Social representations of intercultural encounters among young people from Finland, the Middle East, and Ukraine

This study examines young people’s social representations of intercultural encounters. The study is based on qualitative material collected in 2023 during researcher-facilitated arts-based workshops with 13- to 19-year-olds. The research was conducted in North Savo, Finland. The participants, residing in the Northern Savo area, represented three cultural backgrounds: Finnish residents and displaced people originating from the Middle East and Ukraine. In workshops, participants created 45 visual artworks accompanied by written reflections on their perceptions of meeting people from different cultures. We employed a content analysis to examine the drawings and texts from the perspective of the social representations approach. The analysis produced three distinct social representations reflecting young people’s perceptions on encountering people from different cultures: Positive Representations of Encounters, Apprehensive Representations of Encounters, and Idealized Representations of Encounters. The findings reveal how the social representations of intergroup encounters constructed by young people from different cultural backgrounds differ from each other. Finally, we discuss the importance of social representations of intercultural encounters in shaping the perceptions of past and potential future intercultural encounters. The study contributes to research on intercultural encounters by employing the social representations approach and shifting the focus from representations of groups to representations of the encounter itself.