Youth Work Process, Product and Practice

Bol

Youth Work Process and Practice provides an overview of the central concerns in youth work today, exploring what youth work actually consists in and developing an authentic theoretical framework for practice. This accessible textbook places the role of the curriculum and idea of practice as a process at the centre of youth work. Exploring important aspects of practice – such as empowerment, participation and choice, group work, experiential learning and the importance of relationship building – Jon Ord explains how the idea of curriculum can be used to communicate, legitimate and develop youth worth practice, as well as help to articulate its value and importance. The book includes a detailed and up-to-date analysis of the policy climate, looks at the implications of its focus on measurability and outcomes and discusses the impact of devolution in the UK on youth work practice. It contrasts dominant contemporary perspectives of youth and youth culture and argues that, rather than competing, ‘informal’ and ‘social’ education are twin aspects of an educational practice which must emphasises both individual development and wider social change. Youth Work Process and Practice is an essential read for all students of youth and community work and will also be an important reference for practising youth workers.

Bol Partner

At a time of heightened interest and concern over young people within communities, the way in which various agencies and professions work with them is under scrutiny and attack. Author Jon Ord suggests that youth work cannot defend itself against erroneous and rival conceptions of practice unless it can sufficiently articulate its own. By providing a framework for the creation of authentic curricula for youth work, this book offers one of the means by which individual workers, services, and the profession as a whole can promote its unique educational practice. The prescriptions offered are contextualized in a wider discourse on educational theory and practice, drawing on philosophy, educational psychology, sociology, management, and politics. Youth Work Process, Product and Practice systematically confronts the historic and current controversies, and engages critically with some of youth work's academic and policy-making big hitters.