UK-German youth exchange formats, topics, outcomes, and benefits
Encouraging UK-German Youth Exchanges
Cultural exchange When young people in the survey were asked about the best part of their previous experiences of joining a youth exchange, common answers focussed on getting to
Graph 3.19: Young people – Elements of other country’s culture that are of interest to participants when taking part in a UK-German youth exchange, by country group Graph 3.19 Young people – Elements of other country’s culture that are of interest to participants when taking part in a UK-German youth exchange, by country group
know other cultures or building friendships with people from other countries.
38.9%
People
The best thing about my youth exchange was ...
68.6%
52.3%
Language
53.8%
46.1%
Customs and traditions
“Properly learning about the other country and regions. Meeting people from diverse parts of the other countries, not just capital cities. All of this increased language learning motivation.”
35.9%
47.7%
History
35.1% 35.2%
Arts and music
33.0%
26.9%
Politics
“To get to know young people from other countries and learn something about other cultures and languages.”
31.3%
“To get to know new, open- minded people and to build cross-border friendships.”
33.7%
Food
25.9%
17.6%
Sports
15.0%
UK (n=193) DE (n=675)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
“The approach of young people which showed the equality and difference between the people of different cultures.”
Valid % of participants selecting, three choices required
Youth work outcomes
“For me, the best was not to get to know the country through the classic sights, but through personal meetings with exchanges with families in their everyday life and their traditions.”
3. Intercultural learning, 4. Peacebuilding and solidarity, 5. Inclusion and diversity.
In the survey, youth workers were asked to rate the outcomes for young people that were most important to achieve through a youth exchange within the context of the work their organisation does. A five-point Likert scale equivalent to 0-4 was used (Graph 3.20).
The least supported outcomes by youth workers within both countries were:
The five highest rated areas on average by UK youth workers were outcomes related to:
“One thing that shaped me incredibly was the knowledge that I only made at the very end. The realisation that there are nice people everywhere, that people all over the world are simply people and I could meet new people all over the world with whom I get along well, regardless of the continent, no matter what origin, what gender, what religion.”
1. Technical skills linked to the work of my organisation (least supported), 2. Sustainability and environmental outcomes or learning, 3. Education and employment outcomes (tied jointly with Health and wellbeing outcomes in Germany). UK youth workers were significantly more likely to rate the following items as more important than their German counterparts: › Health and wellbeing outcomes, 3 › Inclusion and diversity, 4 › Education and employment outcomes. 5
1. Personal and social skills, 2. Inclusion and diversity, 3. Intercultural learning, 4. Health and wellbeing outcomes, 5. Youth participation and volunteering.
as important. The three most popular answers amongst UK participants were language, followed by history and then customs and traditions. These results should be interpreted with the sample bias, which attracted a notable representation of participants involved in pupil exchanges focused on language on the UK side (see Chapter 2), and therefore may over-emphasise interest in languages.
Young survey participants were also asked which aspects of the other country’s culture were most appealing to them when taking part in a UK-German youth exchange (Graph 3.19). Within Germany, over two thirds of participants identified people as an important aspect followed by over half (53.8%, n=363) identifying language .
The five highest rated items on average by German youth workers were outcomes related to:
1. Personal and social skills, 2. Community cohesion,
Within the UK, there was less interest in people, with under half (38.9%, n=75) of young participants identifying this
3 t(120)=3.572, p=0.001 4 t(120)=4.146, p=0.0005 5 t(120)=2.543, p=0.012
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