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that was struck in 2005 on matters such as training, research and youth co-operation in the
Euro-Mediterranean area. The critical questions invariably hinge around three issues:
• Labour market participation and employability
• Participation, civil society and democratic renewal
• Social integration and inclusion
There are, of course, wider European challenges where the youth agenda clearly has a
significant place. These include global economic competitiveness, human rights, the
intergenerational contract, mobility and migration, and intercultural tolerance and
understanding.
From policy to practice
Though I spend much of my time these days working at the policy level, my personal
background is firmly in the realm of practice. I worked with young people for well over 25
years. Moreover, my research work has often been ‘action-oriented’ and has involved
studies of youth offending, youth unemployment, substance misuse, youth enterprise,
school exclusion, social marginalisation, as well as evaluations of policy initiatives. I am
fundamentally committed to improving the quality of our ‘offer’ to more disadvantaged
and more disconnected young people, those I have always chosen to call the ‘disengaged’
(not the disaffected).
This is the year of the Council of Europe’s All Different All Equal campaign concerned
with diversity, human rights and participation. We know that these are long term
aspirations. We have to be sure that our policy directed at less equal young people really
reaches them. If it is snapped up by the more included, then we will have failed and, in fact,
contributed to the worsening of the ‘youth divide’. Thus we have to find mechanisms for
ensuring that policy ‘engages’ the disengaged and this is unlikely to be achieved through
short timescales, grand a priori claims for massive success, and an open offer. This raises
many questions about the basis of funding policy initiatives, their timetables, and perhaps
the need for more robust targeting of measures. Ultimately, however, it is about extending
opportunity and experience to those young people who are currently denied it.
The received wisdom, over time and across countries, is that the key factors for social
integration and inclusion rest within four contexts: the individual, the family, the school
and the community. This should be rather self-evident. But where there is an overall
poverty of support and guidance for learning and development, there is inevitably a poverty
of outcome, both for the individual and for those around them.
So what should ‘youth policy’ be doing on this front? My view is as follows:
1. We must bury the myth that education and employment should have some kind of
‘natural’ connection. They are increasingly separate, in the sense that application
and achievement in formal education holds the promise of labour market
opportunity commensurate with qualifications. We have to rethink the balance of
academic, vocationa and civic learning. We have to look at the relationships
between formal and non-formal learning methods and contexts. We have to ask
how important it is that qualifications should have credibility and currency (where
and who for). And we need to make sure that there are second (and third) chances
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