Youth work in flux: an academic point of view on youth work training and education

Youth work is one of those terms that can often be found in numerous policy documents, professional and policy debates, and youth projects of the last decade, and as a topic of round tables, seminars and public discussions. Following the adoption of the new European Youth Strategy and consequently, the launching of the European Youth Work Agenda during the German presidency of the Council of the EU, youth work was given added impetus. Moreover, youth work is slowly but steadily gaining recognition within the academic community. There is a visible proliferation of courses covering certain aspects of youth work, with a growing number of additional academic programs, and an increase in the number of scientific and professional projects in the domain of youth work.

It is for the purpose of better understanding what youth work represents that the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, in collaboration with the Universities of Rijeka and Ljubljana, organizes the conference Youth work in flux: an academic point of view on youth work.

The conference is held as part of the Erasmus + project Supporting Evidence-based Education of Youth Workers.

Aim and Focus of the Conference

The conference will gather around 100 participants, researchers, scholars and doctoral students in a hybrid form. The aim is strengthening the epistemic community of scholars and researchers in the domain of youth work, while instigating an academic debate on existing knowledge in the domain, defining further topics that need to be explored, and investigating the possibilities of co-creating the knowledge with actors from the community.

We invite all the interested scholars and researchers to submit their abstracts that problematize the theoretical, analytical and methodological models of youth work research, and innovative practices that can be analyzed by employing theoretical strongholds of the disciplines related to youth work.

Furthermore, we particularly encourage submissions by doctoral students whose research topics are related to youth work to participate in the symposium of doctoral students that will be held within the conference.

We are particularly interested in the papers resulting from empirical research in the following and similar domains:

• (formal and non-formal) education of youth workers
• Professionalization of youth work
• Recognition of youth work
• Institutional architecture of youth work
• Relationship between youth and youth work
• Ethics in youth work
• Youth work as a prevention practice
• Critical theories of youth work
• Relationship between youth work and related professions
• Mentorship, supervision and coaching in youth work
• Youth work in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.