Youth Work

Technology is fundamental to and embedded in the way practice is conceptualized and institutionalized in social service work. Many scholars assume and expect that good practices of care are achieved with the correct application of theory produced by rigorous scientific research. However, there are significant critiques of this viewpoint. We examine the work of Donald Schön and Martin Heidegger and agree with these authors’ suggestions that technical rationality and modern technology are not the way to achieve good practice in the human services. At the same time, we are not convinced that the alternatives offered by Schön (artistry) and Heidegger (techne) provide what good practice requires. We draw on Aristotle’s account of the intellectual virtues and make the case for phronesis and praxis as other possibilities for inspiring new kinds of social welfare practice in the twenty-first century.

Studies on gender and leadership to date reveal that structural, psychological, and attitudinal barriers disadvantage women in the workplace. Women who work in outdoor recreation programs also face gender stereotypes related to the perceived appropriateness of the social role they play, and level of physical ability; stereotypes which cause employees and co-workers alike to prefer male leaders. One area of outdoor recreation that requires further investigation is live-in summer camps, because of the more nurturant requirements of leaders in these spaces. This paper documents which qualities residential summer camp staff value in leaders, and hypothesizes whether women who work in the more home-like setting of live-in camps face the same attitu-dinal and social barriers as women in other areas of outdoor recreation. Analysis yielded a distinct gender bias in favor of men, suggesting that even when a more nurturant environment is required, people still perceive men to be the most appropriate leaders. This pervasive gender bias confirms a patriarchal understanding of leadership and the legacy of historical gender roles even in the unexamined, and more feminized, environments of live-in summer camps. It also reconfirms that, despite popular rhetoric in the West about equality and opportunity, everyone is not allowed equal opportunity to lead.

Given the prominence of rap music and its influence in debates about the moral status of young people, this paper seeks to highlight young people’s own lyrical practices and interpretations of the genre. Evidence gathered by the National Foundation for Youth Music has found that such lyrical modes of music making can serve as a vital means of self-expression, particularly for those children and young people who otherwise lack confidence, self-esteem and cultural validation. This paper centres on a detailed case study of a community music project called Ustudios, which drew on peer-mentoring practices to develop and record rap lyrics with local young people who were identified as experiencing a range of challenging circumstances while residing on two adjacent council estates on the outskirts of Brighton, England. By tracing the lyrical practices of a group of young participants, this paper establishes a clear sense of their potential to explore their own voice, both as means to enhance their emotional expression and development, and as a way of supporting their participation as active members within their community. Taken alongside wider evidence, this case develops an emerging thesis on the political significance of voice, listening and recognition for reframing understandings of the emotional geographies of young people.

Please contact me if you would like me to forward a zipped folder of the recorded music cited here.

Youth participation in program and community
decision making is framed by scholars as an issue of social
justice, a platform for positive youth development and
effective citizenry, and a strategy for nation building.
Recent literature reviews have consistently identified
youth–adult partnership (Y–AP) as an effective type of
youth participation across highly diverse contexts. These
same reviews, however, note that indicators of Y–AP have
not been conceptualized and validated for measurement
purposes. The present study addresses this limitation by
developing a brief measure of Y–AP that is explicitly
grounded in current theory, research, and community
practice. The measure was administered to youth in the
United States, Malaysia, and Portugal (N = 610). Validation
was assessed through factor analysis and tests of factorial,
discriminant, and concurrent validity. Results
confirmed the two predicted dimensions of the Y–AP
measure: youth voice in decision making and supportive
adult relationships. These two dimensions were also found
to be distinct from other measures of program quality:
safety and engagement. As predicted, they also significantly
correlated with measures of agency and empowerment.
It is concluded that the measure has the potential to
support community efforts to maximize the quality of
youth programs.

It is widely assumed that most Africans reside in rural areas, that African cities make little economic sense and are unusually violent because so many unemployed young men live there, and that urban migrant youth can be drawn back to their former rural homes. This paper challenges all of these assumptions. In the process, it reviews dominant trends in Africa’s rapid urban expansion and examines what life is like for urban youth. I will argue that African cities are underserved and fiercely competitive economic environments that are negatively impacted by neoliberal development policies. Urban youth life tends to take place in worlds that are largely separate from the rest of society. The pressures and dangers facing male and female youth can be extreme, yet at the same time African cities are exceptionally stimulating places that provide opportunities for re-invention for many urban youth. The paper ends with recommendations for addressing the needs of the marginalized majority of Africa’s urban youth more effectively. Its primary focus is urban areas in the region of sub-Saharan Africa.

Youth gardening empowerment organizations are growing in popularity as an urban model for youthfocused
nonprofit work within the United States. These organizations aim towards progressive goals of
poverty alleviation through holistic youth empowerment but encounter tensions between the imperatives
of funders to distinguish (or discipline) youth in terms of performance and their own impulse to
include all those in need. Despite benevolent mission statements, however, these organizations perpetuate
long-standing poverty discourses that distinguish between deserving and undeserving poor subjects.
I explore these tensions through fieldwork with Youth Grow, one such youth gardening
empowerment organization in Seattle, Washington. I argue that residual poverty discourses persist
due to the contradictory positioning of progressive organizations within a neoliberalized landscape of
social service provisioning. This nexus, between donor dependence and cultural imaginaries about poverty,
produces the mismatch between relational program goals and residual practices. I propose a more
self-reflexive approach to programming that considers the subjective, lived experiences of youth participants
in relation to the material and discursive frictions that create these tensions.

Despite a growing literature on best practices, the details of how aftercare workers help young people transition into the community after incarceration remain unexplored. This ethnographic study examines the daily practices of direct care workers within a large juvenile aftercare organization, focusing on the dilemmas that they face as street level bureaucrats. Although aftercare workers face tremendous organizational constraints, they do not always exhibit the bureaucratic responses that some scholars describe. Using care work and public administration theory as a lens, we explore how juvenile aftercare workers draw upon intrinsic motivation to provide meaningful services for returning youth.

Child and youth care (CYC) professionals often provide care to children, youth and families in conjunction with professionals from other disciplines. How CYC professionals engage other service providers in the provision of care for suicidal adolescents requires examination. The purpose of the overall study was to understand and explain the process of CYC professionals' mental health literacy practices with suicidal adolescents. Findings presented here provide insight into the process of CYC professionals' practice with other service providers in the context of their encounters with suicidal adolescents. Using a constructivist grounded theory method, data were collected and analysed from interviews with CYC professionals, supervisors within youth-serving community agencies, educators within Schools of Child and Youth Care, and extant texts of relevance to suicide, such as organisational policies, assessment tools, and suicide education curricula. One practice identified during analysis, flooding the zone, is the focus of the present paper. Flooding refers to the process of contacting and informing a myriad of professionals or services of the adolescent's suicidality, and was comprised of making decisions as to whom to contact, informing the adolescent, and negotiating with services. Professionals' perceptions of their role and the availability and accessibility of mental health services influenced the practice of flooding. Based on analysis of the data, flooding the zone has the potential to disrupt CYC professionals' relational proximity to the adolescent and may reinforce a devalued role for CYC professionals in suicide intervention within the larger mental health system of care.

There is growing interest in the professionalization of the youth work field in Australia and the United States. In this article I draw on relevant literature from the sociology of professions to explore the appeal of professionalization for youth work. The interest in professionalism is examined along with the strategies youth work practitioners could build on and use to progress professionalization. The tactics proposed are for proponents to concurrently use lessons from other professionalization projects, garner support in the youth sector, lead a project that has broad appeal, utilize existing institutional arrangements, and establish an international movement.

This article explores effective approaches against racism in work with young people, and the relevance of new policy agendas in the UK. Since the 2001 disturbances, the UK has controversially prioritised 'Community Cohesion, with the accusation that this new direction represents the 'death of multiculturalism'. Drawing on empirical evidence from a project established to work with the racist views of white children in Leeds, and from youth work in Oldham, it explores how such work positively disrupts the public realm and re-thinks the previous framework of 'anti-racism'. It is suggested that anti-racist educational policies and practice have created a moral code which young people can either subscribe to or be punished by and that by failing to engage within a framework of inclusion and openness with young people who express racist views, educationalists risk alienating them from a positive recasting of those views. The article argues that the failure of past policies as one form of multiculturalism has promoted the alienation of those most in need of intervention regarding racism, and that 'Community Cohesion', as actually practiced at ground level, can offer a productive way forward to engage with racism within more intersectional understandings of youth identity and its formation.

This essay aims to discuss the conditions for a successful implementation of the European Youth Guarantee in Italy. In principle, the program should be able to affect the frictional and mismatch components of unemployment, if not the Keynesian and neoclassical ones, as the experience of Scandinavian countries suggests. However, this requires an in-depth transformation of the entire school-to-work transition system, involving not only public employment services, but also educational and training systems. To tackle the Keynesian and neoclassical components of unemployment, instead, it is vital to rethink European austerity and reduce the labor wedge.

Numerosos estudios antropológicos sobre la infancia han mostrado que, en tanto categoría social, es un producto histórico y sociocultural asociado a un proceso biológico de crecimiento. A partir de estos avances es posible considerar la incorporación de la cría humana a la sociedad desde la problematización del tiempo como uno de los parámetros fundamentales de la socialidad. Este enfoque conceptual permite discutir la idea moderna de que la infancia constituye la primera etapa de un desarrollo temporal monocrónico y unilineal, un período destinado al aprendizaje que prepara para vida adulta -defi nida esta última, por contraposición, como una etapa de trabajo. La idea de la infancia como la primera de una sucesión de etapas claramente distinguidas no sólo es sostenida por el sentido común -apropiada por los sujetos a lo largo de su vida-, sino que también sustenta de manera general la normativa de protección de derechos de la infancia. Sin embargo, la antropología puede potenciar los alcances de dichas regulaciones estudiando cómo los niños son atravesados en su experiencia cotidiana por una pluralidad de marcos temporales, por medio de los cuales no sólo aprenden sino que, al estar implicados en ciertos contextos en actividades productivas, pueden también ser partícipes de la producción de conocimiento social.

This paper argues that if higher education institutions are going to place students at risk of sexual harassment by requiring they complete a component of their formal study on work-place based placements, then university educators have a responsibility to adequately equip and appropriately support students so they can effectively identify and respond to sexual harassment. A model from youth work field education is presented that aims to prepare graduates, agency supervisors and university-based field education staff who are capable and motivated to prevent and respond to sexual harassment in the practicum. The systemic and integrated framework recognises student’s fundamental right to safety in the workplace and attends to the constraints on students disclosing, the deleterious effects of experiencing unwanted sexual conduct, and the importance of good practices in care and support. The various components of the approach also take account of the influence of environmental factors as well as issues of educational merit. The model has general applicability to other professional practice domains and can be adapted for use by educators who appreciate the value of equipping students to effectively deal with unwelcome sexual conduct while on placement.

A premise of this paper that despite an emphasis on professional distance the occurrence of self-disclosure is inevitable in the practice of youth work, yet there is little in-depth discussion in the literature, which recognises or reflects this. We utilise literature from counselling and psychotherapy which highlights the pervasive and unavoidable nature of self-disclosure within therapeutic relationships. In doing so we argue that not only is self-disclosure inevitable in youth work, but that decisions about whether or not particular disclosures are right or wrong are difficult, arguing that they need to be reflected upon and explored in their particular context. We suggest some boundaries for selfdisclosure, as well as offer a model within which to begin to distinguish aspects of self-disclosure. This it is hoped will help maintain both effective and professional relationships with young people, but maintain that this still requires the professional judgement of youth workers. In so doing self-disclosure is recognised as not only inevitable but as a useful aid to youth work practice.

This paper critically examines the employment of male youth workers in the field of youth crime prevention. It focuses on how their relationships with young men involved in violence might (or might not) support young men and promote desistance. It does this via the presentation of a single psychosocial case study that examines the relationship between a black male youth worker and a young black man who becomes involved in violence and then falls victim to violence to other young men in his neighbourhood. It illuminates how some male workers’ resources of masculine and street capital may be advantageous in terms of reaching some young men, but may also create barriers to reaching others. The study focuses on how both men in the case struggle to “give up the ball” – a metaphor the paper adopts for the act of conceding masculine capital in the street field. I suggest that for the relationship to provide the support this young man needed it required the creation of a third space between him and his youth worker; that is, a vantage point from where they could both examine their masculinity and how this was related to their respective psychic vulnerabilities. I argue that the two men’s investments in different discourses of masculinity were more significant (in terms of the desistance promoting potential of their relationship) than the similarity in their racial or class backgrounds. The case highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of youth work relationships and for provision of adequate support and supervision for all male workers that incorporates the thorough consideration of their personal and professional identity formation, especially the most heavily gendered aspects.

Religiosity has a profound role and influence on youth development within a community. Religiosity promotes risk reduction and positive moral characteristics and thus remains an avenue of opportunity for transformation in considering the lived experiences of vulnerable young people living on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape, South Africa. The Cape Flats is an area that is overwhelmed with unemployment, poverty, gang violence, chemical substance abuse and a general societal abandonment of young people. It is out of dire hopelessness that a meaningful relationship with God can be experienced by youth. The Cape Flats is, therefore, a fertile space for an intervention of religiosity. This article will research how the agency of youth ministry as a positive youth development can assist in youth development within a community in tension like that of the Cape Flats. While youth development is a broad category for consideration and research, this article will primarily focus on identity formation of young people, in particular, the vulnerable youth living on the Cape Flats.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The agency of youth ministry, in an evangelical epistemology, should seek to address the influencers on adolescent identity formation, as one’s identity has a direct bearing on faith formation. The potential outcome of the article would allow the youth ministry to take serious the impact of the lived realities of youth and adjust their programmatic designs and outcomes, in relation to youth faith formation.

This paper aims to help fill the gap in the literature on how to educate reflective youth work practitioners. The author reflects on his teaching practice. This includes in class, online and field‐based critical reflection work that cuts across a number of courses over three years. Students engage in a range of teaching and learning activities that promote the exercise of human agency and responsible action, alerting them to their own capacity for transformative action and professional youth work practice. The lessons can be adapted for use in other discipline areas where staff appreciate the pedagogical value of reflective practice.

Relatively little is known about the youth labour market in Mongolia. This paper addresses the issue by taking advantage of a recent ad hoc School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS) on young people aged 15-29 years carried out in 2006. After a period of sharp reduction in the 1990s, educational attainment is increasing, as compared to other countries in the area. Nonetheless, important constraints seem to affect the supply of education, especially in rural areas. In addition, as application of the new ILO school-to-work transition classification shows, the country is unable to provide young people with a sufficient number of decent jobs. This translates into high youth unemployment in urban areas and very low productivity jobs in rural areas. Mincerian estimates confirm that human capital is an important determinant of earnings in urban, but not in rural areas

The goal of this report is to present an argument for approaching how we respond to youth homelessness in a new way. The report achieves this by pulling together key information about youth homelessness, to better inform how we respond to the problem. As a peer-reviewed research document, Dr. Gaetz draws on an existing base of research in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, in order to identify effective approaches to youth homelessness policy and practice. The report also draws heavily on several previous works by Dr. Gaetz, including Live, Learn, Grow: Supporting Transitions to Adulthood for Homeless Youth - A Framework for the Foyer in Canada, and several chapters from the book Youth Homelessness in Canada: Implications for Policy and Practice and in particular, the concluding chapter Ending Youth Homelessness in Canada is Possible: The Role of Prevention.

While this is a research report that will appeal to academics, the intended audience is much broader. It has been written in a way to appeal to students, service providers, policy makers and the general public. The key arguments are intended to help inform decision-making in government, communities, and social service agencies. As a research document, it provides an evidentiary base for creating more effective responses to youth homelessness. As a public document, it is intended to inspire change and innovation, with the ultimate goal of contributing to real and effective solutions to youth homelessness in Canada.

- See more at: http://homelesshub.ca/comingofage#sthash.NfSB5E1B.dpuf

This paper addresses the motivations underlying migration decision-making in the case of young university graduates returning to their rural home region in Switzerland. Empirical results show the joint role of social ties, living environment, and job opportunities, although the weight given to each of these factors varies between graduates. Some strategies used by the graduates to cope with a limited labour market are furthermore identified. I argue that internal migrations are far from being the sole consequence of labour market conditions and that a greater appreciation of non-economic issues is needed.

The literature describes a mismatch between the core concepts of salutogenesis, or sense of coherence (SOC), meaning manageability and comprehensibility, as these concepts are manifested in research with Western populations, as compared to non-Western populations. The overall objective of this study is to explore this mismatch and to understand how the core concept of salutogenesis is manifested in youth ages 14-16 from the indigenous Bedouin ethnic minority culture of the Negev, Israel, in their own terms through arts-based qualitative methods. The research methods revolved 80 drawings and texts by youth who drew "a good day that went bad − and how [I] fixed it" as well as focus groups. All data, both verbal and visual, were analysed by dividing into themes and then socially contextualising the themes with a peer group. The findings reveal and concretize a mismatch in SOC between these youth and the predominant Western understandings of coping in terms of meanings, manageability and comprehensibility of coping methods. This study's theoretical recommendations are the need to take steps in the direction of closing the gap or mismatch between a universal versus culturally specific body of literature about culture and SOC. Its practical recommendations are to suggest such a methodology

This study investigates the capacity of youth workers in a British city to undertake health promotion work on sex-related issues and HIV/AIDS. Forty five youth workers completed a semi-structured questionnaire which examined their current work on sex-related issues and HIV/AIDS. Over half had been asked about sex-related issues by young people in the previous month, most frequently about HIV/AIDS. Over half had run formal sessions on these issues but few had received training except on HIV/AIDS. Half requested further training. It is concluded that the youth service has considerable potential for conducting effective health promotion work in this area.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how the technological developments implemented in the production processes and organizational structures of micro and small sized enterprises (MSEs) affect the employment process of youth in these enterprises. Furniture sector is selected as a case. The transformations of production processes and changes in the organizational structure in small firms cause removal of young workers from the production processes. The research was implemented in Siteler which is one of the biggest production region of Turkey. Policy recommendations to improve the quality employment processes of youngsters and furniture sector is also provided.

Despite the concerns about professionalism among youth work practitioners in Malaysia, valid and reliable instruments to measure the construct are lacking. This article reviews the psychometric development and initial exploration of a professionalism measure applicable for use with direct-service youth work practitioners. Results were based on a sampling of 813 government and non-government youth work practitioners throughout Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a
6-factor solution that was used as the basis for the subscales of the instrument. Comparison of means tests indicated higher mean scores according to academic qualification, age, income, gender, marital status and certification and years of involvement in youth work. Limitations and recommendations for further development of the professionalism scale are discussed.

The importance of giving young people a say in casework has received much attention in recent years. Little attention, however, has been given to the question of how to educate youth workers as a way of ensuring young people's involvement in such professional practices. This paper reports on a model for preparing youth workers for participatory casework practice. It is a curriculum grounded in a collaborative-based pedagogy. Such educative frameworks that invite student's participation align with effective theories and models on youth participation. Educators interested in developing youth work students’ capacities to engage in direct practice that encourages young people's involvement in decision making need to ‘practise what they teach’ and teach in ways that encourage students’ active participation. The teaching and learning activities engage students with rationales of youth participation and what we know about young people being given a say in casework. The possible influence of personal experiences and broader social and economic arrangements are explored. And a scenario-based activity invites students to assess the implications of current knowledge, biography and context, to identify challenges and opportunities for practice.

This article investigates the role religiosity plays in the ways young Australian Muslims enact themselves as citizens in a context in which their right to belong to the political community is often seriously questioned. Australian responses to 9/11, 7/7 and the Cronulla Riots have relied on an understanding of Muslim youth identity that sees young Muslims’ religiosity primarily as a barrier to the development of good citizenship practices. Against this backdrop, this article explores the ways in which religiosity informs the everyday acts of citizenship through which young Muslims challenge dominant narratives of citizenship. Drawing on an ethnographic study of two Melbourne-based Shia youth groups, I look at the subjective accounts of multicultural
citizenship that youth group members shared in the course of the groups’ weekly activities. In doing so, I draw particular attention to the role religion plays in the imaginative ways young Australian Muslims fashion themselves into citizens.

A total of 1177 participants from 45 training workshops joined a 3-day training program of the P.A.T.H.S. Project (Secondary 1 Program) in Hong Kong. At the end of each training workshop, participants were invited to respond to a questionnaire comprising 31 structured items and two openended questions which assessed what they had learned and experienced in the training workshop. Qualitative analyses of the participants ' responses to the two open-ended questions showed that the participants generally had positive evaluation of the training, although some suggestions for improvements were noted. The present study, which was based on a sizable sample size, reinforced the previous evaluation fi ndings that the Secondary 1 Training Program of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong promoted the knowledge and attitudes of the potential program implementers.

The emergence of 'social cohesion' as a policy concept in various Western states has been widely understood as part of a backlash against multiculturalism. This article applies an anthropological lens to the implementation of an Australian project to engage young people in order to 'strengthen social cohesion' in outer metropolitan Melbourne. Ethnographic analysis of the project lends empirical support to key critiques of the social cohesion paradigm, including the deployment of 'community' as a technology of cultural governance, the obscuring of socioeconomic conditions and issues of social justice, and the foreclosing of any understanding of conflict as a potential social good. Some of the tensions evident in the project, however, are reflective not of recent shifts but rather of long-running dynamics in the governance of cultural difference. Thus, the article argues, narratives of a 'multiculturalism backlash' capture significant changes but also risk obscuring critical continuities in the exercise of governmentality.

For many young people, youth clubs constitute a key instrument for learning outside the school curriculum. In this article, we scrutinise Finnish youth clubs empirically as spaces of non-formal learning from the perspectives of both professional youth workers and young people themselves. We propose that youth workers tend to present an educational ideal which can be termed the pedagogy of loose space. This implies that educational outcomes are achieved when a diverse group of young people is able to decide what they want to do under the guidance of a professional youth worker.
However, when analysing the experiences of young people, it became apparent that a youth club is not a loose space per se. Instead, the experienced tightness of a youth club can diminish its accessibility to many groups. Our results imply that to achieve the professional ideal of non-formal learning, youth workers need to pay more attention to exclusive spatial practices.

ABSTRACT
This article demonstrates how youth workers in a Dutch city bring together seemingly irreconcilable worlds: the development policies of their organisations and the state on the one hand and the practices, needs and aspirations of young people on the other.
Current policies, like much academic literature on street-level professionals, define youth workers as frontline workers, implementing policies as representatives of their organisations. We approach these workers not as representatives but as brokers. Based on detailed ethnographic research with two youth workers and their
interactions with so-called high-risk boys, we demonstrate that these workers constantly negotiate boundaries, as they are positioned between the policies and the youth. On a theoretical level, employing the concept of ‘correspondence’, we argue that these brokers bring together different actors, institutions and resources, yet without fully integrating them and without forfeiting their own autonomous position.

This article argues that youth housing workers in Victoria, Australia, are vulnerable to housing affordability problems and one reason for this is inadequate pay. A survey of 10 youth housing workers explained the ways in which they had struggled to afford housing. Some paid more than 30% of their wage on housing costs. Others relied on income other than their youth housing worker salary to afford rental accommodation, which included pay from a second job, drawing on credit, and financial support from partners, family, and friends. Most reported that they did not have sufficient income to save to purchase a home. These findings resonate with secondary source aggregate data, which identified that for almost a decade the pay of youth homelessness service workers in Victoria has not kept pace with average wage growth and rises in rents and house prices. Improving youth housing workers pay is recommended as a way to address their housing affordability concerns.

An emerging orthodoxy suggests that agriculture is the key to addressing the youth employment challenge in Africa. The analysis that informs this orthodoxy identifies a number of persistent barriers to increased productivity ; and the programmes that work to get young people engaged with agriculture make assumptions about the young people's interests and behaviours. In this paper we report results from a study with secondary students in Ghana using Q Methodology. The objective was to determine to what degree the students' perspectives were aligned with the main tenants of the emerging orthodoxy. Results show that different perspectives on the two questions (What explains young people's attitude toward farm-ing? What should be done about young people and farm-ing?) can be identified. There are a number of points of convergence between the students' perspectives and the new orthodoxy. However, two important points of divergence were also identified, and the impications of these are discussed.

Purpose of this paper
The paper studies the determinants of gender differences in early career in Mongolia, one of the fifty poorest countries of the world.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis takes advantage of an ad hoc School to Work Survey (SWTS) on young people aged 15-29 years carried out in 2006. Extended and augmented Mincerian earning equations are run and then the Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1993) decomposition method is applied to disentangle the quantity effect, the price effect and the residual wage distribution effect.
Findings
On average, female wages are not lower than those of males. However, although not statistically significant among teenagers (15-19), the conditional gender gap becomes significant and sizeable for the 20-29 year olds. The JMP decomposition shows that most of the gap is due to differences in the way the market values the same characteristics of men and women: in fact, quantity effects tend to reduce, whereas price effects tend to increase the gap. If wages were paid equally, women should have 11.7% more for their higher education attainment and overall 22% more, a substantial gap for the low earnings of Mongolians.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should assess the impact of aspirations of young people on their labour market choices.
Practical implications
The analysis shows that gender differences emerge in concomitance with women establishing a household and giving birth, suggesting that the current interventions to help mothers cope with maternity are insufficient. Changing this outcome is important to reach the Millennium Development Goals.
What is original/value of paper
Labour market issues in Mongolia are understudied, not to mention gender differences in early career.

Rooted in neoliberal discourses, the current sociopolitical environment (including academia) delegitimizes work done by youth and people of color, positioning work as an individual accomplishment whose meaning/fulness lies in individual development or the work itself. Through interview research, I examine working class (largely nonwhite) youth’s articulation of the meaning/fulness of work as an opportunity to: 1) take responsibility for, 2) demonstrate reciprocity to, and 3) spend time with family members. Implications demonstrate work as relational process, suggest an extension of organizational citizenship behavior to a familial context, and challenge characterizations of the working class’ commitment to maintaining their socioeconomic status.

Critical pedagogy empowers Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) advisers facilitate reflective, activist-oriented learning. Its use in school clubs has broad implications for both teachers and youth workers. Informed by critical multiculturalism, this study draws on ethnographic fieldwork from one school year and in-depth interviews with GSA participants. Data reveal that the GSA adviser’s understanding of critical pedagogy is characterized by expanding students’ knowledge, facilitating students’ activism, and encouraging students’ reflection on significant interactions with peers and family. The author concludes these pedagogical practices help create long-term GSAs, where engaged student learning and activism promote a “third space” in youth development work.

This article shares the dilemmas that emerge from a community service project that engages students in a systematic critique of the juvenile justice system from the inside. It explores how competing images of youth (as dangerous thugs, vulnerable children and kids who have made bad choices) coexist uneasily within the juvenile justice system and significantly shape and constrain this community service learning project. They influence how volunteers understand their experiences and relationships with students inside, and they shape how young people in the system speak about their own lives, the inequalities they see around them, and the juvenile justice system itself. By exploring these dynamics this article aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of youth voice.

Youth work is a very recent field in Turkey and the evolution of the field has been very much influenced by the European institutions, especially with the European Union candidacy process of Turkey. Youth work in Turkey can be analyzed in three different layers since the central government, local government (municipalities) and civil society organization all have youth work activities. During our Horizon 2020 PARTISPACE research project, we conducted ethnographic research to shed light on the local characteristics of youth work in a central Anatolian city in Turkey. The cases we discuss in the scope of this paper based on our ethnographic research includes two youth centers, one run by a central government agency, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the other by a local municipality run by the party of opposition. The study reveals the influence of local dynamics and political competition in the development of youth policy and youth work. Our research demonstrates that, even if youth work is not a priority in the public policy agenda, it has become an object of political competition in Turkey.

Jugendarbeit agiert im Allgemeinen nach ihrem methodologischen Selbstverständnis und Bildungsauftrag nicht unter dem Vorzeichen von Prävention. Dort aber, wo Jugendliche mit menschenfeindlichen Orientierungs- und Handlungsmustern durch Angebote der Jugendarbeit erreicht werden, kann dies auch unter präventiven Gesichtspunkten einer beziehungsorientierten und zielgruppenspezifischen „Förderung positiver Lebensverhältnisse“ geschehen. Die akzeptierende Jugendarbeit mit Jugendlichen in rechtsextremen Jugendcliquen ist diesen Weg gegangen. Dieser Ansatz wird auf die Jugendarbeit mit Jugendlichen, die sich in Hinwendungsprozessen zum sog. Salafismus befinden, übertragen.

Rigorous research is crucial to effective work with young people and increasingly youth practitioners need to be able to develop, review and evidence their work using a variety of research and assessment tools. This text equips students and practitioners with a thorough understanding of research design, practice and dissemination, as well as approaches to evidence-based practice.

A clear practice framework informs the book, outlining the significance of research to youth work, especially in relation to designing and developing services for young people. Research and Research Methods for Youth Practitioners:
•Analyses the research/practitioner role
•Explores the ethical context of research in youth work
•Offers a thorough analysis of key methodological questions in research in practice
•Provides a guide to data collection and analysis
•Presents five principal research strategies for youth work: ethnographic work and visual methods; interviewing and evaluation; surveys and evaluation; the use of secondary data and documentary analysis; and researching virtual and online settings
•Discusses the implications of research for work with young people as well as its dissemination.

Written by experienced researchers and practitioner-researchers, each chapter in this accessible textbook includes an overview, a critical discussion of the pros and cons of the particular method or approach, a case study, a practice-based task, a summary and suggestions for further reading. This textbook is invaluable for student and practising youth workers. It is also a useful reference for other practitioners working with young people.