Building peace through Gutsy Go : How 8th grade students make peace visible in their communities
Lahtinen, Emma (2025)
2025
Master's Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research
Yhteiskuntatieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2025-05-19
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202505165684
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202505165684
Tiivistelmä
In recent years, Finnish youth have emphasized that they value peace and wellbeing as some of the most important foundational factors in their life. Finnish youth also believe that helping others and building a better future for all gives a purpose for life. This existing mindset provides an essential starting point for this thesis which purpose is to explore how students build peace within their communities during Gutsy Go intervention weeks.
Usually, the youth peacebuilding is discussed and analysed in the conflict-affected areas and societies. However, youth can build peace in all kinds of settings, even in peaceful communities, although youth peacebuilding efforts are rarely captured and identified outside of non-conflict areas. This thesis focuses specifically on the more understudied context and explores how 8th grade students from Finland build peace through peace acts. In this thesis, students’ peacebuilding practices are explored by using everyday peace practices. The five practices that appeared in the students’ peace acts were solidarity, reciprocity, sociality, compromise and care.
This thesis consists of an analysis of over 20 peace acts that were conducted around Finland by 8th grade students between 2020–2023. The peace acts were implemented during an action week organized by Gutsy Go, a Finnish communal method, that encourages youth to active citizenship by challenging them to plan and execute a peace act in their own community. The aim of this thesis is to find answers to the research question how 8th grade students build peace during Gutsy Go intervention weeks? With the help of the different everyday peace practices the analysis revealed that students build peace in their communities by fighting against bullying, addressing social disadvantages and investing to youths’ mental health and wellbeing, helping elders in their everyday life and providing opportunities to express feelings and strengthen the connections to others in their communities.
Usually, the youth peacebuilding is discussed and analysed in the conflict-affected areas and societies. However, youth can build peace in all kinds of settings, even in peaceful communities, although youth peacebuilding efforts are rarely captured and identified outside of non-conflict areas. This thesis focuses specifically on the more understudied context and explores how 8th grade students from Finland build peace through peace acts. In this thesis, students’ peacebuilding practices are explored by using everyday peace practices. The five practices that appeared in the students’ peace acts were solidarity, reciprocity, sociality, compromise and care.
This thesis consists of an analysis of over 20 peace acts that were conducted around Finland by 8th grade students between 2020–2023. The peace acts were implemented during an action week organized by Gutsy Go, a Finnish communal method, that encourages youth to active citizenship by challenging them to plan and execute a peace act in their own community. The aim of this thesis is to find answers to the research question how 8th grade students build peace during Gutsy Go intervention weeks? With the help of the different everyday peace practices the analysis revealed that students build peace in their communities by fighting against bullying, addressing social disadvantages and investing to youths’ mental health and wellbeing, helping elders in their everyday life and providing opportunities to express feelings and strengthen the connections to others in their communities.