Nolas, Sevasti-Melissa (2013) Exploring young people's and youth workers' experiences of spaces for ‘youth development’: creating cultures of participation. Journal of Youth Studies, 17 (1). pp. 26-41. ISSN 1367-6261

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Abstract

The paper focuses on the emergence of ‘positive youth development’ and its impact on older, more established practices of working with young people, such as youth work. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in England between 2004 and 2006, in particular young people's and youth workers' accounts of participating in youth work, the analysis engages with the social spaces in which youth work takes place and asks key questions about why young people might participate in youth spaces, what they get out of participating and how such spaces can promote cultures of participation. The analysis shows that such spaces provide young people and their communities with biographical continuity and time becomes a key component for sustaining such spaces. The argument is made for a more nuanced understanding of what young people get out of their participation in youth spaces, and for an epistemological approach to youth praxis that embraces the messiness and inequalities of lived experience.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	youth development, youth work, liminal spaces, ethnography, participatory video research
Schools and Departments:	School of Education and Social Work > Social Work and Social Care
Subjects:	H Social Sciences H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV0040 Social service. Social work. Charity organization and practice Including social case work, private and public relief, institutional care, rural social work, work relief
Depositing User:	Shaun Billing
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2013 11:16
Last Modified:	18 Oct 2017 16:43
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43538

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