Young in Oslo 2023

The questions are about children and young people's everyday lives. All pupils will be asked questions about friendship, family, school, the local community, recreational activities, media use, bullying, health, well-being and quality of life. The pupils’ gender, year group and immigrant background are also mapped.

Primary school pupils will receive a shorter questionnaire tailored to their age. 

Lower and upper secondary school pupils will be asked about more topics than primary school pupils, including what they think about their future, about violence and sexual harassment, breaking rules and drug/alcohol abuse, sense of belonging in their district, as well as their parents' education.

Upper secondary school pupils will also be asked about sexuality, education programmes, their parents' situation in the labour market, their country of origin and living situation.

• Participation in research is voluntary for children and young people, and they can decide themselves whether or not they want to participate in Young in Oslo. Although the survey will be carried out at school, no one should feel forced to participate.
• All survey participants are informed that they can skip questions they find difficult or that they do not want to answer. Children and young people can also withdraw from the survey at any time, without needing to give an explanation.
• The survey is anonymous for year five to year ten pupils. This means that it is not possible to identify any individuals through their answers. 
• All answers will be treated confidentially. No one in the municipality, neither teachers, administrative staff nor others, will have access to answers that can be used to identify how any specific individual has responded. The results will be published through statistics showing how children and young people as a whole, or in different groups, have responded (e.g. boys and girls). No individuals will be identifiable when the results of the survey are made public. The only people who will have access to all the responses are the researchers and advisers in the project, and the company that registers the responses. 
• The parents or guardians of children and young people under 18 years of age will receive information about the survey at the beginning of January 2023. This includes a link to the questionnaire.
• The primary and lower secondary school questionnaire is anonymous. The upper secondary level questionnaires include several background questions, but pupils will not be asked to give their name or personal ID number, or asked any other directly identifiable questions. See more about this below.
• For other enquiries, please send an email to NOVA: ungioslo@oslomet.no.
• Parents or guardians of children and young people under 18 years of age have a right to object to their child participating in the survey. Parents who do not want their child to participate must notify the contact teacher/school before the survey starts, and no later than 16 January 2023. Parents or guardians who want their child to participate do not need to take any action.

Standby measures

• Most of the questions in the survey will be straightforward to answer, but some children may find some of the topics difficult. Since it is not possible to find out who has answered what, Ungdata cannot be used by the individual child or youth as a way of reaching out if they need help or want to get in touch with someone. Nor will it be possible for anyone to follow up on what the individual has answered.
• All survey participants are therefore informed before the start of the survey that they can contact the school health service or the Red Cross helpline ‘Kors på halsen’ (korspaahalsen.rodekors.no) if they want to talk to an adult.
• The school health service has been informed that the survey is being conducted and is standing by should any of the pupils want to get in touch. All pupils will be informed, both before and after the survey, about who they can turn to if they need to talk to someone. 

Specific information relating to upper secondary school pupils

• The survey for upper secondary school pupils includes more background questions than the questionnaire for younger children. Among other things, information is collected about which upper secondary school they attend and which education programme they are taking, about country of origin, living situation and their parents' connection to the labour market. 
• Although the pupil’s name, address and other directly identifiable information is not collected, the data at upper secondary level is considered personal data. The personal data will be stored until the end of 2028 in a secure area to which only a limited number of people have access. After that time, all data will be anonymised.
• Since no direct personal data is collected, it will not be possible to rectify or erase the participants’ data once the survey has been completed. 
• The survey is conducted based on the pupils' consent to participation. 
• Parents of upper secondary school pupils under the age of 18 who do not want their child to take part must notify the contact teacher/school before the survey starts, and no later than 16 January 2023.
• The upper secondary level survey involves the processing of what is defined under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) as ‘special categories of personal data’, which are of a highly personal nature and processed on a large scale. NOVA, together with Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (formerly NSD Norwegian Centre for Research Data) has conducted a data protection impact assessment (DPIA), which can be read here (ungdata.no) (PDF). 
• Sikt and the data protection officer at OsloMet have assessed how the personal data are processed – e-mail: personvernombud@oslomet.no. OsloMet has approved the processing of personal data (Project Title: Ungdata 2020–2023, project number 821474).

The survey is carried out in the classroom with an adult present. One school period is set aside that starts with the pupils receiving information about the survey and being informed that they are free to choose whether or not they wish to participate.

Pupils who wish to participate log in to a website with a random one-time code that cannot be linked to the participant. The pupils answer by ticking alternatives in the questionnaire. They can answer in Norwegian or English. It is also possible to have the questions read out to you.

Participation is voluntary and the pupils can skip questions they do not want to answer and can choose to end the questionnaire at any time. All answers will be treated confidentially. Only researchers and advisers involved in the project and the company that registers the responses will have access to all the answers. 

The first results of the survey will be available in the summer of 2023. 

Are you interested in reading more about the previous Young in Oslo surveys? You can find links to reports on the Young in Oslo/Ungdata project page on the website of our partner KORUS Oslo (korusoslo.no).

You can find more information about Ungdata (ungdata.no).

If you have any questions, please send an email to project manager Anders Bakken. You can also send an email to Young in Oslo 2023.

• Bakken, A. (2023). Ung i Oslo 2023. Ungdomsskolen og videregående. NOVA-rapport 6/23. Oslo: NOVA, OsloMet (oda.oslomet.no)
• Enstad, F. og Bakken, A. (2023). Ung i Oslo 2023. 5.–7. trinn. NOVA-rapport 7/23. Oslo: NOVA, OsloMet (oda.oslomet.no)