The purpose of this thesis was to explore young people’s interests in arts and recreational group activities. The main focus was to gather information about the influence and importance of participating in recreational art groups. Furthermore, the aim was to inquire young people’s views on group dynamics and functions and the role of a facilitator. The thesis is based on qualitative methods and the target group was young people who had participated in various recreational art groups.

Background information was collected with a questionnaire in the summer 2010. Two groups of young people aged 15-17 years answered the questionnaire. In all there were fourteen respondents. The groups had participated in the projects of ARX Arts Centre in the City of Hämeenlinna. The first group of eight teenagers was orientated in music and spent five days together in Russia. The other group consisted of six teenagers who produced the decoration of Hippalot Art Festival for Children.

In addition to the questionnaire and observation, the main source of information was literature concerning youth and interest in arts. Sami Myllyniemi’s book Nuorisobarometri is a nationwide research which deals with young people and their current interests in arts and culture. Furthermore the frame of reference was gathered in the fields of art education and developmental psychology.

According to the results, young people consider their interest in art a significant factor in their lives. The responses prove that the young people’s interest in art has had an influence on their creativeness and expression skills. Therefore the young people felt they dare to state their opinions and their self-esteem was reinforced. However, due to the difficult terms used in the questionnaire the results of the research may not be reliable when discussing the meaning of interaction. Nevertheless, eleven teenagers of fourteen endorse that interests in arts have an impact when forming a group with good team spirit.