Young People’s Participation. Группа авторов
at the intersection between political structure and living conditions.
Alessio La Terra is a philosopher and political activist. He graduated from the University of Bologna, Italy, with an MA in philosophy in 2017 and is currently studying to become a high school teacher in philosophy and history. His research interests focus on contemporary central European philosophy and on the history of scientific thought. His MA thesis has been published under the title I Limiti Terreni dello Spirito [The Earthly Limits of the Spirit] (Il Capitello del Sole, 2018).
Claire Levy is a PhD researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and Senior Lecturer in Film at Bath Spa University, UK. Her research focuses on participatory methodologies and the embodied ways young people engage with their locality. She is a documentary film-maker and her work often focuses on experiences of young people. She is also editor of Streetsigns, an online magazine published by the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Jonas Lieberkind is Associate Professor of Educational Sociology at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research is based on both theoretical and empirical studies of society, politics and citizenship education. In particular, he has focused on current tendencies among young people, their attitudes towards society, and research questions concerning students’ political socialisation. He is part of the Danish research team that conducts the International Civic and Citizen Education Study.
Nicola De Luigi is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Bologna, Italy. His research activities focus on two main fields – youth studies and social policy – addressing the following issues: gender inequalities in the transition from education to the labour market, educational processes and labour market changes, youth politics and participation in urban spaces. He is the author of many journal articles and works with research institutes and networks at both national and international levels.
Anna Markina is a researcher in the School of Law, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her research focuses on youth delinquency, the juvenile justice system, youth imprisonment and intervention programmes. She has conducted qualitative research with young people on probation and parole, in prisons and reformatories, addressing the rights of the child, the effectiveness of interventions and young people’s response to them. She is a member of the steering committee of the International Self-Report Delinquency Study.
Gráinne McMahon is a feminist academic at the University of Huddersfield, UK. She researches feminism and human rights activism and social movements, and young people’s social, political and civic participation. Her work centres voice and experience in challenging the patriarchal, elitist and racist structures that oppress, in particular, women and people of colour. She is the research lead and a trustee for RAPAR, a human rights organisation in Manchester, UK, and is active on social media: @grainnemcmahon.
Christina McMellon is a researcher and youth worker currently based at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, UK. She is committed to exploring meaningful ways for young people to participate in all research and particularly research related to mental and sexual health. She loves travel, the sea and good stories.
Cecilie K. Moesby-Jensen is Assistant Professor of Social Work and Disability at the Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Aalborg, Denmark. Her research field is social work with vulnerable children and young people, and she is currently involved in a study on the meetings between statutory caseworkers and children and young people with autism spectrum disorders and their families. She lives in Copenhagen and is vice-chair of a non-governmental organisation dedicated to encouraging children with disabilities to join sport clubs.
Rhetta Moran is a praxivist, most interested in creating and sustaining people and things – initiatives, projects and organisations – in ways that are always alive to the relationship between theory and practice. As a writer and action researcher, she has over 30 years’ experience of working from local to global, across all sectors, to centralise the involvement of vulnerable people in the development of constructive changes and solution making. In 2001, she initiated RAPAR (www.rapar.co.uk).
Rein Murakas works as a consultant researcher and an analyst for Estonian and international research projects. His main research fields include youth problems, inequality, financial behaviour, entrepreneurship, social policy, health, methodology and the use of social science data sources.
Anne Mette W. Nielsen is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Youth Research, Aalborg University, Denmark. Her research interests include young people’s participation and agency in education, community projects and cultural institutions. She is currently engaged in research about young people on the edge of society and their participation in formal and informal arenas.
Barry Percy-Smith is Professor of Childhood Youth and Participatory Practice at the University of Huddersfield, UK. He has extensive experience in the theory and practice of youth participation and has published widely on these issues, including A Handbook of Children and Young People’s Participation: Perspectives from Theory and Practice (co-edited with Nigel Thomas, Routledge, 2010). His main interests are in children and young people as active agents of change, and participatory approaches to learning and change in organisations and communities.
Ilaria Pitti is Senior Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy, and Vice-President (Southern Europe) of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 34 Sociology of Youth. Her research is located at the crossroad between youth and social movement studies, focusing on the analysis of young people’s participation in social movements and subcultures. She is also interested in the effects of precariousness on youth conditions and on young people’s individual and collective reaction to precariousness.
Markus Quandt is a senior researcher and team leader at GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. His research is based on quantitative surveys in cross-country comparative settings. Substantive interests are in political and social participation, as collective goods problems in individualising and rapidly changing societies. Methodological interests concern the comparability and validity of survey-based measures of attitudes and values. He is affiliated to the group conducting the European Values Study.
Anne-Lene Sand is a postdoctoral researcher at the Design School Kolding, Department for Design for Play. She holds an MSc in educational anthropology and a PhD in education. For the past nine years her research has been centred on young people’s self-organised and semi-organised urban practices, using a variety of sensory and visual methods in order to uncover the perspective of young people.
E. Kay M. Tisdall is Professor of Childhood Policy at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is part of the Childhood and Youth Studies Research Group at the Moray House School of Education and Sport. She has developed a collaborative programme on children and young people’s participation, both domestically and with cross-national partners. She is author of a range of policy and academic publications, and has editing experience of both books and special journal issues, including Global Studies of Childhood and International Journal of Human Rights.
The editors would like to thank the VELUX FOUNDATIONS for providing funding for the work of the European Network of Multi-Disciplinary Research in Youth and Participation that has led to this edited book. Also thanks to all the members of the network for engaging in important explorations of the concept, practice and future of youth participation in Europe and for taking part in the intricate and time-demanding process of writing this book. We are grateful to have all your contributions in the book. Thanks to Policy Press for believing in the relevance of the publication even while it was in the making. Finally, a profound thanks to all the young people across Europe who have voiced their experiences with engaging in participatory processes. Without you this book would have no merit.