Experience, Culture, and a Future Project

Many young people in South America experience repeated conditions of economic, social, and cultural exclusion, with low rates of secondary school completion and high unemployment exposing them to social violence. Yet, they are also the driving force for change in the region; their creativity is a transformative power. This chapter proposes a pedagogical reflection on the learning process and on social and educational participation. Each young person’s individual experiences and the knowledge they acquire in institutions and diverse social contexts are a platform to develop cultural promotion opportunities that produce the conditions to build a future project. Social educators practice one of the social tie professions that help generate bonds with culture, institutions, and other people, whereas educational action relates each young person to common cultural heritage. Social pedagogy faces the challenge and responsibility of creating strategies and cultural transmission methods for all youth, becoming a political action that fosters equality.

Ethics and Professional Deontology in Socio-educational Youth Work

In recent years, socio-educational professions have experienced a qualitative leap in the development of their epistemological, scientific, and technical foundations. One important aspect of this is a reflection on the ethical dimension of their activities. This chapter first considers the linkage between the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ethics, and social education. It then explores the difficulties that professionals encounter when incorporating their ethical commitment into their working practice, and it seeks to show that although the proliferation of declarative documents in the form of deontological codes may be of value in defining a unitary position, these documents do not constitute an effective approach to the real situations of moral conflict in which socio-educational professionals find themselves in their day-to-day practice. Finally, the chapter proposes a number of operational criteria and training proposals with a view to constructing applied ethics in work with adolescents and young people.

Training and Professionalization of Youth Workers in Europe

The training and professionalization of youth workers in Europe has been implemented differently in each social and political context. This chapter focuses on how the training and professionalization of youth workers has evolved at a European level and its current situation, as well as concerns and challenges that arise in international debates. The training and professionalization of youth workers in Europe is currently being systematized through the deployment of regulatory frameworks, most of which are promoted by the Council of Europe and the European Union within the framework of the European convergence process. Despite this, there is much diversity in terms of types of training, recognition levels, and intervention models. However, consensus is gradually being reached regarding functions and competences that can contribute both to the credibility and recognition of professionals and to the improvement of their working conditions and quality of interventions.

Youth Participation in Europe

In the European context, there is no one accepted definition of youth participation either in the political arena or in academic debates. This chapter analyzes whether the current discourses consider reshaping youth involvement in both public and individual spheres. It presents empirical findings on youth participation’s discourses as they emerge in exemplary interviews with experts, contrasting them with comments from young people collected through focus groups conducted in different youth social spaces in eight European cities. The goal is to analyze whether the claim for youth inclusion and engagement is inspired by the socio-pedagogical principle of participation as an empowering tool for young people, groups, and communities or by an adult-driven agenda focused on young people’s future as adults rather than their actual way of living, their needs, and their desires.

The Social Pedagogy of Youth Policies in Latin America

This chapter reviews the institutional actions and discourses linked with public policies affecting young people in Latin America, highlighting three large institutions that have impacted this sector in the region: the army, the justice system, and schools, which view young people as a group at risk who must be helped. Next, the chapter discusses youth within the framework of their interactions and well-being, as part of one of the distinctive aspects of social pedagogy—placing it at the center of public policy. Finally, the chapter discusses the relevance of a dialogue between adults and young people that channels the demands, conflicts, and concerns of both in order to produce new youth policies, starting from the recognition of young people through a generational perspective that must be present in all government actions.

Reflections and Proposals for Socio-pedagogical Work with Young People

This last chapter takes a more detailed look at and combines some of the main contributions that have been made in the different chapters comprising this book. The text is divided into three sections. The first advocates the need for a socio-educational approach based on a positive and updated view of youth. The second argues in favour of a pedagogy of choice to accompany young people in their growth and provide them with the tools and environment for them to be able to decide and act according to their own life project within the framework of the community. And the third concludes that there is a need for public policies to improve their response and attention to young people through joint and shared goals, including both social agents and young people in this process.

Youth and Participation in a Digital Society

This chapter describes how most young people use online networks to extend and maintain their lives in the familiar contexts of school, cultural organizations, sports, and other activities. The new generations move about on social networks, create links, and share knowledge, and the delocalization of these connections allows them to function beyond any physical space. This chapter presents examples of different youth perspectives on digital participation (social, political and citizen, community participation projects, etc.) and examines some assumptions about what youth participation means (online, online–offline, click participation, new content production, projects owned by youth, and projects for youth). Finally, it provides some guidelines to support social pedagogy professionals in this area.

Transitions from Care to Work for Vulnerable Young People in Spain, England, and Argentina

This chapter describes different experiences of social and labor market inclusion through socio-educational action for a specific group of vulnerable young people from Spain, England, and Argentina—namely care leavers. The chapter explores these interventions from the perspective of several research studies that contribute important information to evaluating the effects and social impact. Along with different models of intervention, reference is made to the legislative and social policy changes and the organization of resources that have taken place in the three countries to improve the transition to work for care-experienced young people. In this way, experiences, theory and research are considered an interactive system that in recent decades has managed to modify complex realities of people and collectives. This has contributed to an emerging and shared system that turns transitions to the world of work for vulnerable young people into a commitment to transforming societies.

Socio-educational Youth Policies in Europe

This chapter examines what consideration young people in Europe deserve and some of the sociological data that characterize this group, highlighting the existence of a growing inequality among this segment of the population. The chapter presents an approach to evolving youth policy across Europe and outlines the most relevant actions promoted by the European Union, including those that have been the subject of debate or controversy. Finally, the chapter addresses the role of social pedagogy in youth policies. Youth work is viewed as an eminently educational endeavor, and the chapter highlights the importance of socio-educational policies in all youth policies, insofar as they offer opportunities for young people to develop as individuals and provide tools for them to shape their place in society, become autonomous, and contribute to advancing the community.

Reconnecting Social Work to Social Questions

Social pedagogy as an academic discipline and social practice has gained importance in many European countries during the past two decades. This popularity boost is often driven by the observation that social work has adopted a one-sided focus on individual needs and does not address the roots of social problems. The pedagogical approach is then called upon to help solve recurrent social problems. Increasing the effectiveness of social practices, however, does not only lie in their repedagogization. This is only part of the answer. Resocialization should be equally on the agenda. Therefore, it makes little sense to approach social work and social pedagogy as separate fields. This chapter argues for social pedagogy as a perspective on social work in order to enable social practices to cross the counterproductive dividing lines between culture, welfare, and politics and reconnect social practices to social movements.