YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

294 8.5. KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The results of this chapter can be summarised by the following key finding: 1. From 2010 to 2020, young people’s interest in arts and culture in- creased heavily, from 23.2% to 42.5% being interested or very in- terested. 2. In last ten years, there has been an increase in young people’s par- ticipation in arts classes, as well as in their active engagement in activities such as music, dancing and arts. Official data show that also enrolment in cultural organisations is on the rise. However, they are slightly less active in classical cultural consumption, which has also declined in the last ten years. 3. Youth participation in youth centres and organizations is rela- tively high (21%), even slightly higher than the EU average. A large proportion of young people (45%) report that youth centres lack cultural opportunities. In general, the problem of limited oppor- tunities for young people’s cultural participation is much more pronounced in more rural areas. 4. Young people who are more involved in online consumption and are also more likely to visit cultural sites and events in live form. Online cultural participation is emerging as a potentially effec- tive mechanism for reducing social inequalities among young people, as, unlike live cultural participation, it is not associated to the cultural capital of the young person’s primary family. Based on these findings, the following key orientations for youth policy appear to be relevant: 1. Since online cultural consumption is equally attractive to young people of all social classes (with regards to cultural capital), the production of excellent online arts and cultural content should be encouraged, especially if such production includes young people. 2. Since young people from less urban settlements report having con- siderably fewer opportunities for cultural participation, infrastruc- ture, and other institutional conditions for young people’s cultural participation in rural areas and small cities should be developed.