how the spatial and social context enables and inhibits children’s mutual support and control, reflecting and producing social and moral positions, and inclusion and exclusion. The analysis exploits the performance approach, which stresses children’s active role in the formation of social resources and reconstructs support and control from a child’s point of view.