Youth Participation in Europe

Beyond Discourses, Practices and Realities

Loncle, Patricia, Cuconato, Morena

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781447300182
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781447300199
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Children's Studies in Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In a period where social unrest manifests itself by coinciding with young people's dissatisfaction with formal political involvement and the diversification of protest movements across the globe, the question of youth participation is at the forefront of democratic societies. This timely book offers a fresh look at youth participation: examining official and unofficial constructions of participation by young people in a range of socio-political domains, exploring the motivations and rationales underlying official attempts to increase participation among young people, and offering a critique of their effectiveness. Based on original research data, Youth participation in Europe provides a thorough analysis of participation initiatives at the implementation level and gives a transversal approach to various areas of youth participation.Drawing on examples from different European countries, it analyses the results of structure on youth participation and the effects of youth agencies on types of mobilisation.

Table of contents

• Youth Participation inEurope
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• About the contributors
• 1. The analysis of youth participation in contemporary literature: a European perspective
• 2. Youth participation: strong discourses, weak policies – a general perspective
• 3. Participation and individualisation: the emergence of a new (political) consciousness?
• 4. Informal education in an historical perspective: between an instrument of social education and a socioeducational practice
• 5.Celebrating pluralism: beyond established forms of youth participation
• 6. Youth participation in the framework of the reformulation of local youth policies in Italy
• 7. Barriers to participation within a recessionary state: impediments confronting Irish youth
• 8. Youth participation and local social and youth policies in Spain
• 9. Interplay of youth culture, Web 2.0 and political participation in Europe: new reflections after the ‘youth quake’ in Northern Africa and the Middle East
• 10. Young people and online civic participation: key findings from a pan-European research project
• 11. Young people and mental health: when ICT becomes a tool of participation in public health in Finland
• 12. Learning to participate or participating to learn?
• 13. Pupils’ participation in French secondary schools: the interplay between tradition and innovation
• 14. Participation or non-participation? Getting beyond dichotomies by applying an ideology-critical, a comparative and a biographical perspective
• Afterword. Dynamic and socially embedded: biographies of participation in youth
• Index