This qualitative dataset contains the essays the respondents of the questionnaire survey Young People and Politics 2009 (FSD2629) were asked to write. The request and writing instructions for an essay titled 'My notion of politics: What comes to my mind when I hear the word "politics"' were included at the end of the self-administered questionnaire, with about two blank pages reserved for the essay. The respondents were asked to write about their views on politics, the importance of politics in their own life, and why they were interested or not interested in politics. The dataset contains 1,292 essays from students of 34 upper secondary educational institutions. The information supplied by each respondent in the quantitative and qualitative dataset can be connected with case IDs. Background variables included the respondent's gender and year of birth as well as the municipality where the respondent was studying and the type of educational institution (general or vocational upper secondary school). The dataset is only available in Finnish.

2013