The Netherlands is known globally for its widespread use of bicycles and some call it a “cycling nation”. Indeed, many Dutch inhabitants own a bike and cycle frequently. Numbers show that 84% of the Dutch inhabitants from age 4 years and older own a bike. Those owners have an average of 1.3 bikes per person. This results in 18 million bikes in the Netherlands and 13.5 million bike owners.6 The Dutch use their bike as a means of transportation, but also for sports and exercise. Bike-use fits well in an active lifestyle and it is highly plausible that cycling is responsible for a large part of the daily physical activity in Dutch youth. It is estimated that Dutch people have on average a 6 months longer life expectancy attributable to bicycle use.7 It seems that the nation itself is well shaped to cycle: no large mountains, only a few small hills, and an extensive layout of cycle paths and routes in every city and village. In many urban areas separate cycle paths are very common. Our results show that many Dutch children use the bike as their way of transportation. It was demonstrated that active transportation is responsible for a large part of schoolrelated physical activity in Dutch youth.8 80% of 12-17 year-old children cycled three or more days to or from school/work.9 This resulted in an ‘A’ for the indicator active transportation (walking is included in the grade as well). Active transport is associated with increased total physical activity among youth.10,11 Also evidence is reported for an association between active transport and a healthier body composition and healthier level of cardiorespiratory fitness among youth. Although Dutch children accumulate a lot of daily physical activity through cycling, it is not enough to meet the current national physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day. Even though cycling is an important component to the amount of daily physical activity, Dutch youth are not cycling to health
Previous research has suggested that professional youth work settings empower socially vulnerable youngsters, strengthening their personal development and social participation. It is expected that youth work can prevent personal and social problems of youngsters, which may have longer term positive social returns. How the underlying methodical way of acting of youth workers contributes to prevention-focused outcomes remains unclear. This article presents a four-wave longitudinal cohort study (16 months) that investigated longitudinal associations between 12 individual methodical principles that youth workers apply in interactions with youngsters and four prevention-focused outcomes: prosocial skills, self-mastery, social network and civic participation. The sample consisted of 1,597 Dutch youngsters with a mean age of 16.5 years (SD = 3.60). Findings: Linear mixed models analysis found that all individual methodical principles were longitudinally associated with one or more outcome. The strongest associations were observed with regard to prosocial skills and civic participation. Depending on the outcome measure, methodical principles seem to be more effective for boys, for youngsters who participate for 3 years or longer in youth work settings and for youngsters between 10 and 19 years old. With regard to the effect of methodical principles on improving self-mastery, 9 of the 12 principles appeared to play no positive role in increasing self-mastery of youngsters. Applications: This study provides youth workers with a better understanding of which methodical principles are positively associated with prevention-focused outcomes as well as reinforcing the evidence-based practice of professional youth work.
We live in a time of radical changes in Europe. The climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, energy crisis, the pandemic, increasedprice levels and interest rates, digitalization, robotization, reduced birth rates, an aging population, migration, a decliningdemocracy index and increasing friction level between continents and powerful states makes us uncertain about tomorrow.Deglobalization, shorter production lines, changed export models, bloc formations and sovereignty might be results of someof the large challenges we see today. We see tendencies towards increasing poverty and a declining middle class. It isperhaps more important than ever in recent times to show optimism on behalf of young people and future generations.European cooperation and the link between the right skills for the right future seems to be more actual and important thanever. A report from McKinsey Global Institute (2017) about future work life, competence development and digitalization,shows that approximately 50 % of todays jobs can disappear in the nearest future caused digitalization, robotization and AI.MGI’s in-dept report have covered more than 20 countries and 30 industries (mckinsey.com). We have also a commonEuropean challenge reagarding too many youth outside the working life. The NEET index (Not in Employment, Education orTraining) was 14 % totally for the EU countries, 9.6 % for Germany, 6.3 % for Netherlands and also 6.3 % for Norway in2021 (ssb.no).This is a challenge we have to solve as we need to increase the work participation as welfare costs willincrease as a consequence of more immigration and several older people.
