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A Genealogy of Youth Work: Translators
Get PDFYouth work was born around 150 years ago in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, yet one of its current languages is much newer, coming into being in the 1960s when youth work became a profession. This article suggests that the publication of The Albemarle Report translated youth work’s earlier theistic language into a secular tongue. It describes this translation, and goes on to suggest that, despite this significant change, many of youth work’s most precious attributes are only part of its discourse because of its Christian foundations
Darren McGarvey, (2017) Poverty Safari: Understanding the anger of Britain’s Underclass
Get PDFIn Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass Darren McGarvey (aka Loki) sets out to give voice to the feelings, concerns and anger of people from deprived communities all around Britain. McGarvey uses the book to explore his current truths, refreshingly not by attempting to present definitive answers, but instead by offering observations and understandings based on his own experiences with what feels like an invitation to explore and discuss what he airs. An immense power of the book for me is in McGarvey naming and articulating a long rumbling sense of things not being as polar as they are regularly presented; where a desire to make the complex simple often means our human messiness goes unacknowledged, with packaged ‘solutions’ based on a particular ideological viewpoint touted as the answer before question framing is ever adequately considered. This polar thinking is compounded by people’s truths so often going unarticulated due to the weighted assumptions of deemed experts being prioritised and/or for fear or experience of folk being ‘unheard’, ‘ridiculed’ or having perceived or real negative consequences for themselves, communities or organisations they might be associated with
Community Engagement: A Critical Guide for Practitioners: Chapter 9: Critical Discourse Analysis
Get PDFAnne O’Donnell introduces Chapter 9 of \u27Community Engagement: A Critical Guide for Practitioners\u2
Arun Kundnani (2015) The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terror
Get PDFreview of Arun Kundnani The Muslims Are Coming: Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terro
Young People and the ‘Entrepreneurial Self’
Get PDFThe notion of ‘choice’ is particularly strong today in public discourse and reflects the increased marketization of our society. As such, young people are expected to have the capacity to be ‘rational planners’ of their future – making short-term decisions based on a long-term goal. Evidence suggests that young people are happy to embrace this challenge, becoming self-managers of an imagined future, accepting the responsibility to create a pathway from youth to adulthood. Of course, in modern society it’s never that simple
Jeremy Gilbert (ed) (2016) Neoliberal Culture
No full textReview of Jeremy Gilbert (ed) Neoliberal Culture, Lawrence & Wishar
Creating ‘one big masterpiece’ – Synthesis in Creative Arts Youth Work
Get PDFThe creative industries contribute £4.6bn to the Scottish economy and support 73 thousand jobs (Creative Scotland, 2017). Creativity sits at the heart of Curriculum for Excellence, where it is ‘fundamental to the definition of what it means to be a ‘successful learner’ in the Scottish education system’ (Education Scotland, 2013, p 2). Creative learning and cultural participation offer a means for people to improve their understanding of themselves and to achieve individual and collective well-being (Creative Scotland, 2014). Yet, in questioning whether our education systems do enough to enable learners to flourish, Putnam (2015) argues for improvements in the use of methods, like digital technology, to develop learning, creativity and innovation, where the streaming of short films, plays, animation and documentaries create ‘educational assets’ (p.122) for transformational education (Mezirow, 2009).
Understanding the importance of creativity in a context of shifting youth work methodologies (Harland and McCready, 2012) inspired us to consider a range of ways to improve young people’s experiences of, and access to, creative education outside of schooling. This article draws on findings from a multiple case study that examined use of creative arts in two youth work projects. It argues for educational synthesis in the application of professional youth work methodologies that can complement school based learning, to strengthen cohesion and collaboration in Scottish education. In this research, combining creative arts with youth work developed an authentic and participatory means for young people’s expression of voice (Beggan & Coburn, 2017)
What can we do with our stories? Reflections from the Faroes
Get PDFIn my efforts to refresh my social theory and develop new perspectives on evaluation I recently attended a social constructivism conference on Communication, Collaboration and Relationships in the Faroe Islands[1]. I’d been alerted to this opportunity by one of the organisers, Gro Emmertsen Lund, a Danish organisational consultant and author with a shared interest in reshaping evaluation (Lund, 2011).
As a freelance action researcher, this was my annual dose of CPD. Like many people from the UK, this was new territory for me and I couldn’t resist the location and the conference aims to ‘increase the motivation and the joy of learning, teaching, leading and serving’ and ‘bring public services into synchrony with emerging world conditions’. One of the keynote speakers was Ken Gergen who, amongst his many writings, articulates a vision of the researcher as an active agent in fashioning the future and research as a form of social action (Gergen, 2014).