Using Theory in Youth and Community Work Practice

Ilona Buchroth, Chris Parkin, Ilona Buchroth, Chris Parkin, SAGE Publications Ltd

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781844453009
• eBook ISBN: 9781844456246
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This book explores a wide range of theoretical perspectives that guide the practice of community and youth work and related occupational fields. It provides a range of practical activities to encourage readers to explore their own theoretical position, while critically engaging with the contemporary theoretical context that is shaping the development of community and youth work practice. Students will find this book an invaluable tool in developing their understanding of theory, and it will help them to holistically and systematically apply their understanding of theory to their relevant practice situation.

Chapter 1

Theory and Youth and Community Work Practice

Ilona Buchroth and Chris Parkin

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

This chapter is about the use of theory in relation to practice and consequently it will help you to address all areas of the National Occupational Standards for Youth Work. In particular the creative approach to developing and using theory developed in the chapter will help you to address the following Standards.

1.1.3 Encourage young people to broaden their horizons to be active citizens

2.3.2 Develop a culture and systems that promote equality and value diversity

4.2.1 Influence and support the development of youth work strategies

It will also introduce you to the following academic standards as set out in the youth and community work benchmark statement (2009, QAA).

7.1

• Recognise and compare multiple, competing perspectives and challenge the status quo and dominant perspectives.
• Question and be prepared to deconstruct taken for granted and common sense professional understandings.

Introduction

This chapter is concerned with what theory is and its relevance to practice; it is about the theory of developing and applying theory. More specifically it explores the role theory plays in professional work and aims to identify the different kinds of theory we come across and make use of. A second strand of the chapter looks at how theory is developed and how it is linked to our professional roles. Finally, we explore how issues of power and equality relate to the way we use, choose and take part in the development of theory.

What do we actually mean when we talk about theory?

Dictionary entries vary, but all will suggest some form of statement that refers to an organised framework or model that helps us understand particular phenomena. It is useful to explain what theory is by distinguishing between facts, concepts and theory. Facts are verifiable assertions about some specific element of the world – for example, there are 45 students in my class, the grass is green, the house is made of bricks, 30 per cent of households in my city are headed by a single parent. Sometimes even facts are disputed – for example, what is green? How do you know that the colour I see as green is the same as the colour you see? Sometimes we will dispute whether the facts are indeed facts – for example, how was the information collected in determining that 30 per cent of households were headed by a single parent? Is 30 per cent an estimate based on a small sample? Is it possible that the figures are inaccurate because in reality people work to different definitions of ‘single parent’?

In social life there are few facts; we tend to deal with concepts such as the family, education, adolescence, deviance, equality. Concepts are something conceived in our minds and are abstract or generalised ideas. We have an idea about what concepts are but our ideas will vary. For example, let us look at family. I might think of my family as my partner and child; others might include parents, grandparents and siblings; some of you may include friends. In some cultures family may include all members of a tribe or clan. In order to explain concepts we develop theory – a systematic way of explaining concepts. The term ‘theory’ is used quite loosely in general conversation to describe ideas or ‘hunches’ people might have about how things can be done or explained. However, for something to be described as a theory it needs to go beyond a simple idea; it needs to be based on evidence and be testable in the broadest sense. The process of developing theory is often based on research and this will be explored later in the chapter. As we will also see later, theories developed within the natural sciences or within a positivist framework usually have a more tightly defined approach to what might be accepted as evidence or what form of scrutiny a theory needs to be able to withstand. For the purpose of this chapter we will adopt a similar approach to the one outlined by Henry Mintzberg (2005) who, rather than wishing to give a precise definition of the term ‘theory’, first asserts his keen interest in finding explanations. The process of finding explanations, he suggests, develops along a continuum that starts with making lists and categories, through establishing relationships and patterns to seeking explanations for patterns and relationships. In a similar vein this chapter has been written within a mindset that values curiosity and imagination – to create theories about all manner of things, to find a range of different explanations for the situations we encounter, to be alert and keen to ask imaginative questions, rather than knowing the answers as theory is insightful when it surprises, when it allows us to see profoundly, imaginatively, unconventionally into phenomena that we thought we understood (Mintzberg, 2005, p361).

An introduction to using theory

Starting with theory and the role it plays in our lives we soon realise that we engage with a range of different perspectives on numerous occasions. Try to answer the question in Activity 1.1.

ACTIVITY 1.1

In your everyday life do you make use of theory?

Examples might include how to bring up children to become happy and fulfilled adults, how best to stop global warming, or how to deal with stress. Can you think of any more examples and can you identify what theory you are using?

In all of the examples above you are likely to consciously or subconsciously use and apply theory. Your theory about child rearing is likely to draw on a whole range of other theories – for example, psychological theories such as child development, learning theories, social theories to explore the role of the family, education, culture and media as well as scientific theory to consider the role of nutrition, exercise and the impact of environmental factors such as pollution.

If you are talking to others you will find that not everyone agrees with your take on theory and they might well want to emphasise a different approach. Your parents or grandparents will have used different theories to guide them through their parenting and their ideas about what constitutes a healthy diet are likely to be quite different from yours too. What does this tell us about theory?

• It reminds us that theories are not fixed, but that they develop and change over time usually as a result of research and reflection on experience.
• It shows us that theory can be ‘fashionable’; certain approaches and viewpoints come and go and depend on what the dominant current issues or perspectives are. For example, many recent government policies related to overcoming disadvantage are influenced by the concept of social capital (also see Chapters 2 and 4).
• Certain theory can be promoted to meet particular ends.
• Theory is not good, bad, true or false, but often just more useful for one application or another (Mintzberg, 2005, p356).

Activity 1.2 reflects on this in relation to theories about drug addiction.

ACTIVITY 1.2

Try to answer these questions drawing on any experience or knowledge you have.

• What are drugs?
• What is addiction?
• What causes drug addiction?
• How can drug addiction be treated?

Theories about what constitutes a drug and what counts as addiction have changed over time. In the nineteenth century the use of opium was not illegal and was widely used as an over-the-counter remedy for a range of ailments. It is only relatively recently that cigarettes have been considered as a drug or an addiction.

There is a range of theories linked to the cause of addiction, including:

• personality trait – genetically disposed to addictions;
• poverty – drugs offer escape from harsh reality of life;
• economic – drug suppliers need to make drugs acceptable to increase profit or individuals use drugs to improve performance in order to earn more money;
• deviance – drugs are linked to criminal behaviour.

You may have identified others. There is also a range of theories linked to how to treat addictions:

• harm reduction;
• treatment with substitutes, e.g. nicotine patches, methadone;
• complete withdrawal;
• prevention.

In looking at this range we can see that different theories have been more dominant or fashionable in dealing with addictions. In particular the harm reduction approach is currently popular. We can also see that pharmaceutical companies might promote the use of drug substitutes rather than complete withdrawal, as this will generate profits for them. Similarly, some health workers may favour harm reduction because they gain employment if this approach is used. Finally, the theories about the causes of drug addiction and indeed the treatment may all be ‘right’ in certain circumstances.

Theory in relation to Community and Youth Work

We want to suggest that there is not one body of theory of community and youth work but many different and sometimes contradictory theories. There is a range of theories about:

• why we do community and youth work;
• how we do community and youth work;
• what community and youth work encompasses.

These are usually hard questions to answer and we need to use some kind of theory to come up with those answers. Try asking your colleagues what they think about these questions. You could try asking other people the answers to these questions and get a wide range of different answers. You might want to discount some answers because you think the person you ask doesn’t know anything about youth work; you may discount others because you don’t think they are very good youth workers; you may agree partly with some answers but have a slightly different perspective. If you had to write an essay responding to these questions it is likely that you would refer to published articles, reports or books addressing these questions. For example, you might look at the National Youth Agency’s publications – books such as The Art of Youth Work by Kerry Young or The History of Youth Work by Bernard Davies. Or you could look at journals such as Children and Young People Now and Youth and Policy as well as Websites such as www.infed.org/. It is likely that you would also use your own experiences – maybe drawing on your own participation in youth work as a young person as well as your current employment. However, you are also likely to draw on your beliefs about what young people need; these beliefs are often the result of a range of factors, as you will see from Chapter 3. The answers to these questions are the substance of what theory is and you should be able to see that theory is central to your practice because it helps you and others to explain why you do the work, how you do it and the results of your work. There is now a wealth of theory on youth work – much of this relates to the history, purpose and process of the work. This book will guide you through theories which underpin youth work rather than provide a review of these theories.

Not using theory in a professional role must be akin to needing to re-invent the wheel and starting afresh every single day. Some practitioners suggest that theory is of secondary importance in youth work practice and that the most important thing is the ability to listen to young people and provide them with space. While we would not wish to dispute that listening to young people is important, we agree with Spence that:

Listening effectively and actively requires some knowledge on the part of the worker. They might need to know something of youth subcultures, but under this, they might need to know something about class and poverty, about racism and sexism, about the realities of global displacement, about structural relations of power in which some voices are silenced and in which listening must be an active process of encouraging speaking, not just the speaking of individuals, though that is important, but the speaking which enables groups to find collective voices and thus to combine and act on their situation. (Spence, ‘In Defence of Youth Work’ Leeds, 10 July 2009)

Although we might not always use theory consciously our understanding of a range of relationships and patterns guides us in numerous ways. We may have been in similar situations before and we apply an understanding of different situations to a new setting. We have some understanding of the issues that are important in the lives of the people we work with. So we have established that we can use theory to help us to think about the purpose and process of our practice but it is important to remember that we can also develop theory from our practice. Our experience of practice provides us with evidence to challenge or support theoretical perspectives.

We will have observed others’ practice, read reports of practice and talked to young people about their lives, and we draw on all of these things to develop effective work. In an informal way we also use these experiences to develop our own theory. We hope that this chapter will encourage you to be more conscious of the way in which you use theory, and encourage you to develop and test your theories in relation to the theories that have been written up and tested by people who you may think of as theorists or academics.

We have been trying to emphasise in this section that the ‘usefulness’ of theory depends very much on your standpoint and perspective. As a result the theoretical perspectives that we highlight in th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword from the Series Editors
• Introduction
• 1 Theory and Youth and Community Work Practice
• 2 Using social theory
• 3 Learning from lives
• 4 Education
• 5 Group work
• 6 Reflection and enquiry
• Bibliography
• Index