Youth Employment Policies: Tackling Meanings and Social Norms within National Contexts

The transnational urgency of tackling youth employment problems has prompted state interventions, which have strongly geared youth policies toward employability. Applying a cognitive and interpretative approach, this article compares youth employment policies in four contexts—France, Canada, Quebec and Argentina—to highlight frames of reference and social norms involved in public action. The results reveal, first, commonalities and differences in public-policy approaches, in terms of goals, targeted populations, solutions, services and tools. Second, beyond policies’ formal characteristics, semantic analysis highlights the major national references and policy directions in the realm of youth employment. Third, the frames of reference show social norms shaping state solidarity and young people’s role in the labour market. The results stem from a documentary analysis of some 100 youth employment policies and programs, as well as interpretative analysis of interviews (N = 20) with experts and coordinators of some of the main policies in each context.

The Third Sector Reform in Italy: an Opportunity for Matching Social Innovation and Youth Policies?

Social innovation should represent a step forward activation policies, promoting a new balance between economic development and social cohesion, reducing inequalities and vulnerability. The Third sector is a privileged sphere of social innovation: there are many expectations on its ability to provide innovative answers to unaddressed social needs; one area of its intervention are youth policies. In Italy, the Third sector reform established new provisions on volunteering, civil service and social entrepreneurship, which should primarily benefit the youth. It allows to explore the double face of the Third sector transformation and of the European rhetoric on social innovation. On the one side institutions are trying to recognize emerging grass-root practices which combine social involvement, professional fulfillment and political action in order to respond new societal challenges. On the other side, the market is still fundamental in practices and discourses around social innovation, that maintain many contradictions of the activation policies.

Social and Local Inequalities in Leisure. Adolescents’ Experiences in Their Living Space

This article analyses how the political-institutional, spatial, social and symbolic dimensions of their living space influence teenagers’ leisure experiences, both separately and in conjunction with one another. We look in particular at how leisure policies for youth in France, as implemented by urban and rural municipalities, influence adolescents’ experience by defining opportunities, and how territorial inequalities combine with social inequalities. In this perspective, the article reports the results of research based on quantitative and qualitative surveys on leisure activities of teenagers living in diverse geographical and political territories, differentiated in terms of their leisure offer and its geographical accessibility. It appears that territorial inequalities in leisure and transport can be accentuated or compensated for by socio-familial resources and the representations that adolescents and their parents have of their living space.

Local Youth Policies between National Frameworks and Local Peculiarities: Examples from Two European Cities

There are ongoing debates in youth research and politics about the impact of European and national youth policies on the local level. Based on the qualitative findings collected in the framework of the European Project partispace, this paper aims at analyzing whether and to what extent current local youth policies relates to national and European policies. Attempting to answer this question, it presents some empirical findings from a study on youth policies in two European cities: Bologna and Frankfurt. Before the reconstruction of the historically grown links between the local and the national youth policies, first the structures of current youth policies are analysed. After this, the results of expert interviews, focus groups with young people from a variety of youth scenes are presented to enlighten how youth policies work in these two urban contexts. It shows that they are linked to national policies in very different constellations with very different outcomes on the level of how they are perceived and taken up by the young people.

More “Europe” in Municipal Policy Structures? Anchoring European Youth Policy at the Municipal Level in Germany

Against the background of the implementation of the EU Youth Strategy (2010–2018) in Germany, the article explores the question of how European youth policy can be anchored at the municipal level. The article discusses (1) federal and regional efforts to incorporate the municipal level in implementing European youth policy, (2) arising challenges and (3) the significance of European policy for national, regional and municipal youth policy. Results suggest that although the involved actors stipulate the importance of municipal level involvement in designing the implementation of the EU Youth Strategy in Germany, the Strategy is actually implemented as a top-down strategy in which the municipal level receives impulses from other levels, rather than being incorporated in policy development. The article concludes that, in order to successfully strengthening European impulses in sub-national youth welfare discourses, mutual understanding and dialogue between levels is just as necessary as a content-related rather than process-related discussion.

Do Disadvantaged Young Adults Benefit Less from Social Investment? Studying Matthew Effects in Activation Measures

In Germany, social investment can be crucial for disadvantaged young adults, as intergenerational mobility is low and credentials are decisive for employment. However, the literature on policy implementation calls attention to ‘Matthew effects’, by which the most disadvantaged often have the least access to social investment. We contribute to ongoing research on Matthew effects by examining whether the worst-off among young German welfare recipients are assigned to active labour market policy measures that are more advantageous or less advantageous. Findings for a register sample of 20–22 year olds in 2014 support hypotheses that those with the lowest education and employment experience participate less often in the most advantageous measures; particularly in firm-based upskilling and employment assistance, and more often in measures that proved to be not as beneficial, such as workfare programmes. On a positive note, welfare experience during adolescence as an indicator of low socio-economic status in the family of origin does not additionally affect access to social investment policy measures.

The Circulation of Youth Policies and Adaptation of Youth Work Practices Organised by Young People at Local Level in France

This article is focused on two local participation initiatives in North America and Europe. The Youth Services Cooperatives, summer organizations created by teenagers in Quebec, have been adopted in France since 2013, with the support of local institutions responsible for organising youth policies in the Brittany region (France). The other initiative, youth dialogue exchanges organised by young people, was established in Italy, the United Kingdom, and France. This European scheme aimed to create new ways of thinking about cultural policies for young people at local level. Conceptually, this work is based on actor-network theory (Akrich, Callon, and Latour, 2006) and the transnationalisation of public policies (Hassenteufel, 2005) applied to youth policies (Loncle, 2011), with a view to understanding how organisations working across different countries adapt certain international initiatives between different local contexts. The research is based on fieldwork. Interviews were conducted with young people, youth workers, and decision makers in France and Quebec. In Italy and in the UK, informal discussions and interviews with decision makers were carried out, and observations were made during activities led by young people. The analysis demonstrates that the circulation of participation initiatives is strongly dependent on the original context, especially with regard to the organisation of youth policies. Some characteristics of the initiative, for example the model of community organisation, are difficult to transfer to a country where public policies are centred around public institutions. Because of the absence of international actors who would be able to facilitate links between the organizations involved in these projects, local youth workers have taken on the role of international mediators between the original project and the new initiative in the destination context. These experiences are of interest for understanding how young people can have a fundamental role in implementing new participation initiatives, and have an impact on the definition and implementation of youth policies.