Have a good trip. Empirical findings and perspectives on children's and youth camps

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Ilg
• Subject Area: Educational Research on Socialization, Welfare and Professionalism
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 583822869

Camps for children and adolescents are one of the core activities of youth organisations. For many young people, they are among the most important activities during the holidays. For parents, they provide childcare during the holiday periods. Research in the field of group travel has seen a significant increase in empirical data in recent years. The volume proposed here aims to make this data accessible for the first time and to analyse it scientifically. The core of the volume consists of the evaluation of existing data from different camps. In the context of the scientific network “Freizeitenevaluation”, a self-evaluation procedure was developed to enable camp organisers to evaluate their activities. Since 2019, a panel study has been conducted with funding from the BMBFSFJ with the aim of generating a comparable data set from selected organisations throughout Germany. For the years 2019 to 2024, data from the panel study is available for 2,231 participants and 291 employees in youth camps and 2,310 participants and 320 employees in children's camps. This data is published for the first time in this volume in a scientifically based and generally understandable manner. The main part of the book consists of an annotated presentation of the quantitative data. In a further qualitative-empirical contribution, the free responses from the questionnaires are analysed in terms of content, with a focus on participation experiences. In addition to these key contributions, the book also provides space for further empirical contributions from the field of camp research. These include an exemplary insight into the evaluation of the annual ‘Hamburg Summer School’, the first re-analysis of official statistics on youth work in the field of camps, and a survey on the situation of youth group accommodation in Germany. The empirical data is embedded in two fundamental contributions by renowned researchers in the field and in comments from the relevant professional associations at the federal level. The book contributions were discussed during the development phase by teams of scientists and practitioners who have been working with the relevant data since summer 2024. An initial writing workshop lasting several days took place in Potsdam in September 2024, and a further writing workshop to finalise the texts was held in Königswinter in October 2025. The volume will be published in the series "Fahren. Reisen. Begegnen. Camp and Mobility Studies" published by Beltz Juventa. This book makes reliable data on the perception of camps by employees and participants available at the federal level for the first time. Not least against the backdrop of the all-day care from 2026, which also applies during holiday periods, these offers are gaining growing social significance.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants