Focus groups: Transnational group discussions
4.2 Alignment with the outcomes of the quantitative survey
There was consensus about the significance of climate change, which corresponds to the responses of the online survey. Looking at the entries in the comment box in the questionnaire, it is clear that young people largely agree that climate change needs to be taken seriously and that it is due to human intervention. One example: “Human activity is the most significant reason for climate change”. The answers given to the questions about hands-on strategies and ideas for climate-sensitive youth mobility in both parts of the LEMOCC study (quantitative and qual- itative) reflected the fact that young people feel that the „Climate change means the change of a world as we know it“ 4
actions of each and every individual are key in this regard and that climate change requires everyone to adapt their personal choices. The participants clearly expressed that their own attitudes and choices needed to be reviewed and adapted in order to protect the climate. Like in the online survey, the focus group members spoke extensively about their fears in regard to climate change. A new term for this is eco-anxiety, meaning fears resulting from the threat posed to our planet through anthropogenic climate change. Eco-anxiety is a relative- ly recent phenomenon; the term itself has been widely used in the United States for a while, whereas in the German-speaking countries it is only catching on slowly (cf. Raile/Ricken 2021). One comment in the comment box read: “I try to make responsible choices to alleviate other people’s fear and panic.” Their familiarity with digital tools may hence be reflect a selection bias, which should be considered when plan- ning to use more digital tools in international youth work settings. There may be some inequality aspects at play here. There are a number of current Europe- an and international studies on digital inequality, some motivated by pandemic-related developments, including, e.g., Deloitte 2020, Suter et al. 2021, or vom Orde / Durner 2021. 5 It is recommended that insights from these studies be subjected to systematic analysis in the near future and applied to any future (international) youth mobility concepts.
4.3 Confident use of digital communication platform What was also remarkable is that none of the partic- ipants, regardless of age, found it difficult to use Big Blue Button and appeared comfortable interacting in this digital space. Participants had been sent a set of instructions in advance of the meeting and were also given a brief orientation by the session chairs at the beginning of the meeting; however, their ease with the tool is surely also due to the fact that the pandemic has led young people to get used to digital tools such as this one. That said, it must be pointed out that one of the prerequisites for taking part in the focus group ses- sions was stable internet access, so their ease of use is likely down to the sample chosen.
4 The statements shown in quotes that are given below are direct quotes provided during the focus group sessions. Some comments from the comment boxes of the questionnaires are also reproduced here. These are marked accordingly. 5 Assisted by a German project team, the EU Kids Online project is collecting recent empirical studies from across Europe and compiling their results in a publicly accessible database (the Europe Evidence Base). For more information, go to https://www.eukidsonline.de/studienuebersicht/
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