Young People and the Struggle for Participation: Contested Practices, Power and Pedagogies in Public Spaces

239 Pages·2019·4.889 MB·English

by  Andreas Walther, Janet Batsleer, Patricia Loncle, Axel Pohl

Young People and the Struggle
for Participation
Young People and the Struggle for Participation rethinks dominant concepts and
meanings of participation by exploring what young people do in public spaces
and what these spaces mean to them, individually and collectively. This book
discusses how different spaces and places structure and are in turn structured
by young peoples’ activities.
Drawing on findings from a comparative study in eight European cit-
ies, insights into different styles of youth participation emerging from for-
mal, non-formal and informal settings are presented. The book provides a
comparative analysis of how transnational discourses, national welfare states
and local youth policies affect youth participation. It also investigates how it
comes about that young people get involved in different forms of participa-
tion in the course of their biographies.
This book will appeal to academics, researchers and post-graduate students
in the fields of youth studies, community studies, sociology of education,
political science, social work, psychology and anthropology.
Andreas Walther is a Professor for Educational Sciences and Director of
the Research Centre ‘Education and Coping in the Life Course’ at Goethe
University Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Janet Batsleer is a Reader in Education and Principal Lecturer in Youth and
Community Work at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Patricia Loncle is a Professor of Sociology at the French High School of
Public Health, Rennes, France.
Axel Pohl is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Social Work and Social
Spaces at the FHS St. Gallen, University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland.

Young People and the
Struggle for Participation
Contested Practices, Power and
Pedagogies in Public Spaces
Edited by
Andreas Walther, Janet Batsleer,
Patricia Loncle and Axel Pohl
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2020 Andreas Walther; Janet Batsleer; Patricia Loncle;
Axel Pohl
The right of Andreas Walther, Janet Batsleer, Patricia Loncle
and Axel Pohl to be identified as editors of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-36242-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-43209-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Contents
List of figures and tables ix
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgements xv
1 Contested practices, power and pedagogies of young
people in public spaces: an introduction 1
AxEL PoHL, JAnET BATSLEER, PATRICIA LonCLE
AnD AnDREAS WALTHER
Part I
Conceptual and contextual frameworks of
youth participation 13
2 Researching youth participation – theoretical and
methodological limitations of existing research and
innovative perspectives 15
AnDREAS WALTHER, AxEL PoHL, PATRICIA LonCLE AnD
nIGEL PATRICK THoMAS
3 Discourses of youth participation in Europe 34
VALéRIE BECqUET, SIYKA KoVACHEVA, BoRIS PoPIVAnoV
AnD ToRBJöRn FoRKBY
4 Do youth policies matter? National and local youth
policies as contexts of youth participation 49
PATRICIA LonCLE, MoREnA CUConATo, DARIo TUoRTo
AnD BJöRn AnDERSSon
vi Contents
Part II
Empirical insights into forms and meanings of
youth participation 65
5 ‘This is a compressed political system’. Ambivalences
of formal youth participation 67
DEMET LüKüSLü, ALExAnDRE PAIS, DARIo TUoRTo
AnD AnDREAS WALTHER
6 Young people’s appropriation of public space:
participation through voice, sociability and activity 82
BJöRn AnDERSSon, CHRISTIAn REUTLInGER, PATRICIA
RoTH AnD DoMInIC ZIMMERMAnn
7 Making a home in the city: how young people take
part in the urban space 97
VALERIA PIRo, nICoLA DE LUIGI, CHRISTIAn REUTLInGER
AnD DoMInIC ZIMMERMAnn
8 Examining styles of youth participation in
institutionalised settings as accumulation of capital forms 113
ZULMIR BEčEVIć, BERRIn oSMAnoGLU, BoRIS PoPIVAnoV
AnD HARRIET RoWLEY
9 Participation and everyday life: emerging meanings
in youth cultural practices 130
ILARIA PITTI, YAğMUR MEnGILLI, ALESSAnDRo MARTELLI
AnD PATRICIA LonCLE
10 The interplay between life trajectories and
participation careers 146
MoREnA CUConATo, SILVIA DEMoZZI AnD VALéRIE BECqUET
11 Participation biographies: meaning-making,
identity-work and the self 161
GRAInnE McMAHon, SUSAnnE LILJEHoLM HAnSSon,
LARISSA Von SCHWAnEnFLüGEL, JESSICA LüTGEnS, MARTA ILARDo
Contents vii
Part III
towards new ways of understanding and
supporting youth participation 177
12 Everyday pedagogies: new perspectives on youth
participation, social learning and citizenship 179
BARRY PERCY-SMITH, nIGEL PATRICK THoMAS,
JAnET BATSLEER AnD ToRBJöRn FoRKBY
13 Struggle over participation: towards a grounded
theory of youth participation 199
JAnET BATSLEER, AnDREAS WALTHER AnD DEMET LüKüSLü
Index 219

List of figures and tables
Figures
13.1 Recognition of different forms of practice in public spaces 203
tables
1.1 overview over in-depth case studies in the eight cities 5
3.1 Relation between national and European discourses 44
12.1 Action research projects grouped by project aims 183
12.2 A framework for pedagogies of participation 194