EU RESEARCH ON

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Youth Policy and Participation.

Potentials of participation and informal
learning for young people’s transitions
to the labour market. A comparative
analysis in ten European regions.

YOYO
FINAL REPORT

EUR 23189
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 EUROPEAN COMMISSION

EU RESEARCH ON
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Youth Policy and Participation.

Potentials of participation and informal
learning for young people’s transitions
to the labour market. A comparative
analysis in ten European regions.

YOYO

Final report

HPSE-CT-2001-00072

Funded under the Key Action

‘Improving the Socio-economic Knowledge Base’ of FP5

DG Research
European Commission
Issued in
December 2004

Coordinator of project:
Institute for regional innovation and social research (IRIS e.V.)
Tübingen, Germany
Dr Andreas Walther

Partners:
German Youth Institute, Munich, DE
Asociación Regional y Europea de Análisis (AREA), Valencia, ES
Centre of Youth Studies, University of Leiden, NL
National Agency of Supporting Youth Initiatives, Bucharest, RO
Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, DK
Institute of Social Sciences, Lisbon, PT
School of Policy Studies, University of Ulster, UK
Department of Applied Social Sciences, National University of Cork, IE
Department of Educational Sciences, University of Bologna, IT
Centre of Social Work and Welfare Studies, Dresden University of Technology, DE

Directorate-General for Research

2007 Citizen and Governance in a knowledge-based society EUR 23189 EN
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 Preface

Within the Fifth Community RTD Framework Programme of the European Union (1998–
2002), the Key Action ‘Improving the Socio-economic Knowledge Base’ had broad and
ambitious objectives, namely: to improve our understanding of the structural changes
taking place in European society, to identify ways of managing these changes and to
promote the active involvement of European citizens in shaping their own futures. A
further important aim was to mobilise the research communities in the social sciences
and humanities at the European level and to provide scientific support to policies at
various levels, with particular attention to EU policy fields.

This Key Action had a total budget of EUR 155 million and was implemented through
three Calls for proposals. As a result, 185 projects involving more than 1 600 research
teams from 38 countries have been selected for funding and have started their research
between 1999 and 2002.

Most of these projects are now finalised and results are systematically published in the
form of a Final Report.

The calls have addressed different but interrelated research themes which have
contributed to the objectives outlined above. These themes can be grouped under a
certain number of areas of policy relevance, each of which are addressed by a significant
number of projects from a variety of perspectives.

These areas are the following:

• Societal trends and structural change
16 projects, total investment of EUR 14.6 million, 164 teams
• Quality of life of European citizens
5 projects, total investment of EUR 6.4 million, 36 teams
• European socio-economic models and challenges
9 projects, total investment of EUR 9.3 million, 91 teams
• Social cohesion, migration and welfare
30 projects, total investment of EUR 28 million, 249 teams
• Employment and changes in work
18 projects, total investment of EUR 17.5 million, 149 teams
• Gender, participation and quality of life
13 projects, total investment of EUR 12.3 million, 97 teams
• Dynamics of knowledge, generation and use
8 projects, total investment of EUR 6.1 million, 77 teams
• Education, training and new forms of learning
14 projects, total investment of EUR 12.9 million, 105 teams
• Economic development and dynamics
22 projects, total investment of EUR 15.3 million, 134 teams
• Governance, democracy and citizenship
28 projects; total investment of EUR 25.5 million, 233 teams
• Challenges from European enlargement
13 projects, total investment of EUR 12.8 million, 116 teams
• Infrastructures to build the European research area
9 projects, total investment of EUR 15.4 million, 74 teams

v
This publication contains the final report of the project ‘Youth Policy and Participation’,
whose work has primarily contributed to the area ‘New perspectives for learning’.

The report contains information about the main scientific findings of YOYO and their
policy implications. The research was carried out by eleven 11 over a period of 39
months, starting in July 2001.

The abstract and executive summary presented in this edition offer the reader an
overview of the main scientific and policy conclusions, before the main body of the
research provided in the other chapters of this report.

As the results of the projects financed under the Key Action become available to the
scientific and policy communities, Priority 7 ‘Citizens and Governance in a knowledge based
society’ of the Sixth Framework Programme is building on the progress already made and
aims at making a further contribution to the development of a European Research Area in
the social sciences and the humanities.

I hope readers find the information in this publication both interesting and useful as well
as clear evidence of the importance attached by the European Union to fostering research
in the field of social sciences and the humanities.

J.-M. BAER,

Director

vi
 Table of contents

Preface v

Acknowledgements 9

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 12

1. Research design 13

2. Motivation and demotivation in de-standardised transitions 14

3. Participation – motivation – learning 17

4. Sustainable inclusion – inclusive citizenship? 21

5. Contextualisation and transferability 25

6. Amivalences and recommendations 27

II. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT 31

1. Objectives 31

2. Theoretical concepts 32

3. Research questions 34

III. SCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT RESULTS AND METHODOLOGY 36

1. The research design 36

1.1. Work programme and methodology 36
1.2. The international perspective: transition regimes as interpretative
background 39
1.3. The case study projects 42
1.4. Transition patterns of interviewed young people 47

2. Motivation in transition 52
2.1. Labour market orientations and meaning of work 53
2.2. Experiences with institutions 54
2.3. Motivational change 57

3. Participation and motivation 62

3.1. Young people’s experiences of participation and their motivational
impact 63
3.1.1. ArciRagazzi,Palermo, Italy: priority of participation in youth work 64
3.1.2. Simon Youth Project, Cork, Republic of Ireland: priority of
integrating homeless youth 66
3.1.3. Cityteam, Rotterdam/Utrecht/Zoetermeer (Netherlands):
preparation for training and work 68

7
 3.1.4. Shalom, Freiberg, Germany (East): priority of (subsidised)
employment 70
3.1.5. Cooperative ‘Infinite Patience’, Alfafar, Spain: participatory
training and employment 73
3.2. Perspectives of motivational change through participation 75
3.3. Conclusions 81

4. Contexts and dimensions of learning biographies 82

4.1. Perspectives on learning 83
4.2. Learning Arrangements in five case studies 87
4.2.1. Batoto Yetu, Lisbon, Portugal: Integration of youth at risk 87
4.2.2. “We want to Become Independent”, Bucharest, Romania:
Integration of youth at risk 89
4.2.3. Open Youth Education, Egaa, Denmark: Preparation for education
or training 91
4.2.4. Lifting the Limits, Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK: participatory
training and employment 94
4.2.5. Atelier LaSilhouette, Munich, Germany: participatory training and
employment 96
4.3. Discussion: learning biographies in different contexts 99
4.3.1. Informal and non-formal 99
4.3.2. The social dimension: communities of practice 101
4.3.3. Competence gain and learning biographies 103

IV. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS 104

1. Potentials of participation for citizenship and social inclusion 104

1.1. Perspectives on success 104
1.2. Factors of participation, motivation and biographical learning 106
1.3. Inclusion through participation – or: reconciling soft skills and hard
resources 110
1.4. Key factors: money and persons 113
1.5. Scope for participation across different European transition regimes 116

2. Ambivalences and recommendations 120

V. DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION OF RESULTS 126

1. Strategies for dissemination during the life time of the project 126

2. Follow-up of results after the completion of the project 129

3. Political impact of research findings 129

VI. REFERENCES AND BIBIOGRAPHY 131

8
Acknowledgements

This report aims at presenting the findings of the research project ‘Youth Policy and
Participation. Potentials of participation and informal learning for young people’s
transitions to the labour market. A comparative analysis in ten European regions.’ (in
short: YOYO). In order to disseminate the findings as widely as possible also among a
non-academic public of practitioners and policy makers this report concentrates on the
key findings of the study. Parallel to the report a book publication is being prepared in
which theoretical discussions and empirical analysis are deepened while qualitative data
are presented more extensively.

Before entering into the analysis and discussion we want to express our gratitude for
having been involved in a research process which has been an enriching experience.
First, this has to do with the network with whom we lived a research process which was
everything else than linear but rather complex and difficult to oversee. Not only has a
high level of intercultural and interdisciplinary understanding been achieved, but also the
will to really understand each other – despite of long detours. We hope that the European
Commission will continue to appreciate and fund projects which encorporate a deep
European research identity although covering only a small space in the so-called
European Research Area. We therefore want to thank all persons who at one stage or the
other have been involved in the project:

Gry Gronenberg, Alkexandra Holmboe, Torben Bechmann Jensen (Denmark); René

Bendit, Kerstin Hein, Lothar Böhnisch, Holger Kehler, Sarina Ahmed, Roberto Priore
(Germany); Paul Burgess, Pat Leahy (Ireland); Morena Cuconato, Corina Laasch,
Gabriele Lenzi, Luca Minguzzi (Italy); Manuela du Bois-Reymond, Wim Plug
(Netherlands); Mafalda Margarido Santos, José Machado Pais (Portugal); Ana Maria Dalu,
Loredana Iacob, Octav Marcovici (Romania); Andreu López Blasco, Germán Gil Rodrigues
(Spain); Andy Biggart, Amanda Hayes (Northern Ireland, UK). From the advisory board
we want to thank Eberhard Bolay (Germany), Lynne Chisholm (Austria, Greece),
Christoph Reinprecht (Austria), Siyka Kovacheva (Bulgaria), Patricia Loncle (France),
Katy Orr (Scotland, UK), and Susanne Zander (Sweden).

Second, this relates to the fact that the YOYO project was situated between research
fields and policy sectors which normally are separated. It showed that we addressed
issues which are held important by representatives of labour market, education and
training as well as youth policy and research while being beyond their conventional
boundaries. We hope that the research findings and outcomes are a relevant contribution
to what in an earlier project we have named Integrated Transition Policies (Walther,

9
Stauber et al., 2002; López Blasco et al., 2003). The project allowed us to participate –
and sometimes to dive rather deeply – into a broad range of biographical and project
realities. We thank all the young people who have agreed to share their perspectives with
us, the project workers who engage in and often enough fight for creating conditions
allowing young people to really participate. This affluence of interpersonal experience
probably is best expressed by the video films produced together with young people about
what it means to ‘be in transition’ (see annex 3). While being grateful for meeting all
these persons and to witness their attempts to empower young people, we are deeply
concerned about a policy trend across Europe due to which a majority of these projects
either have already been stopped or are at risk.

Before this background of experience we would like to invite to the reading of this report
which is structured as follows: The first part includes an abstract and the executive
summary (chapter I.). The second part (chapters II. – IV.) presents the scientific report
starting by introducing the objectives and key concepts (II.). Chapter III. consists of the
scientific description of the project: the research design, a model of different regimes of
youth transitions as well as a typology of analysed case study projects (chapter III.,
section 1.3.) and continues with the perspective of structure and agency in young
people’s transitions to work (chapter III, section 2.). Exemplary case studies are
discussed with regard to the possibilities of active participation in enhancing young
people’s motivation to engage in the construction of their biographies (chapter III,
section 3.); and whether and how this can be used to support young people in developing
reflexive learning biographies (chapter III, section 4.). Combining a policy and a practice
perspective chapter IV draws conclusions under what conditions this leads to sustainable
social inclusion and citizenship. The third part documents the dissemination activities of
the YOYO-project (chapter V). The report is complemented by a series of annexes: a
training module for practitioners, a report related to video films produced with young
people as a step of participatory research, a detailed list of publications, conference
papers and education or training events emerged from the project, a breakdown of the
sample of interviewed young people and case study projects, and material related to the
empirical research steps.

We thank especially our colleagues Amanda Hayes and Andy Biggart for helping in editing
this final report with regard to acceptable English.

Andreas Walther, Axel Pohl, Barbara Stauber, Gebhard Stein, Tübingen, December 2004.

10
Abstract

The project was concerned with the de-standardisation of young people’s transitions to
work and the way in which this affects their citizenship status and their motivation to
engage in lifelong learning. The relationship between structure and agency in youth
transitions was analysed across a range of EU contexts: Denmark, Germany, Ireland,
Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the UK. In analysing young people
experiences of their transitions significant de-motivation was evident, in particular where
resources and opportunities were restricted due to low attainment, gender, ethnicity or
lack of job opportunities. Young people’s motivation was seen as a dynamic process
related to the fulfilment of needs, generation of interest and development of self-efficacy.
De-motivation was rarely related to training and work per se, but rather linked to the
conditions that are imposed on young people in the formal settings of training and labour
market programmes.

The project aimed to investigate the conditions under which policies succeed in
motivating young people to engage in their transitions. Analysed case study projects
showed that participation can be an important way to enhance motivation if it means
choice, flexibility, open outcomes, space for experimentation, trust, holistic support,
rather than a focus on individual deficits; in short: non-formal education that allows for
the development of reflexive learning biographies.

The analysis showed that such characteristics were largely restricted to the ‘soft’ youth
work sector while in the ‘hard’ policy sector of education and training, welfare and the
labour market, participation tended to be reduced to formal procedures and attendance
or is absent altogether. A key finding was that only a combined approach of soft skills
and hard resources, such as recognised qualifications or jobs, was likely to lead to
sustainable social inclusion. Policy however appears to moving away from this direction
and the few projects which successfully achieved this were suffering from ongoing
funding difficulties. Current policy discourses promote participation as a key principle of
civil society however if it is not linked to social rights – with the exception of the
universalistic transition regime in Scandinavian countries – they increase self-
responsibility and individualise social risks. In particular, activate labour market policies
tend to undermine and restrict individual autonomy, however if active citizenship is the
democratic formula for self-determination within flexibilised labour markets, individual
motivation is a valuable key for both policy and research.

11
I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

How do and how can young people participate in society as citizens? With the increasing
de-standardisation of young people’s transitions between education and the labour
market – young people’s perspectives of life planning and social integration are
increasingly blurred. They are caught in uncertain ‘yo-yo’-transitions between youth and
adulthood, a socio-political vacuum without clear social status. Several policies are to be
found at national and European level concerning the participation of young people –
however underlying these policies are different understandings of participation:

• Labour market policies aim at young people’s employability to participate in

employment.

• In education and training, the focus lies on participation in lifelong learning.

• In social policies, activation refers to participation in terms of rights and

responsibilities.

• Youth policy is concerned with youth participation as civic and political involvement.

These policies are concerned with high rates of youth unemployment, ‘status zer0’ youth,
early school leaving, dependency on social benefits, declining election rates, decreasing
involvement in associations, and increasing racism and violence. Yet, the discussions are
more concerned about the status of young people than about their motivation. However,
there are differences:

• The ‘hard’ policy sectors – education, training, labour market and social policies –
where individual motivation is seen as an expected contribution of young people
while de-motivation is addressed as an individual deficit.

• The ‘soft’ sector of youth work in contrast aims to enhance young people’s
motivation by providing opportunities of active influence according to subjective
need and interests. However, this is mainly restricted to the areas of leisure,
culture and associational life.

12
 The YOYO project starts from young people’s de-motivation and
disengagement from education, training and the labour market. The
underlying assumption is that there is a lack of integration between
‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policies for young people which contributes to a
fragmentation of their citizenship status and reduces motivation. The
main research question is therefore whether motivation for
employability, lifelong learning, responsibility and involvement is more
likely to develop in participatory settings. The project aims to assess
whether motivation is an appropriate key to the relation between
structure and agency in de-standardised youth transitions. It relates to
the prerequisites of citizenship and assumptions of motivation in current
activation policies.

1. Research design

Nine countries have been involved in YOYO covering a wide range of different European
contexts: Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, UK.

The analysis of young people’s transitions and motivational careers in relation to

participatory projects required a multi-dimensional approach. The research consequently
combined aspects of biographical research, action research, policy analysis and
comparative research. This has been addressed by a design consisting of four main
research phases:

Phase 1: National reports on youth transitions, youth policy and participation on

the relation between the socio-economic structures of young people’s transitions to work,
the institutional forms of (especially local) youth policies and discourses of participation.

Phase 2: Exploratory interviews with young people on their transition experiences

and processes of motivation and demotivation. While the majority of the sample
consisted of young people at risk of disengaging with the transition system, a contrast
group of young people with choice biographies was interviewed (‘trendsetters’ such as
young self-employed) to get insights into prerequisites of (intrinsic) motivation for
transitions.

13
 YOYO in figures:

365 young people interviewed

(ca. 70% twice)

141 experts interviewed

28 case studies carried out

10 video films produced

Phase 3: Case studies with projects addressing young people in their transitions to
work in a participatory way (three per country). The case study process consisted of
three sub-steps:

• document analysis and expert interviews;

• interviews with young people on experiences within projects;

• participatory research by video films with young people on ‘being in transition’.

Phase 4: Joint analysis of the relation between participation and motivation and its
impact on social inclusion across different types of projects and contexts.

2. Motivation and demotivation in de-standardised transitions

The YOYO project starts from the perspective on the changing nature of youth
transitions, whereby they are seen as increasingly de-standardised, fragmented and
reversible and the former biographical linearity is being replaced by ‘yo-yo’-structures.
Structural flexibilisation is reflected in individualisation: more and more decisions have to
be taken alone; however on the basis of unequal access to resources and opportunities
according to class, education, region, gender and ethnicity, with the persistence of
structural inequalities.

In the context of de-standardisation inequality does not only mean differentiation

according to social status but also different risks of social exclusion and rather than
through collective patterns it is reproduced through individual decisions. Therefore, youth
transitions need to be analysed as an interplay of structure and agency. The respondents
in our study can be clustered according to six different transition patterns, i.e.
constellations of structural trajectories and individual transition steps and how these
correspond to the logic of institutionally defined trajectories.

14
 Transition patterns of YOYO-respondents:

- smooth: in line with institutional logic, no major interruptions;

- institutionally repaired: interruptions overcome by remedial

intervention;

- alternative: leaving institutional logic (at least partly) by choice;

- stagnant: progress blocked by interruptions and failure, constant risk

of exclusion;

- downward/damaged: accumulation of risks of social exclusion;

- unknown/other: if no clear pattern was observable.

Among the ‘trendsetters’ the ‘alternative’ pattern predominated, whilst the transitions of
the ‘disengaged’ young people were mostly either ‘stagnant’ or ‘institutionally repaired’.

In general, these different transition patterns reflect different underlying levels of

motivation, however, although assuming a close relation between structural
disadvantage and motivation the YOYO project was interested in a biographical
perspective on the dynamics of careers and motivational change: where and how young
people lost motivation and/or were re-motivated. De-motivation in most cases results
from a discrepancy between initial orientations and actual experiences. The latter in most
cases are mediated by institutional actors of the transition systems functioning as ‘gate-
keepers’ and contributing to the cooling-out of young people’s aspirations.

The first of these institutions is school, where young people criticise school for its
“standardised education”. Many of them held the view that teachers “didn’t care” about
them. While young migrants felt their achievements went unacknowledged and were
actually devalued due to language deficits, as result many leave without qualifications.
This negative evaluation extends to professional orientation, where some reported that
they were openly discouraged while the feeling that “once you have chosen, you can’t
turn back” caused considerable stress.

15
 “[In school] nobody makes demands on you as a person, only on your
abilities” (Denmark, female, 18).

“’You have no hope, son, you’ll never be anything’ he [career officer]

said” (UK, male, 19).

“[The career officer] dropped a list with professions and we were to

choose one. It wasn’t more than that” (Germany (East), female, 26).

“It is an administration after all … Just staring into your file, going bah,
bah, they treat you like a cow” (Germany (West), male, 21).

“We are alone! If you are lucky enough to have some friends, fine …
otherwise …” (Italy, female, 19).

“I am invisible, a number that doesn’t exist. Because I am not getting

any benefit” (Spain, male, 25).

“I think I’ll just be a fucking victim” (UK, male, 17).

While appearing more reflexive and able to maintain motivation young women on the
other hand complain about structures of doing gender: “for the girls: only placement
offers in hair-dressing and retail”. Similarly, the employment service was criticised for a
lack of efficiency, with limited time for counselling and addressing individual needs. In
contrast to Northern European countries, in Southern and Eastern Europe where
employment services are still in the process of being established young people complain
about the absence or inefficiency of institutions. From the bureaucratic treatment,
critique extends to the offers made by the employment service be it jobs, training
schemes or pre-vocational education. Young men from Belfast reported that there
options were to join the army or to go on a training course they did not want to be on. In
Germany, young people who fail to enter regular training are channelled into pre-
vocational education that does not provide additional qualifications while it is ‘mere luck’
if they lead to proper training or a job. In Southern Europe and especially Romania
training is criticised for its mismatch with the labour market: “I wasn’t trained properly”.

Motivational change results from the generation of subjective interest

combined with a perception of increased self-efficacy

These examples show that in particular those with bad starting positions are quite likely
to have further de-motivating experiences. If they do not make any positive counter

16
experiences de-motivation is generalised and the risk of disengagement increases. It is
also not surprising that only a few made a distinction between a positive notion of
‘learning’ and the de-motivating experiences of formal education. However, a closer look
showed that in fact there were several cases where young people maintained their
motivation despite a lack of opportunities, while others made motivating experiences
within participatory projects. The YOYO-research is interested in a biographical
perspective of motivational change that is based on a dynamic understanding of
motivation. In psychological theory motivation is defined as resulting from two factors:
subjective needs and interests on the one hand and the perception of self-efficacy on the
other. Both aspects are open for experiences and potential change: motivational change
can derive from discovering or losing interest or from increasing or decreasing
experiences of self-efficacy; or a combination of both which may be subsumed under a
growing (or declining) feeling of self-determination. Motivational change can be related to
intrinsic aspects inherent within the experience of an activity and extrinsic aspects
related to the instrumental quality of an action; while of course also intermediate
constellations exist such as extrinsic motivation for actions related to self-chosen goals.
In terms of transitions motivation is primarily seen as a prerequisite for learning. At the
same time however motivational change can also be seen as biographical learning while
de-standardised transitions increasingly demand reflexive learning biographies or
‘biographicity’. The key question of the YOYO-project is to what extent can these
processes be influenced by participatory projects?

3. Participation – motivation – learning

Why should participation allow for motivation, especially if participation itself depends on
motivation? The basic assumption for formulating such a research question was that
participation might allow for identification with self-chosen objectives and to develop self-
efficacy beyond a selective and bureaucratic formal learning setting. This of course
requires an understanding of participation as active influence (rather than formal
involvement) and as an integral principle of policies (rather than a potential result of
policy). One may also argue that participation is not learned unless ‘by doing’ and by
experience – in all arenas of subjective relevance – which is a third key aspect: not to
restrict participation to artificial (‘soft’) sectors but to allow for biographical self-
determination within ‘hard’ transition policies.

Looking at the YOYO case study projects, only some of them addressed participation in
this all-encompassing biographical sense. In most cases participation was referred to as
voluntary access, involvement in project-related decision making or civic engagement.
From a lifelong learning perspective, biographical self-determination relates to

17
participatory learning. This implies a broad perspective of competence in which
recognised (professional) knowledge, life skills, and biographical reflexivity
(‘biographicity’) are integrated to the same extent as formal and non-formal types of
learning. One purpose of the case study analysis was to look for the relationships
between different dimensions of participation and to identify aspects and forms of
participation and non-formal learning which were applied by the project workers.

ArciRagazzi in Palermo, Italy, is a youthassociation organising leisure

and culturalactivities. In a context structured by 60%
youthunemployment it aims at providing young peoplemeaningful life
perspectives. Participatory culturalactivities based on young people’s
skills andwishes and encouraged to experiment andplayfully reinforce
them. In fact, experimentationfor some men and women extends to
careersfrom simple usership over voluntary engagementto semi-
professional project leaders. Pamela, 21, relates her own motivational
change to herprogressive involvement in the project. In themeantime
she is leader of a child recreationcentre: “You have to create your job
yourself …nobody should tell you: ‘do this and that’. Youhave to take
decisions … We have mademistakes during this project but it was ok, it
wasgrowing up – like self-training”.

A basic issue in this respect is one of choice and one that allows for identification with
subjectively meaningful goals. Choice in one respect means to be free of coercion but it
also implies that alternatives are available. This relates to an understanding of policies as
an infrastructure which young people – addressed as ‘citizens in transition’ – are free to
use and which are accessible. This means that support or learning opportunities are
situated in young people’s life worlds and that thresholds for access are low. Addressing
young people’s choice can mean that (extrinsic) attractors and user resources (e.g.
money, internet facilities, housing etc.) may be needed in order to allow young people
positive experiences with non-formal learning. However, it can also mean that the
intrinsic quality of leisure activities (like dance) is used to instil a feeling of self-efficacy in
extrinsic aspects of life like training or work.

The Open Youth Education, Denmark, was acountrywide initiative

launched in 1994 (andclosed in 2002). The goal was to offer all
youngpeople who either were not able or interested inattending existing
types of educationalternatives to pursue individual plans betweenformal
and non-formal education. The purposewas stated as: “It is not up to us
to decide whythe young person does not want to pursue atraditional

18
 education … we cannot force her/himto do so, at least not in the kind of
society wewish to have. But we can try to createincentives.” F., female,
19, is not afraid to do things differently: “It simply should not be
like,that things can only be done in one way … It ismy education. It is
me who takes the decisions.”F. wants to learn and stresses that
everything ispossible as long as the individual works hardand is allowed
to develop. Her “fuel” is the wishto develop her passions and her belief
thatsocial contact between people and life ingeneral has to “zigzag”.

The aspect of choice also extends to the way young people make use of a project which
requires that the outcomes of learning processes and directions of transitions are open
rather than pre-structured. Within the context of de-standardised transitions young
people increasingly are expected to take self-responsibility while the outcomes of
destinations themselves are less predictable. Therefore policies and projects need to be
flexible in terms of duration, activities, and intensity of support.

Another range of factors relates to providing young people with the space to experiment
with their own ideas and capacities. This includes giving them responsibility for their own
projects, in which they learn ‘by doing’ and by ‘stealing with the eyes’. In particular the
performing arts seem ideal in this respect. In the context of changed intergenerational
relationships peer learning proves to be an effective form of learning. This however
requires heterogeneous groups rather than projects focused solely on the so-called
‘disadvantaged’. The dimension of space also includes existential aspects like housing
and safety: spaces ‘to be’.

Batoto Yetu in Lisbon, Portugal, is a danceproject for young people of

African origin. Theproject aims at bringing young people “in contactwith
their roots and develop self-esteem,perseverance and discipline” and
give themvisibility. The group performs on internationaltours as well as
on TV. However, a condition forparticipating in performances is effort in
schoolachievement. In fact many of them enter highereducation. The
project therefore is also meetingpoint for doing homework, leisure
activities, andsupport in everyday life. B, male, 19, attends atraining
course in computing and is involved inthe HipHop scene. Involvement in
Batoto Yetuhas influenced his learning attitude: “We don’tlearn in
school. We learn on the streets! We learnfrom the people we meet
during our lives. We seewho talks more, who says more trues
thanothers, and we always keep those things in ourhead. Then (and

19
 talking in rime) ‘It will come outand I’ll come back …and I’m beginning
to improvise’”.

Participation is a form of recognition towards young people whereby who ‘come as they
are’ do not have to adapt to formally set criteria or conditions. This means on the one
hand not to reduce a person to deficits measured against the meritocratic competition for
scarce careers. Focussing on strengths does not necessarily mean low level demands but
may imply a focus on other activities – in which young people are more competent. It
also means that it is important to address ‘the whole person’ and not to neglect aspects
of life which may be subjectively more pressing than education or work. However,
entitlement to benefits, allowances or wages are also powerful signs of recognition as a
citizen.

A final and again basic factor of participation with respect to motivation and non-formal
learning are experiences of trust with both project workers and peers.

The project “We Want to Become Independent” was carried out by

theCommunity for Child Support Association (CCSA) in Bucharest,
Romania. The keyobjective was to support young people frompublic care
centres on their ways toindependence and to train practitioners in
thisregard. First young people were prepared foreveryday life activities
such as preparing meals while also applying role play; second they
wereaccompanied during a time in which they livedon their own in
shared ‘transition flats’.Alexandra, 16, has spent her childhood in
aplacement centre since the age of two. Althoughthe atmosphere in the
transition flat is not verydifferent from the orphanage – “We simply
arenot listened to.” – she feels more independentand has developed
”other plans, but it’s like adream … I want to have a family, my
ownhome, to be no longer dependent upon others”.

Many young people only get in contact as long as they trust the project workers not to
follow the interests of institutions such as the employment service, social security or the
police. Likewise, unconditional support implies the individual fulfilment of needs such as
belonging and recognition. Relationships with ‘adults’ who are ‘different’ and therefore
represent ‘significant others’ are an important prerequisite for biographical learning. They
serve as role models but also as ‘sounding boards’ to act out experienced injustice and
subsequently to reflect on biographical perspectives. In many instances young people
even accept pressure regarding training or job search if they perceive it as an act of care
and friendship rather than control and repression.

20
 The Atelier LaSilhouette from Munich, Germany, at the first glance
offers normal certified vocational training in dressmaking for young
women. At a closer look, it provides a holistic set of support and
accompaniment as all participants have a migration background. to
those who often are not even allowed to start a vocational training
because of insecure residence permits. The project is highly attractive as
the young women are also involved in the creation of an own collection
which they present at fashion shows. And it is participatory inasmuch as
they are involved in all project-related decisions. Jelena, 21, after school
was desorientated, “totally de-motivated”with severe drug problems.
Her project entry appears as the big counter experience from the very
first moment: “I sewed a bag ... and I did really well. I was so
fascinated about this bag, about myself – about being creative. And had
the impression this is a place where everybody is open, where you can
manage.” She manages to stay in the project and go back to therapy –
knowing what a fragile resource motivation is.

4. Sustainable inclusion – inclusive citizenship?

The finding that participation can have a positive impact on motivational careers and
learning biographies emerges rather unanimously from the analysis, this is much less the
case with regard to social inclusion and citizenship; especially if a perspective is applied
which takes account of both systemic and subjective dimensions of social integration. In
this respect, the key question is to what extent projects actually succeed in combining
soft and hard outcomes, i.e. motivational change, biographicity, social skills and
creativity as well as qualifications, income and/or sustainable jobs.

Lifting the Limits in Armagh, Northern Ireland,UK, supports the

inclusion of young mothers byproviding training and employment in
communityleadership. Apart from theoretical and practicallearning and
the experience of outreach work inthe community the young women are
employed,receive a wage and assistance in childcare. Theproject
provides a recognised qualificationenabling for entry to higher education
in youthand community work. Participation, which is self-evident as the
young women are seen as adults,means “a kind of self-determination,
freedom inchoices … And the courage and self-confidenceto stand up
and say, ‘This is the choices I want tomake’”. Colette, 25, left school at
18, worked for awhile and got pregant. One year after the birth ofher

21
 son she starts a youth group: “I think it wasmy own drive just to go,
look I can do this, Ineeded it – because I had to prove to myself thatI
could do it.” Lifting the Limits, which she comesacross while
volunteering at the local Women’sCentre, rather than changing her
motivationalcareer is an opportunity to invest the high level ofmotivation
she has maintained.

Five main types of case study projects can be distinguished, according to their priority
objectives; their target groups; their original field of practice; their function in the
transition system; their ways to apply participation and non-formal education; and the
relation of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ outcomes:

• Priority of participation in youth work: Youth work projects address ‘all youth’
according to a general prevention logic without having systematic links to the
labour market. Participation is central and addresses at least the dimensions of
voluntary access and project-related decisions or community development. Only in
a few cases is biographical participation explicitly addressed through experience in
voluntary work, the possibility of semi-professional careers or counselling. Non-
formal education means learning-by-doing, cultural practice, peer education and
relationships of trust. While most project workers see the need of a broader
concept of competence, the structure and objectives of projects are primarily
related to the provision of motivation, confidence, and social skills. It depends on
the individuals to what extent they can successfully use this for their transitions
(example ArciRagazzi).

• Priority of integration of ‘youth at risk’: These projects have the objective of

selective prevention in relation to groups seen as particularly vulnerable. Cultural
practice plays a central role in projects for ethnic minority youth to raise their self-
esteem and provide them with experience of success. The transfer of such
experiences is addressed more explicitly with regard to school than to the transition
to work. In this sense, participation includes the biographical level while non-formal
and peer learning are central (example Batoto Yetu). In projects for young people
with multiple social disadvantage such as homelessness, drug use or growing up in
public care transitions to work are one facet of a more holistic approach. At the
same time the goals of integration and participation are more modest and
pragmatic. Soft skills are the main aim while hard resources are restricted to the
needs of everyday life. Thereby, sustainable biographic perspectives are limited
(example ‘We want to become independent’).

22
• Priority of preparation for training and work: Pre-vocational measures that
explicitly address the transition problems of young people with low education
and/or a lack professional orientation in a remedial perspective. Methods and
approaches are diverse such as individual education plans (example Open Youth
Education), counselling, life planning, internships, and voluntary work. Not in all,
but in some cases involvement is not voluntary but imposed by welfare and labour
market policies. Therefore the degree of participation varies from low to high in the
sense of being voluntary, biographical and project-related. In most cases, soft skills
are the major outcome of these projects, however in the labour market oriented
sense: career (re-)orientation, life plans, preparation for job interviews,
adaptability to work environments. In terms of hard resources, participants in some
projects are entitled to benefits or allowances while only one measure provided the
possibility to improve qualifications.

• Priority of training and employment: A series of measures primarily concerned

with delivering hard resources like qualifications or jobs. This means either that the
projects’ prime objective is to close the gaps in the supply of training by flexible
training programmes. However, the need to meet formal standards of training (also
to ensure funding) implies that young people with severe problems in most cases
do not enter the measures; or that these young people only profit in terms of pre-
vocational training. In normal employment schemes access occurs through the
bureaucratic principles of the employment service rather than by individual choice.
Formal curricula, the function to ‘clean’ unemployment statistics and limited space,
time and funding restrict potentials of participation but may allow for non-formal
methods of training. However, soft skills tend to be secondary compared to hard
outcomes.

• Participatory training and employment projects: There are some projects that
consciously aim to empower young people by providing both ‘hard’ labour market
relevant resources and ‘soft’ skills in a participatory setting. This can be support for
young people in self-employment, alternatives project in which (long-term)
unemployed young people continue to receive their benefits ‘in exchange’ for
socially useful activity, cooperatives organising activities between voluntary work,
occasional jobs and self-employment in a democratic way, projects providing
regular training, but ones that are embedded in a holistic setting of support and
participation and that relates to professions which are likely to attract the target
group. Most of these projects focus on disadvantaged groups, like for example
young mothers or young women from ethnic minorities (examples Lifting the Limits
and Atelier La Silhouette). While starting from the objective to provide hard

23
 resources these projects are aware that these can only lead to sustainable inclusion
if they are embedded in soft skills – and backed by (extrinsic) – and often
existentially important – financial incentives. These projects apply peer learning,
respect of individual needs, scope for active participation and emphasise personal
development as much as vocational training or employment.

Only where projects consciously extend from their original function and field of practice
to the other pole of the continuum is it possible to reconcile ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ outcomes. It
seems that this is easier for projects from the hard sector, especially if addressing
particular disadvantaged groups, than for actors from the ‘soft’ sector lacking recognition
within the transition system. In terms of the wider debate about competence we suggest
to see this integration of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects, as well as of professional or technical,
social and personal dimensions, as the key criterion of distinction between skills, abilities,
knowledge or qualifications (see figure 1.).

Figure 1.

24
5. Contextualisation and transferability

Even more difficult to answer are questions about the transferability of such models of
‘good practice’. A key factor in this respect are different ‘transition regimes’ whereby the
interplay of socio-economic structures, institutions and cultural patterns structures is
understood: the selectivity or permeability of education, the standardisation of training,
regulation of labour market entrance, entitlements to social benefits, and dominant
concepts of youth in general and of disadvantaged youth in particular. The analysis of the
relationship between the case study projects and the respective regimes enables us to
draw conclusions with regard to the perspectives of participatory support or the
reconciliation between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ policies in different contexts:

• In the universalistic transition regime (Denmark in the YOYO project) young people
have choice even within the ‘hard’ policy sectors like education or active labour
market policies. Combined with entitlements to allowances, wages or benefits as
long as they remain active this reflects the centrality of motivation for personal
development in citizenship. However, evidenced not only by the closure of one of
the case study projects (example Open Youth Education), but also by the fact that
a so-called ‘residual’ group of migrant youth are not reached, suggests that young
people need to buy into a specific cultural model before being able to profit from a
transition system which in principle allows for participation and choice biographies.

• In the liberal transition regime (UK and Ireland) policies are much more clearly
geared towards the early labour market integration and economic independence of
young people (also if single parents; for example Lifting the Limits). On the one
hand, priority of individual responsibility is reflected in a flexible system of
education and training while in measures for the most vulnerable participation
plays a certain a role. On the other hand, workfare policies exert pressure to
ensure young people do not remain unemployed and dependent on social benefits.
In sum, flexible spaces are counteracted by individualised risks and pressure.

• In the employment-centred regime (Germany and Netherlands) where transitions

are structured by a selective school system and standardised vocational training
youth is mainly interpreted as allocation to occupational positions. Those in regular
trajectories are secure while others face high risks of exclusion; in Germany even
without automatically being entitled to social benefits. Disadvantage means that
individual deficits need to be compensated before making ‘real’ choices. Hard and
soft policy sectors are strictly separated so that participation in transitions to work
is basically a question of high school qualifications. While Germany is a rigid

25
 example (example Atelier La Silhouette as an exception), the Netherlands
represent a more flexible version of this regime type.

• The main feature of the sub-protective transition regime in Southern Europe (Italy,
Portugal, Spain) is a structural deficit with regard to both soft and hard policies for
young people. The lack of links between education and employment results in long
waiting periods, high unemployment and increasing precariousness while the lack
of welfare rights makes young people dependent on their families. Youth
organisations of the third sector increasingly are the only bridges towards an active
social life – often without systematic links with the labour market. The structural
deficit however implies that social space is less institutionalised so that some
voluntary initiative can eventually turn into careers; yet precarious ones (examples
ArciRagazzi and Batoto Yetu).

• In the post-socialist transition regime (Romania) de-standardisation is especially

dramatic. While in the communist period education and employment were tightly
linked – with little individual choice but considerable security – toady education,
training and the labour market fail to keep pace with transformation and the
increasing risks of social exclusion. State institutions have lost credibility, in
contrast to the few NGOs who manage to secure funding to close the gaps of
training, youth work or social policies. Rather than finding spaces for
experimentation and initiative young people have to accumulate any possible
training and qualifications for potential opportunities. A minority of them succeed
by opening up their own businesses. For the others participation mainly takes place
in dreams of emigration.

If considering the transfer of selected good practice the complexity of contexts needs be
taken into account. However, knowledge about factors of success allows for de-
contextualisation and re-contextualisation by assessing whether functional equivalents
exist in other contexts.

A factor of interest in this respect is also the potential impact of EU-policies concerned
with young people’s transitions to work applying the Open Method of Coordination to
mainstream objectives in national policies. The picture here is again ambiguous:

• The European Employment Strategy relates to the ‘hard’ end of the scale –
‘employability’ – whilst conceding problems of labour market policies in attracting
disadvantaged youth.

26
 • The Lifelong Learning Strategy strongly promotes the validation of non-formal
learning however it prioritises skills which may be directly applied in work contexts.

• The Social Inclusion Process follows a multi-dimensional approach of social

inclusion that is related to complex needs; yet, participation is interpreted in terms
of rights and responsibilities.

• The White Paper on Youth advocates a cross-sectoral youth policy based on the
principle of participation although one that is largely reduced to procedural aspects.

Most important for the perspective of transferability however is that many case study
projects experienced major funding problems during the period of the project (across all
regimes) citizenship. In particular, the two participatory training projects addressing
disadvantaged young women – which were closest to the YOYO objectives – have been
or are at risk of closure through lack of funding.

The most successful approaches are at risk due to funding problems.

6. Amivalences and recommendations

Participation is a way to enhance young people’s motivation and ‘lived citizenship’ as a

status and a practice, but this does not apply for all concepts of participation and under
all conditions. The above findings demonstrate that participation needs to be more than
just a procedural pedagogical principle, but that it also is required to be a principle within
‘hard’ policies.

Participation implies that young people have rights, resources and

spaces which secure their negotiation power in relation to institutions of
the transition system and the labour market. In order to allow for
motivational change, participation means to re-open spaces for choice
and self-determination including those with restricted opportunities.
Participation and motivation only lead to sustainable social inclusion if
related to a broader concept of competence integrating hard resources
and soft skills in reflexive learning biographies.

If we look at current discourses and policies we find the opposite. This also applies to a
broad understanding of competence which includes both hard and soft aspects. The more
explicitly agencies refer to participatory principles the less they are recognised by the
‘hard’ sector and the less possibilities young people have to capitalise on their
experiences in their transitions to work. The increasing demand of soft skills from the
economy does not imply that formal qualifications have become less important. In

27
contrast, it seems as if meritocracy expands by ascribing lacking qualifications to an
assumed lack of soft skills (rather than the other way round).

It is noteworthy, that participation is promoted in times in which workers’ participation in

the economy is curtailed and individual autonomy undermined by activation policies. Or:
the civil society is proclaimed while being disconnected from the welfare state; whereby
participation risks becoming the mask of a ‘new tyranny’ of individualisation and self-
responsibility.

Participation is ambivalent if not secured by rights and resources. A key

finding of the YOYO project is that social inclusion and citizenship of
young people require both a welfare state approach of redistributing
resources and opportunities and a civil society approach of participation.
While welfare without participation can turn into alienating
normalisation, participation without welfare carries the risk of
individualised exclusion and precariousness.

28
 Key recommendations

Assessment of young people’s transition problems:

• Differentiate between the structural aspect of achieved transition progress –

according to an institutional logic – and subjective motivational careers.

• Understand de-motivation as resulting from experiences of denied choice,

neglected needs and interests, and damaged confidence in self-efficacy rather than
as individual deficits.

Design, implementation and evaluation of policies:

• Allow for choice in terms of voluntary access and by providing alternative options.

• Keep learning outcomes open and transition directions open rather than evaluating
projects through one-dimensional success rates; foresee a flexible use of measures.

• Provide spaces for experimentation and learning by doing.

• Give young people responsibility for their transition projects while offering flexible
support.

• Recognise the whole person with his/her needs and interest, not only those related
to transitions from school to work; evaluate projects in terms of soft and hard
outcomes.

• Connect any activity which is either useful for personal development or for the
wider community, or both, with social rights and entitlements to the existential
minimum.

• Allow for continuity of projects due to reliable funding structures.

• Ask young people for subjective experiences when evaluating measures.

Delivery of practice:

• Restrict learning opportunities to a framework rather than pre-structuring the

learning process while providing support if required.

• Do not restrict to fields of practice, official function and formal professionalism but
extend to all areas relevant for the needs and interests of young people.

29
 • Focus on strengths by selecting the activities in which young people are competent
rather than concentrating on the compensation of deficits.

• Invest an advance of trust in young people and prove worthy of being trusted by
young people by offering unconditional support.

• Develop local partnerships from the perspective of increasing young people’s

choices and allowing for individualised networks.

Research perspectives:

• Mainstream a biographical approach in transition research.

• Adopt an Interdisciplinary approach related to separate policy fields and research

perspectives which intersect young people’s transitions.

• Longitudinal research in biographical perspective to identify factors of sustainable

inclusion.

30
II. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

1. Objectives

The social integration of young people has become one of the prime objectives of
European and national policies as young people are more and more concerned with and
vulnerable to risks of social exclusion. State institutions have developed policies
addressing young people’s transitions to the labour market and as such are regarded as
the key to their social integration. However, many such programmes have failed in
reaching their target group and consequently, are characterised by high drop-out rates.
The YOYO research starts from this phenomenon and is interested in the dynamics of
young people’s motivation and demotivation, in the reasons for disengaging and in
possibilities of remotivation. A general hypothesis is that young people experience
difficulties in transitions to work in terms of restricted choice, while policies demand
further adaptation and reduction of aspiration. Consequently, they do not feel they are
taken seriously as individuals, while a meaningful life perspective based on career and
citizenship appears to get out of reach. The project aims at verifying the assumption that
policies built on the principle of active participation, in the sense of having real influence
in the definition of goals for their transitions and of the ways how to reach them, have
higher chances to enhance and/or to maintain young people’s motivation. Thereby, the
YOYO-research relates to different policy sectors concerned with young people’s social
integration reflected by specific EU-discourses:

• labour market discourses of activation and employability;

• education and training discourses of lifelong learning;

• social policy discourses of the social inclusion of disadvantaged youth;

• youth policy discourses of active citizenship and participation.

Contradiction between the rationales of these discourses not only weakens policies but
affects young people’s transitions as a whole. Therefore in order to address all these
areas the research adopted a multi-dimensional qualitative approach:

1) national policy reports on youth transitions, youth policy and participation;

2) interviews with young people with risk biographies and with choice biographies
(‘trendsetters’ similar to like young entrepreneurs) on their transition
experiences;

31
 3) case studies into projects supporting young people in their transitions to work in
a participatory way (expert interviews, interviews with young people on their
project experiences and video films portraying young people’s views on ‘being in
transition’).

2. Theoretical concepts

The flexibilisation which is inherent in to post-Fordist labour markets affects both male
and female life courses and in particular, their transitions to work. These are being de-
standardised which means on the one hand fragmentation into partial transitions in
different life spheres and on the other, individualisation of transitions. The perspective of
young people, their motivation to accept labour market demands and to engage in
lifelong learning, become crucial for social integration (Walther, Stauber et al., 2002).
However, access to resources and opportunities remains unequal and no longer is it the
case only reproduces social inequality but makes certain groups vulnerable for social
exclusion (Furlong & Cartmel, 1997; Castel, 2000; Mills & Blossfeld, 2003). The
complexity of this constellation requires a holistic concept of social integration addressing
the duality of social integration between social ‘structure’ and individual ‘agency’
(Giddens, 1984). This means on the one hand to address the relation between
segmentation and flexibilisation of education, training and labour markets (Standing,
1999), on the other hand the biographical perspective of young men and women and the
decisions they take to cope with uncertain transitions (Alheit, 1995; Böhnisch, 1997).
Thereby, transitions are successful if they correspond to both systemic criteria of
integration and subjective needs and interests (Walther, Stauber et al., 2002).

Policies aiming at the integration of the younger generation tend to neglect the complex
interplay between systemic and subjective dimensions of integration. ‘Soft’ youth policies
allow for subjective perspectives and participation but remain weak and marginal. In
contrast, ‘hard’ policies – education and training, welfare and labour market policies –
which are responsible for the distribution of resources for social integration and life
chances increasingly make young people self-responsible for success or failure in their
transitions to work and adulthood (Serrano Pascual, 2003). This creates the paradox that
individual motivation and learning become of paramount importance while their
prerequisites are not taken into account. As a result, transition policies often fail in
reaching disadvantaged youth who prefer a ‘status zer0’ to being activated by force
(Williamson, 1997).

The shift in the discourse of lifelong learning from (formal) education towards (informal
and non-formal) learning may open new perspectives. However, implications and

32
prerequisites of learning remain unreflected. Difficulties in recognising informally
acquired competencies tend to reproduce the inequality of formal education in allocating
individuals to careers of different status (Coffield, 1999; Field, 2000). Therefore the
question is how formal recognition of learning outcomes can be replaced or
complemented in their integrative potential by individually reflected learning biographies
(cf. Bloomer & Hodkinson, 2000).

Current policies aiming at activating individuals for training or work tend to neglect that
motivation requires subjective interest and self-efficacy, that is self-determination; and
they also underplay the profound difference between intrinsic motivation deriving from
the identification with a certain activity and extrinsic motivation of purely instrumental
action – in the worst case following external coercion (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Bandura,
1997).

In this regard, preventing disadvantaged youth from disengaging with their transitions to
work requires both subjectively meaningful goals and increasing their control over their
lives. A policy term for self-determination which does not restrict itself to individual
competencies but expands to structures of power is participation, at least if understood
as active influence and not reduced to formal procedures (cf. Cooke & Kothari, 2001). To
sharpen our understanding of participation which goes beyond individualising trends of
governance we relate to:

• Marshall’s (1950) concept of citizenship as the combination of civil, political and

social rights (the latter often being neglected by the discourse on youth
citizenship);

• the perspective of ‘lived citizenship’ (Hall & Williamson, 1999) which includes both
the status and individuals’ practice of citizenship (cf. Lister, 2003);

• Nancy Fraser’s reflection that social justice requires social policies that involve
addressees in the interpretation of their needs rather than being based on mere
expertocratic assessment and bureaucratic implementation (1989).

We refer to participation as a policy principle throughout and secured by individuals’

negotiation rights rather than only being a policy objective postponed to later; if it is
understood as possibility of biographical self-determination.

33
3. Research questions

It is possible to reformulate the research hypothesis in this way: we expect that young
people who due to disadvantage have experienced demotivation and are at risk of
disengaging, can be remotivated by policies that succeed in giving them a feeling of self-
efficacy with regard to subjective needs and interests. In this regard it appears to be
crucial that participation is not reduced to soft policies but is also an integral principle in
education, training or labour market programmes. Such measures may be qualified by
their objective to assist young people in the development of reflexive learning
biographies. Recognition of informal and non-formal learning potentially is one key
aspect of such participatory transition policies. In order to verify this hypothesis the
YOYO-research has been dealing with the following questions:

● How can projects for disadvantaged youth in their transitions to work be

differentiated along the continuum between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ policies? How is this
reflected in different notions and possibilities for active participation and non-formal
learning?

● What aspects of destandardisation can be found in the transitions of young people,

especially those addressed by transition policies such as the ones analysed in the
YOYO research? How do structure and agency interact in different transition
patterns?

● Our interest in the potential of young people to actively engage in their transitions

requires to differentiate transition patterns with regard to experiences of

motivational change. Is it possible to identify moments or processes in which they
lost or gained control or in which subjective interests either generated or were
covered?

● One key objective is to analyse the relation between participation and motivation.

How do concepts of participation differ in policies for young people and are these
experienced by young people? Can processes of motivational change be identified
which can be ascribed to experiences of participation; and if so to what aspects of
participation?

● To what extent is motivational change reflected by the learning careers of young

people in the respective projects? How do pedagogical models in projects consider

34
 and address the relation between informal and formal learning and to what extent
are young people the protagonists of these learning processes? Where can learning
outcomes of projects be located between soft skills and hard qualifications? To what
extent do young people develop learning biographies in which they reflect their
learning experiences?

● How can transition policies be integrated between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ principles in

order to facilitate a concept of youth citizenship in terms of both status and practice
which is centred around participation and motivation? What are the prerequisites to
connect the principle of participation to the structural level of resources, rights and
access to meaningful career opportunities (Walther, Stauber et al., 2002; López
Blasco et al., 2003)?

35
III. SCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT RESULTS AND METHODOLOGY

1. The research design

For this report we will restrict the project description to four key issues: the research
steps and their key methodological aspects, the interpretative model applied to consider
the international dimension of the project, and the method used to cluster a highly
heterogeneous sample of both case study projects and interviewed young persons.

1.1. Work programme and methodology

The analysis of young people’s transitions and motivational careers in relation to

participatory projects required a multi-dimensional approach. First, instruments were
needed to capture young people’s subjective experiences and their change over time;
second, it was necessary to analyse specific policy contexts in a way that related to both
young people’s biographies and local transition systems; third, a framework regarding
the relation between the micro-contexts of projects and the macro-context of national
transition systems needed to be developed The research consequently combined aspects
of biographical research, action research, policy analysis and comparative research. This
has been addressed by a design consisting of four main research phases (broken down
into nine work packages, see table 1.).

36
Table 1. The YOYO-workprogramme broken down into workpackages

WP Title Duration Outcome

Phase 1

National reports: participation in youth Months 1–3 State of the Art

1
transitions and youth policy Report

Phase 2

Exploratory interviews on young people’s Months 4 – 8 Joint report

2
transition experiences

Phase 3

Case studies, part I, document analysis and Months 9 – 12 28 project

3
expert interviews descriptions

4 Case studies, part II, video documentation Months 13 – 18 10 Video films

Case studies, part III, second interviews with Months 16 – 21 Internal

5
young people documents

Case studies, part IV, case study evaluation Months 22 – 24 10 case study
6
reports

Phase 4

7 Comparative analysis Months 25 – 28 Project typology

8 Final Report Months 29 – 39 Final Report, Book

Dissemination Months 29 - 39 Training module

9
Policy seminar

Phase 1, National reports on youth transitions, youth policy and participation:

In national reports the relation between the socio-economic structures of young people’s
transitions to work, the institutional forms of youth policies (particularly the local) and
discourses of participation was analysed. First, this was to test the hypothesis that
transition policies in principle do not allow for active participation applied across different
European contexts which was analysed comparatively in a joint state of the art report
(Walther et al., 2002). Second, this allowed to relate the sampling of case study projects
with the overall network process of developing a mutual understanding of key concepts.
According to common guidelines regarding target groups, fields of practice, concepts of
particiption and informal learning, each partner team selected five projects out of which
in a common process three per country (four in Germany with two in the East and West
respectively) were selected.

37
Phase 2, Exploratory interviews with ‘disengaged’ young people and
‘trendsetters’:

The primary objective of this phase was to analyse reasons and dynamics of young
people’s disengagement in transitions to work. Due to the different start up dates of the
various projects young people were recruited either immediately prior to entering the
case study projects or, just as they had entered the case study projects (as it was
assumed that the participatory nature of these projects was likely to attract young people
who had experienced demotivation; N=193). Originally focus group interviews had been
planned (to allow for a youth culturally embedded approach) but soon it became clear
that individual interviews were required to obtain the information necessary. In order to
get insights into prerequisites of (intrinsic) motivation in shaping the own transition
biographical ‘trendsetters’ were also interviewed (N=79; recruited through snowballing),
i.e. young people who had left formal trajectories to shape their transitions individually in
terms of ‘choice biographies’ (du Bois-Reymond, 1998) such as for example young
entrepreneurs. The interviews were based on thematic dimensions (work orientations and
institutional experiences as main issues) developed in a joint process while at the same
time leaving enough space for both biographical narration and idiosyncratic national
features. The same applied for the process of coding and interpreting of data (cf.
Wengraf, 2001; see annex 6).

Phase 3, Case studies: This may be seen as the empirical core of the YOYO-
research because here different perspectives merge. The case study process
consisted of three sub-steps:

1) document analysis and expert interviews (Bogner & Menz, 2001) (with project
workers and responsibles but also funders and representatives of other key
transition actors; N=141);

2) a second round of (largely individual) interviews with young people on their

experiences within the projects but also on their personal development since the
first interview (or on their previous experiences if not yet involved in phase 2;
N=256);

3) video films with young people from one case study project per country (Ratcliff,
2003) on ‘being in transition’ as a means of both participatory research allowing
young people to use own symbols and expressions and dissemination (see
annex 3).

38
Each of these sub-steps was jointly prepared and evaluated but separately analysed and
documented. The fourth step of the case studies consisted in communicative validation
with the case study projects and the production of national case study reports.

Phase 4, Joint analysis and dissemination:

The last phase analysed the relation between participation and motivation across
different types of projects and contexts. To this purpose a typology of projects (see
below) served as a background for the analysis of individual motivational careers. To
disseminate findings a training module was elaborated (see annex 1).

1.2. The international perspective: transition regimes as interpretative

background

As regards the analysis of the international dimension of the research itself it needs to be
made clear that of course the YOYO study is not a comparison of national constellations
of participation or of young people’s biographies. One obvious restriction is the
complexity of individual’s biographic construction, another one is the exceptional
character of the projects analysed. Nevertheless, the analysis needed to take the
different contexts into account. The contextualisation of biographic construction and
participatory support, at least in our case, is a more modest but more effective approach
than the additive assessment of apparently comparable data sets according to a ‘neutral’
measurement for commonalities and differences. In the YOYO project contextualisation
meant to analyse case studies not only as isolated entities but also in their relationship
with the national and local transition system in which they play a role. Projects –
mainstream or exceptional – are reflections of local and national ‘transition regimes’ and
their socio-economic and institutional structures.

In line with comparative social policy research (Esping-Andersen, 1990; 1999; Gallie &
Paugam, 2000) we refer to ‘regimes’ as clusters of socio-economic structures, institutions
and cultural patterns which are reproduced not only through policies but also through
individual life plans and strategies. Apart from the welfare perspective regarding young
people’s access to social benefits, the modelling of transition regimes requires further
dimensions:

- labour markets: high or low level of regulation; recruitment practice; concepts of

work (Shavit & Müller, 1998; Walther, 2000);

- education and training: stratification versus standardisation (Allmendinger, 1989);

39
 - focus of programmes for unemployed youth and concepts of ‘disadvantaged youth’:
structure-related versus individualised (Walther, 2002; McNeish & Loncle, 2003);

- mechanisms of doing gender (Sainsbury, 1999);

- dominant concepts of youth (IARD, 2001; McNeish & Loncle, 2003).

While it should be kept in mind that the regime-approach rather relates to the general
‘Gestalt’ than to specificities of transition systems which are at the same dynamic rather
than stable due to social change we refer to five broad regime types:

● The universalistic transition regime of the Scandinavian countries (such as

Denmark) is characterised by a comprehensive system of education and training
with 3 out 4 school leavers’ obtaining qualifications that allow for access to higher
education. The dominant concept of youth is that of personal development.
Therefore, at all levels of the transition system options for choice are provided and
secured by individual access to social benefits or education allowances; this applies
also for activating labour market policies. Due to a broad public sector a variety of
entrance options to the labour market do exist. The high rate of female
employment is also facilitated by accessible public child care. While in principle this
system provides opportunities to experiment with yo-yo-transitions it relies upon a
specific cultural model. Migrant youth are therefore considered as a ‘remainder’
group who do not profit from this generous system.

● The liberal regime in the UK and the Republic of Ireland is based on a system of
education and training which in recent decades has been considerably flexibilised.
In a context which prioritises individual responsibility the concept of youth is
marked by expectations of early economic independence. Workfare policies like the
New Deal in the UK ascribe individuals’ ‘disadvantage’ in transitions to work to
dependency in benefits which are increasingly made conditional in terms of active
job search and/or training. Due to extreme flexibilisation the labour market access
has been diversified while the share of precarious jobs has increased. High rates of
female employment need to be relativated in this regard and child care is mainly
organised on a private market basis. In sum, yo-yo-transitions are structured by
high flexibility and individualised risks.

● The employment-centred regimes in countries such as Germany and the

Netherlands are characterised by a combination of selective school and
standardised training. While in Germany this is related with a rigid employment
system, the Dutch labour market has undergone considerable flexibilisation (e.g.

40
 part-time and temporary work). Youth means primarily to be socialised for and
allocated to occupational positions. Disadvantage is addressed in terms of
individual socialisation deficits that young people have to compensate before
entering regular training or work. While in the Netherlands universal access to
benefits is restructured in terms of workfare policies, in Germany young people are
only entitled to benefits if they have paid contributions to social insurance or if they
are older than 27. In the Netherlands, yo-yo-transitions first of all mean flexible
transitions, in Germany they have to be realised against the normalising
institutions.

● In the sub-protective regime in Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain) due to the
structural deficit in training, labour market and welfare policies, transitions include
long waiting periods during which young men and women remaining dependent on
their families with high rates of unemployment, fixed-term contracts and informal
work. While the comprehensive school system produces a high percentage of
school leavers with post-compulsory qualifications these are not compatible with
labour market demands. At the same time early school leaving remains a severe
problem. Young women are even more disadvantaged regarding both labour
market access and family control. Yo-yo-transitions therefore mean a status
vacuum which is only compensated by the family.

● This is similar in the postsocialist transition regime of which Romania represents a

de-institutionalised version (compared to re-institutionalised examples like
Hungary; cf. Wallace, 2002). During the socialist period education and employment
were rigidly linked allowing for stable careers; however with little room for
individual choice. Transformation has destandardised and individualised transitions
with a high degree of risk. Schools are still organised comprehensively while
regular training fails in keeping pace with the changing demands of economy.
Welfare provisions have been introduced to buffer the effects of youth
unemployment but have been reduced again or abolished due to a lack of financial
resources. Young people depend on their families while accumulating a diversity of
qualifications in preparation for forthcoming opportunities – or for emigration which
represents a highly desired strategy.

These regimes on the one hand serve as a backdrop when dealing with concrete case
study examples. On the other hand, they allow to understand the scopes of action which
both young people and case study projects have at their disposal. It will be one of the
concluding questions to what extent different regimes allow for participation also in
transitions to work.

41
 1.3. The case study projects

Within the YOYO project 28 case studies have been carried out (3 per country, 2 in East
and West Germany respectively). The organisational structure and practice approaches of
the projects have been analysed through document analysis and interviews with internal
(project workers and responsibles) and external experts (representatives of funding
institutions and key actors of local transition systems). During the sampling it proved
difficult to find projects corresponding to the ideal type in terms of the YOYO-objectives.
The case study projects therefore spread on a continuum between priority of participation
without labour market orientation and labour market orientation without participation.
Clustering them according to:

- fields of practice;

- target groups: all youth or unemployed, early school leavers, migrants, young
women;

- hard versus soft outcomes;

- concepts of participation and non-formal education.

We can distinguish five clusters of projects (table 2.):

1) Priority of participation in youth work: Genuine youth work projects in most

cases address ‘all youth’ which in some cases may be restricted to the youth of
a certain (disadvantaged) area. There are no close links to the labour market
while participation is central in the sense of voluntariness and involvement in
project-related decision-making. A few cases extend participation to community
development or urban regeneration. Non-formal education is applied and
reflected in terms of learning-by-doing, culture, peer education and trust
between young people and project workers. The structure and objectives of their
projects are primarily related to the provision of soft skills such as motivation
and confidence, social and communication skills. However, except where young
people are supported to make informal careers from usership to semi-
professional careers, it depends on the individuals to what extent they can use
this for their transitions.

2) Priority of integration of ‘youth at risk’: Integration projects address groups

of young people who are seen as particularly vulnerable to risks of social
exclusion. They combine leisure activities with group work and individual
counselling. In some projects, especially those for ethnic minority youth, cultural

42
practice plays a central role in raising self-esteem. The transfer of these
experiences to other aspects of life is addressed with a particular regard to
school. In cases concerned with young people of multiple social disadvantage
(homelessness, growing up in public care) transitions to work are only one facet
of a more holistic approach while participation and integration are defined more
pragmatically. Transitions to work are addressed in integration projects, yet not
systematically. Soft skills are the main goal, hard resources are restricted to the
needs of everyday life.

43
 Table 2. Case study projects according to country, activity, target group and function

Country Projects Activity Target Main Function

group

Priority of participation in youth work Soft

Youth Centre,
Youth centre All youth General Prev.
Campagnola

Italy Youth from

Arciragazzi, Palermo Cultural projects General Prev.
area

Giovani e Periferie, Youth from

Urban regeneration General Prev.
Torino area

Romania SZINFO, Odórhei Youth information All youth General Prev.

Youth from
Ireland Glen Foroige, Cork Youth club General Prev.
area

Priority of integration of youth at risk

Girls & Boys House, Migrant

Denmark Youth club Selective Prev.
Copenhagen youth

Mobile Youth Work, Youth club; Youth from

Germany General Prev.
Stuttgart outreach work area

Shelter and Homeless

Ireland Simon Project, Cork Safety-net
counselling youth

Dance project and

Batoto Yetu, Lisbon African youth Selective prev.
school assistance
Portugal
Princes of Dance project and
Gypsy girls Selective prev.
Nothingness, Lisbon school assistance

CCSA / We want to
Learning for Youth from
Romania be independent, Selective prev.
independent life public care
Bucharest

Priority of preparation for education or training

Open Youth Individualised 2nd Early school

Denmark Reorientation
Education chance education leavers

Re-qualification,
Early school
Ireland Youghal Youthreach practical Reorientation
leavers
experience

Opportunity Youth, Non-formal Early school

UK Reorientation
Belfast education, life skills leavers

Voluntary work,
Cityteam, Rotterdam/ Unemployed
Netherlands placements, Reorientation
Utrecht/Zoetermeer young people
counselling

Drop-in,
Kompass-Job-In- Unemployed
Germany counselling, search Reorientation
Club, Dresden young people
for jobs or training

44
Priority of training or employment

Voc. training
Romania Solaris, Pitesti All youth Transitions
courses (various)

Private/public dual
Centerparcs/Helicon,
Netherlands voc. training All youth Transitions
Flevoland
(tourism, leisure)

(Pre-)Voc. training
Cooperative Pep- Young people
and education Transitions
Pepes, Mallorca without job
(various)
Spain
(Pre-)Voc. training
Laura Vicuña, Young people
and education Transitions
Torrent/Valencia without job
(various)

Subsidised work
Long-term
Germany Shalom, Freiberg (documenting local Transitions
unemployed
history)

Participatory training and employment

Early school
Residence for
Aldeia de Santa leavers, weak
Portugal youth and elderly; Transitions
Isabel, Lisbon family
vocational training
support

Migrant
Voc. training
Germany La Silhouette, Munich young Transitions
(dress-making)
women

Voc. training Single

UK Lifting the Limits Transitions
(community work) mothers

Cooperative ‘Infinite Voluntary work,

Long-term
Spain Patience’, occasional jobs, Transitions
unemployed
Alfafar/Valencia self employment

All
Environmental
Denmark Ecological Starters youth/young Transitions
projects
unemployed

Assistance in Hard
Starters Service, enterprise All (skilled)
Netherlands Transitions
Almere creation/self- youth
employment

45
3) Priority of preparation for training and work: Pre-vocational education and
training measures explicitly address young people’s transition problems such as
unemployment, early school leaving or a lack of professional orientation in a
remedial perspective. Measures apply or combine a range of diverse methods
and approaches. Not in all cases is involvement completely voluntary but
imposed by welfare and labour market policies. Therefore the degree of
participation is variable. Core objectives are to re-orientate young people into
education or training through individual action plans of counselling, preparation
for job interviews, work experience through placements in companies, and
voluntary work. With regard to hard resources, participants in some projects
receive allowances while only few measures provide opportunities to improve
qualifications.

4) Priority of training and employment: A series of measures is primarily

concerned with delivering training. Formal curricula restrict potentials of
participation but in turn may allow for non-formal methods of training. The
prime objective is to close the gaps in the regular supply of (state) training
institutions by flexible training programmes. The need to meet formal standards
of training (also to assure funding) implies that young people with severe
problems in most cases do not enter the measures; or due to a lack of
recognition from employers they serve only as a pre-vocational measure for
young people with low qualifications. Other projects provide subsidised
employment whereby access is regulated according to bureaucratic principles
such as the period of time spent unemployed rather than by individual choice.
Qualifications and jobs are the main outcome of these schemes while soft skills
are secondary and scopes for participation are narrow.

5) Participatory training and employment projects: There are some projects

that consciously aim at and succeed in empowering young people by providing
both ‘hard’ labour market relevant resources and ‘soft’ skills in a participatory
setting. This can be projects advising young people in the context of self-
employment, alternative projects in which (long-term) unemployed young
people receive their benefits ‘in exchange’ for socially useful activity,
cooperatives organising activities between voluntary work, occasional jobs and
self-employment, or training projects that combine a safe environment, training
allowances or wages, holistic support and regular vocational training (and also
child care). Project workers are aware that education and training only can be
biographically sustainable if embedded in soft skills. Such projects adopt a youth

46
 work approach including peer education, respect of individual needs, scope for
active participation while at the same time emphasising personal development
as much as vocational training.

In analysing the projects and young people’s experiences within them with regard to the
relation between participation and motivation this distinction of projects is important
insofar it shows that they have different functions in the transition system and therefore
institutionally are evaluated against different criteria to secure their funding.

1.4. Transition patterns of interviewed young people

Another important distinction to be made for the analysis was the differentiation of the
young people in the sample with regard to the transitions they have pursued up to the
moment when they were interviewed. As mentioned above, sampling in the initial phase
referred to two groups: young people at risk of disengaging with the transition system,
the main target group, and young people with choice biographies. These biographical
‘trendsetters’ were included as it was assumed that they shared a mistrust in institutions
and in order to provide insight into necessary preconditions for transitions which are
successful with regard to both systemic and subjective criteria. The group labelled as
‘disengaged’ represented around 78% of the total sample (286 respondents alltogether)
while the ‘trendsetter’ group represented about 22% of the total sample (79
respondents) including those who were identified as trendsetters within projects (as
participants) as well as those selected as trendsetters independently.

As outlined above biographical transitions are conceived as interplay between

determining social structures and individual decisions and actions. One consequence of
de-standardisation under post-Fordist conditions is the fragmentation and diversification
of transitions. And so, the first step in the analysis process was to obtain information
from the young people on the different steps and stages they had gone through since
leaving school up until the time of interview. This process began with the first interviews
undertaken with the young people. Based on this information a chart of transition steps
was developed for each respondent (see table 3.). From these charts it was then possible
to cluster the transitions patterns of the respondents according to whether they
corresponded to the logic of institutionally defined pathways, according to the complexity
of their transition patterns (the smoothness of transitions, switches between education
and work, etc.) and the length and direction (towards inclusion or exclusion, implying
biographic progress or stagnation). This was achieved by drawing on the categories
found by Evans et al. (2000) in analysing the education and employment patterns of East
German and English young people on their way to adulthood.

47
 Table 3. Examples of transition patterns according to transition steps

Sex, age, Completed Transition steps

country, education
social level
background

Smooth transitions

D., DK, Lower Visits Starts Side jobs

male, 17, secondary youth club secondary and
low SES from age business continues
of 7 school visiting
youth club

Institutionally repaired transition steps

Colette, UK, Upper Jobs in Returns Falls Starts a Employed Further Project
female, 25, secondary bars and home and pregnant local youth by a youth education entry at
low SES cafes for a gets (at age organisa- organisa- at local Lifting the
year, involved 19) tion tion women's Limits
leaves in youth centre
home work

Hans, D Lower Occasional Further Homeless Job Training in EU- Unemploy Training Joins Armed
(East), male, secondary jobs; pre- training and scheme inform- exchange ed; living (software Forces;
22; low SES vocational (roofer); unem- (via atics; drop to Britain on assistant); contract
training: sacked ployed Kompass out (via benefits drop out includes
roofer (refuses project); Kompass after 9 apprentice-
exam) job W. project) months; ship
Germany unempl.
(construc-
tion)

48
Alternative transition steps

Serban, Lower Training side-jobs Contact Training Unem- Occasion- Starts own
ROM, male, secondary (auto- in with course in ployed for al jobs in company
22, low SES mobile Romania SZINFO informa- 6 months Romania (utilitarian
painting) and tics in and mountain-
Hungary evening Hungary eering)
class

Sandra, NL, Lower Pre-voca- Occa- Applies for Prefers to Starts Irish Quits call
female, 20, secondary tional sional jobs police set up dance centre
low SES education (animal academy, Irish school, job;
(hair- asylum; gets dance works fulltime
dressing) catering; accepted school, alongside involve-
photo- contacts at call ment in
graphy) SSCA centre dance
school

Stagnant transition steps

Carmen, ES, Lower Occasional vocational One year Aims to Precarious, Stops
female, 23, secondary jobs training in of work start own unskilled working,
low SES hair- but no business work living
dressing contract but lack of with
renewal capital partner;
mother-
hood

49
Downward transition steps

Denise, NL, Primary Drops Runs Enters Drops out Conviction;

female, 17, outoflower away with Cityteam of sent to jail
low SES secondary boy- through Cityteam;
education friend; mediation criminal
live of offence(s)
together counsellor
for four
months

* all names changed

50
Table 3. gives some examples of different transition patterns as well as the
methodological procedure in dealing with the empirical data in this regard. Applying
these categories – sometimes modifying and enlarging the original labels – to narratives
of the respondents we came up with the following transition patterns:

• smooth: in line with institutional logic, no major interruptions;

• institutionally repaired: interruptions overcome by remedial intervention;

• alternative: leaving institutional logic (at least partly) by choice;

• stagnant: progress blocked by interruptions and failure, constant risk of exclusion;

• downward/damaged: accumulation of risks of social exclusion;

• unknown/other: if no clear pattern was observable.

Based on the empirical data of all the ‘disengaged’ and ‘trendsetter’ respondents
(N=365) an overview of the established transition patterns in our sample is presented
below:

Table 4. Distribution of transition patterns: disengaged respondents

Pattern types Disengaged Trendsetters

Smooth patterns 44 12

Alternative patterns 21 47

Institutionally repaired patterns 76 10

Stagnant patterns 117 8

Downward patterns 14 -

Unknown / other patterns 14 2

Total 286 79

While gender did not play a prominent role in the distribution of transition patterns,
socio-economic aspects did so very much. Respondents with smooth and alternative
transition patterns came from higher educated families with more economic and social
capital.

We have highlighted above that the sample has been drawn from projects that were
selected for their participatory approaches and for – potentially – addressing young
people who had disengaged with the formal transition system. Nevertheless, the range of

51
case study projects is rather broad with different types of projects addressing either
young people in general or particular target groups whereby it can be expected that
certain patterns concentrate in certain measures (for example, young people with
stagnant transitions in pre-vocational schemes). Apart from this, the experience of
involvement in specific forms of non-formal education may contribute to a specific way of
constructing the own biography in the interview situation (and thus influence the analysis
process). The following table displays the distribution of transition patterns of the
disengaged respondents according to type of project (see table 5.).

Table 5. Transition patterns according to types of projects (disengaged respondents)

Participatio Integratio Preparatio Training & Participato Tota

n in youth n of youth n for employme ry training l
work at risk training & nt &
work employmen
t

Smooth 26 10 6 2 44

Alternative 4 4 1 2 10 21

Institutional
18 4 13 23 18 76
ly repaired

Stagnant 26 13 40 24 14 117

Downward 2 2 9 1 - 14

Unknown /
2 12 - - - 14
other

Total 78 45 63 56 44 286

2. Motivation in transition

While the transition patterns introduced in the previous section represent how young
people actually make their way through (institutional) trajectories from school to work,
the biographic dimension asks how they experience their itineraries subjectively and how
they construct their lives in form of life histories (Chamberlayne et al., 2002). In the
context of the YOYO research our focus lies on processes of motivation with regard to an
active engagement in the shaping of the own transition. Before analysing the impact of
experiences of participation in this regard we will analyse transition-related orientations
and experiences processes of motivation and demotivation of the interviewed young men
and women in a more general perspective. This means to investigate more in depth what
other research often refers to as optimistic or pessimistic future orientations (e.g. Evans
& Heinz, 1994; Leccardi, 1999). This includes exploring young people’s work orientations
(as their initial motivation after leaving school) and the experiences they have had with
institutional actors of the transition system, namely school and training, employment and

52
career services, social security but also in previous work places. The third part of this
chapter deals with the dynamic nature of motivation by reflecting different constellations
of motivational change that may have occurred already before or triggered through
project entry, a perspective which in the following sections will be analysed in depth with
regard to the case study projects.

2.1. Labour market orientations and meaning of work

Referring to recent research on young people’s values and attitudes (cf. Vinken et al.,
2003), the various labour market orientations that have been identified in young people’s
accounts are presented below:

• a material orientation implies the importance of making money whether it is for

survival, financial autonomy or as an explicit goal (‘getting rich’);

• a social / communicative orientation implies the importance of good colleagues, a

good working climate, working with people, absence of pressure, useful work etc.;

• an expressive orientation implies careering, personal development, fulfilment,

interesting and challenging work, taking initiatives, creative work, promotion, but
often also an explicit wish for a certain occupation or profession;

• an open / uncertain orientation refers to not having an orientation yet, not knowing
what to do with regard to education or work, etc.;

• other orientations include for example the predominance of orientations towards

parenthood or learning (if not directly linked to occupational aspirations).

When we relate the labour market orientations and transition patterns (see above), we
obtain the following picture for the ‘disengaged’ respondents:

• open / uncertain are more or less common among all the transition patterns and
more or less evenly spread;

• material orientations are found especially among respondents with institutionally

repaired and stagnant transition patterns;

• social / communicative work orientations are relatively often found among

respondents with smooth and alternative patterns;

• expressive orientations spread across all patterns although their low relevance as
primary orientations needs to be taken into account;

53
 • the ‘other’ orientation is found predominantly among respondents with a stagnant
transition pattern.

With regard to the trendsetter respondents the relation between work orientations and
transition patterns is different in the following respects:

• material and open / uncertain orientations are found more or less across all
transition patterns in equal shares but are important for a minority;

• this accounts as well for social / communicative orientations going together with
smooth or alternative transition patterns;

• expressive orientations which stand for the majority of ‘trendsetter’ respondents

are especially related to respondents with alternative patterns.

Very roughly, one may say that intrinsic motivation (expressive work orientations)
requires both a supportive background and a variety of opportunities to develop and
experiment with own ideas and capabilities. Extrinsic motivation (material work
orientations) prevails where social integration and subsistence are not self-evident but
need to be secured by adapting to restricted career options. Social and communicative
work orientations can include both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Demotivation (some
cases of uncertain work orientations) is related to experiences that either intrinsic or
extrinsic motives have been blocked and devaluated: ‘cooled out’ (Goffman, 1962). This
tendency can be explained by the concept of motivation which combines the factor of
incentive (needs, interests) with the factor of the individuals’ perception to have control
(self-efficacy) over the achievement of their goals.

2.2. Experiences with institutions

Work orientations are mediated and dependent on experiences young people make in
their transition process – and accounts of motivation and demotivation in most cases are
related to such experiences. In their transitions young people necessarily make contact
with institutional actors structuring individual transitions in the sense of gate-keepers
(Heinz, 1992). One of their main functions is to keep young people on track towards the
standard life course which inevitably results on them directing them towards different
(unequal) societal and labour market segments. Young people’s experiences with these
institutions have a strong influence on how they perceive their chances to get access to
careers that are subjectively meaningful; that is their feeling of self-efficacy and the
generation (or undermining) of interests.

54
The first of these institutions, which is relevant for all young people across different
European contexts is school. The negative evaluation (all) young people make of their
school experiences are far more qualified than public images of youth who just do not
like school. While many young people refer positively to school in terms of a social space
where they meet their peers and are safe from labour market pressure, they criticise
“standardised education” (Paolo1, I, male, 25) with “a lot of theory and almost nothing
about practice” (Amalia, ROM, female, 21). They argue that effective learning requires
“having the choice, not the obligation.” (Laurentiu, ROM, male, 22). They criticise the
fact that demands are not made “on you as a person, only on your abilities” (Mathilde,
DK, female, 18) while young migrants made the experience that school success in their
home countries was not acknowledged and actually devaluated due to language deficits.
While many gained the impression that teachers “didn’t care, they weren’t wasting their
time on us” which they ascribed to themselves: “that’s right in a way” (Jim, UK, male,
17); thereby accepting a meritocratic logic. Consequently, many evaluate their school
time as a “waste of time” (P., UK, male, 19) and leave without qualifications to earn their
own money (frequent in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the UK).

This negative evaluation does not only relate to the contents and forms of teaching but
also to professional orientation by career officers who “dropped a list with professions
and we were to choose one. It wasn’t more than that“ (Katarina, D (East), female, 26).
Some reported of being openly discouraged: “’You have no hope, son, you’ll never be
anything’ he said” (P., UK, male, 19). After school most respondents “really didn’t know
what to do.” (T5, I, male, 24). The impression that “once you have chosen, you can’t
turn back” (G., NL, female, 17) caused stress: “At home, I have cried my heart out
because … I really didn't know what I wanted to be.” (W., NL, male, 23). Considering the
increased need to reflect uncertain and fragmented transitions it is obvious that this
undermines motivation for active engagement. In addition to this young women
complained about structures of doing gender: “for the girls: only placement offers in
hair-dressing, retail and child-care” (Mona, D (West), female, 17).

Similarly, the employment service is often criticised for a lack of efficiency: “To find jobs
it is total crap.” (Manne, D (East), male, 22). “You fill in forms and then you hear
nothing” (Ta, IE, female, 18). Critique extends to the limited time allowed for counselling
and the feeling of being addressed as ‘cases’ rather than individuals: “It is an
adminstration after all … Just staring into your file, going bah, bah, they treat you like a
cow.” (Orkan, D, Mobile, male, 21) Only in Denmark, the (un)employment system was
seen as something that can be dealt with, as long as one is active to find one’s own way

1 All names changed.

55
in benefiting from the rules which however get tighter. In contrast to Northern European
countries, young people from in Southern and Eastern Europe where these structures are
still in the process of being established or restructured, just do not mention them or
complain about their absence – “We are alone!” (C1, I, female, 19). “Antonio doesn’t
exist. He is invisible, he is a number that doesn't exist. Because I am not getting any
benefit” (Antonio, ES, male, 25).

Critique extends from their bureaucratic approach to the offers made by the employment
service be it jobs, training schemes or pre-vocational education. Young men from Belfast
reported they were offered two options: either to join the army or go on a training course
they did not wanted to be on. In Germany, young people who fail to enter regular
training are channelled into pre-vocational education, that neither provides additional
qualifications nor evidence of any significant success in leading to training or jobs: “Some
from this course were lucky and made it into an apprenticeship ... I simply wasn’t, but
some of us were.” (??, D, male). While critique in Northern European countries relates
primarily to particular measures for the so-called ‘disadvantaged youth’, training in
Southern Europe and especially Romania is criticised for a mismatch with the labour
market: “Unfortunately, … in school … I wasn’t trained properly.” (Laurentiu, ROM, male,
22).

While such experiences are shared by most of our respondents including those displaying
different transition patterns, there are three main issues that account for differentiation:
The first one relates to those young people who due to sufficient cultural and economic
capital are not totally dependent on these institutions (especially trendsetters). As a
result of counter-experiences and a certain level of control over their lives they manage
to protect themselves from institutional assumptions and ascriptions. The second
differentiation regards the exceptions that most young people made in their critique of
the institutional system. Many accounts included ‘exceptions’ referring to individuals
experienced as helpful and different. These ‘significant others’ (Mead, 1934) were
individual teachers, counsellors or youth and social workers: “I trust the social worker I
have ‘cos I know her a year or two, she’s all right.” (De, IE, male, 16). The third
dimension of differentiation regards different contexts in terms of transition regimes
inasmuch young people in their biographies and narratives relate to concrete institutions
which make part of a wider system. Danish young people reflected the high value of
personal development in both institutional approaches of the universalistic regime and
biographical orientations and the availability of alternative careers provided within the
system itself. Criticism of individual counsellors was informed by a positive picture of
what one can expect from the system. Young people from the liberal and employment-
centred regimes (UK, Ireland, Germany, less so Netherlands) were hostile and even

56
aggressive when reporting their experiences with the employment service, as they found
this service to be repressive and controlling rather than supportive. The sub-protective
regime is best characterised by the complaint of an Italian young woman: “We are alone!
If you are lucky enough to have some friends, fine … otherwise ...” (C1, I, female, 19).
The (de-institutionalised) post-socialist regime represented by the Romanian cases is
characterised by a lack of trust of state institutions and an even higher degree of
uncertainty as regards future possibilities. In contrast, NGOs experience a bonus of
credibility while many young people’s life perspectives centre on emigration.

2.3. Motivational change

As outlined above our research is based on a dynamic understanding of motivation

resulting from motives, that is subjective needs and interests (Vygotskij 1978; Schiefele,
1991; Krapp, 1999), and from the perceived probability to achieve these goals (Bandura,
1987). Both aspects are open for experiences and potential change: needs change with
the degree of their fulfilment while interests generate from interaction with the social
world; the perception of the ability to achieve goals is related to experiences of self-
efficacy which in turn depend on the possibilities to make such experiences. Motivational
change can derive from discovering or losing interest or from increasing or decreasing
experiences of self-efficacy; or a combination of both. This ideal combination of
comprehensive motivational change may be subsumed under a growing feeling of self-
determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Motivational change can be related to intrinsic
aspects such as the experience of a specific activity and extrinsic aspects which are
related to the instrumental quality or consequences of an activity while in most cases are
not clear cut but are dynamically interlinked.

It is obvious, that a majority of the young men and women in our sample have
experienced a subjective discrepancy between their initial work orientations and life
perspectives on the one hand and experiences with (transitional) reality on the other,
especially those with restricted resources. They refer to institutional actors and processes
in which they have felt pushed away from their original ideas and became convinced that
they lacked necessary abilities. However, we have also met numerous young people who
succeeded in maintaining ambition and self-confidence despite of mechanisms of cooling
out to which they have been exposed. Take the case of Colette, a young mother from
Northern Ireland who developed a local youth project by herself and through this, finally,
came across the project Lifting the Limits:

57
 “I think it was my own drive just to go, look I can do this, I needed it –
because I had to prove to myself that I could do it.” (Colette, UK,
female, 25).

Such dynamics of motivational careers – implying both de-motivation and re-motivation

– are at the centre of our interest. In many cases motivational change in the interviews
appeared to be more or less explicitly related to entering the case study projects. In
these cases the experience of motivational change can be explained by both previous de-
motivation and new perspectives in terms meaningful goals and access to means to
reach them.

“The first time I came here, I was so excited. For the first time I
seriously applied for a place and I for the first time really wanted it. Yes
… And they integrated me so well. I was on a one-week placement, and
I sewed a bag. And I did that so well, I was so fascinated about this
bag, and about myself … this being creative. And the whole place, which
gave me the impression; this is not so hard, this is a place where you
can talk and be open.” (Jelena, D (West), female, 21).

In other cases motivational change is not reported so explicitly but can be reconstructed
by analysing the relation between interview sequences, for example, reported
experiences and decisions or actions which are not explicitly linked in the narration but
are obviously related; especially if confirmed by other sources of information (for
example expert interviews).

Through analysis of this more biographical view, the transitional patterns which represent
the actual steps individuals have taken through different trajectories can be
differentiated, and the internal dynamics occurring beyond the surface of accountable
decisions or actions can be made visible. This is not about contrasting transition patterns
with motivational careers. Both have been reconstructed from biographical interviews
about complex transitions and motivational change may appear to be related with a
specific issue in the interview – resulting from the constraints of narration – while being
more complex in reality (Schütze, 1997). It is the contrast between actual transition
progress and manifest or latent biographic potential, between what young people find
noteworthy when interviewed and what external observers may identify as important
moments of personal development. In many cases in fact there have been
inconsistencies between transition patterns and motivational careers and one may
assume that all young people’s biographies show such variations when analysed more
closely:

58
With regard to the alternative pattern, it has become obvious that this pattern is not
restricted to trendsetters but may emerge under rather difficult circumstances. The
subjective relevance of a goal appears to be the main factor in this regard, A young
woman in the Portuguese dance project Batoto Yetu highlights this point:

“I found out I live for dance …I’ve learned that to dance is not only to
move your body. It is also a psychological posture, as much as physical.
To be a dancer, a person must love it, because it’s something that
comes from inside.” (Celia, PT, female, 21).

This means that a subjective goal represents a very high incentive because
corresponding to internal motives and interests, especially if dynamics in different
strands of life reinforce each other (for example, career and partnership). What unites
these cases is that they depend on favourable conditions (like the case study projects)
that compensate for a lack of resources and support and provide experiences of
encouragement that strengthen the confidence needed to manoeuvre through the
zigzags of unemployment and drawbacks. Support in terms of space and opportunities of
experimentation may even be needed to rediscover or to detect subjective interests:

“I learnt so much, especially working with children and that’s what I

want to do in the future, continue working with them.” (Paolo, I, male,
19).

Institutionally repaired transitions suggest a principally positive picture of motivational

change – both as a prerequisite and as an effect of reintegration. In fact however, they
reveal a broad heterogeneity of motivational careers: in some cases only little support is
needed, such as for example, one crucial experience of trust from a significant other
(e.g. project worker):

“But in secondary school thanks to my Italian teacher, I was helped in

getting to know myself better. I developed many interests and started
to write. Indeed, I would like to be a writer.” (Tomaso, I, male, 24).

Others need considerable support but nevertheless can not be prevented from
considerable downs in their motivational careers which shows the importance of getting a
feeling of coherence. Motivation which is the basis of successful coping with interrupted
transitions results from “finally having found something different” (Jelena, D (West),
female, 21), especially the possibility of reconciling safety nets with new exiting
experiences (like a dance career) without being forced to take an exclusive decision.
Orkan (D, male, 22) had already been in jail for some months for a criminal offence when

59
his local youth workers manage to get him free until the trial at court. They encourage
him to start an apprenticeship which he does not want but accepts to improve his
chances at court although being determined to drop out as soon as possible. The strategy
works out but he continues the training to profit from a bonus wage at the end of the
year. By setting himself pragmatic but subjectively meaningful goals – and being
encouraged to do so – he manages to build up his motivation step by step, “the longer I
was there, the more my interest increased, to achieve a good certificate, to be really
involved” and to complete the three year training with success.

The smooth transition pattern may relate to a very low level of motivation needed to
succeed due to favourable starting conditions. This may even include de-motivation
which has not (yet) resulted in dropping out. At the same time smooth transitions may
also hide enormous developments in terms of slowly but ever increasing personal
strength and conviction about their own competencies. In these cases smooth transitions
are much more spectacular than apparent as they depend on favourable conditions of
support to compensate for social disadvantage; for example, the case of Leslie Anne (UK,
female, 18) who sticks to her dream to be trained in child care – despite the career
service advicing her not to as her weak English skills would become apparent in the
training she would need to undertake.

Also behind the pattern of stagnant transitions a variety of different cases of personal
development can be identified. On the one hand, we find transitions in which
discontinuous education and employment careers go along with motivational ups and
downs, between being “tied up in myself”, “working on a lot of points” and also “looking
forward to it” and “after a few months, I didn’t care to get up anymore to go there” as
Liv tells (NL, 21, female). On the other hand, there are cases in which motivation (and
even active engagement) fails in resulting in actual transition progress due to structural
reasons. And some young people explicitly renounce a normal biography like Tobal
(Spain, 25, male) working in the Cooperative Infinite Patience who justifies his “strange
career” with different priorities:

“I want to decide for myself, about my time, my people and my space …

If you manage it well, if you are brave, and have things clear, you don’t
need much for a decent living.”

Among stagnant transitions probably the discrepancy between developmental dynamics

and apparent transition status may be biggest. Individuals experience this as a lack of
coherence inasmuch initial motivation due to inappropriate support and/or lack of

60
opportunities cannot be transferred into meaningful and successful strategies. Thus,
motivation processes resemble a state of limbo and break down if this lasts for too long.

As with regard to stagnant transitions in the downward pattern personal efforts can be
detected which have been de-valuated by structural limitations. However, these
experiences are singulary and they are counter-acted by a series of negative
experiences. In most cases this starts early in school “I hated it [school], I was always
trying to get kicked out. I always got kicked out and sent to another school” (Derek, IE,
male, 16) while constant individual ascription of failure – from outside as well as by the
young persons themselves – contribute to a downward spiral of motivation and transition
prospects: “You take drugs, your life goes down the drain … I can’t do nothing” (Tracy,
IE, female, 19). In the interviews this emerges in terms of self-fulfilling prophecies: “I’ll
just be a fucking victim” (John, UK, male, 17). Sub-cultural structures and strategies at
the margins of society on the one hand can help to maintain some (collective) self-
esteem, however, on the other hand they can also reinforce spirals of drug-addiction,
poverty and complete marginalisation.

We have tried to show that motivational changes do not necessarily follow the direction
of transition patterns but represent a variety of movements beyond the surface which
relate to events and experiences in the whole range of transitional strands. The
perspective of motivational careers helps to differentiate the perspective towards success
and failure in young people’s transitions to work and towards the reasons behind these.
Individual and structural aspects of social disadvantage become discernible. Failure in
terms of increasing risks of social exclusion may go along with a high level of motivation
for change while success cannot necessarily be ascribed to or lead to high motivation.
Demotivation can also be traced back to structurally blocked routes in terms of a reaction
of withdrawal or protection of identity. Motivational careers stand for the potential of
individuals to maintain or to change their transition status (or direction) – either towards
integration and success or towards exclusion and failure. Relating the perspectives of
transition patterns and motivational careers/changes appears to be the appropriate way
for an evaluation of case study projects’ influences. It shows whether individuals need
incentives – goals that are worth any effort – or means and resources to develop
confidence to be able to achieve goals which appear to be out of reach; and how this is
reflected by the projects. This perspective is structured enough to allow for comparison
(between different types of projects, different transitional regimes), and precise enough
to acknowledge the individuality of transitional pathways.

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3. Participation and motivation

The starting point of our research has been young men’s and women’s de-standardised
transitions from school to work and as such individual motivation therefore becomes a
more and more important prerequisite which itself depends on experiences that are
structured by social background and education, gender and ethnicity. In contrast to those
young people (the so-called trendsetters) who manage to develop alternative careers for
which they are motivated due to personal competencies (backed by qualifications and
family resources) young people with restricted options display stagnant patterns or even
downward drift with increasing risks of social exclusion. Thus, they become targets of
specialised institutional actors and programmes aimed at their integration or
reintegration – at ‘repairing’ ruptured transitions. Clearly, however, these programmes
represent an additional motivational demand as often they fail in reaching their
addressees. Introducing the perspective of motivational careers and motivational change
allows to analyse whether such demotivation is general but related to specific
institutional arrangements. In this regard, the key question of the YOYO-project is: How
can motivational change be facilitated and are possibilities of participation a promising
way in this regard? What are the necessary prerequisites, settings, and opportunity
structures required to afford motivating experiences of young people? How are they
provided differently by different projects for different target groups in different contexts,
in which different transition patterns are predominant? Can these motivational effects in
the transition biographies of young participants be related to the influence of case study
projects?

Why participation? Because participation raises associations of identification and activity.

However, there is a broad range of interpretations of participation – including the formal
procedure of political elections, the mere attendance of education and training, or
participating in the labour market. Therefore, our understanding of participation needs to
be sharpened to justify for a perspective that asks for generation of interest or
experiences of self-efficacy – or both. In this regard, two central lines of distinction need
to be considered:

• participation as active influence versus passive (or formalised) involvement;

• participation as a principle by which policies are governed versus participation to be

achieved later as a goal of policies (Stevens et al., 1999; Walther et al., 2002).

We assume that young people’s disengagement results from a lack of participation in the
sense of actively shaping their transitional biographies and a lack of participation as an
integral principle of the policies addressing them. This lack is especially accentuated in

62
the hard policy sector (education, training and labour market policies) with its powerful
gate-keepers channelling young people into trajectories in which participation is
postponed to an ill-defined ‘later’. We assume that motivational change in contrast
requires possibilities for active participation as an integral principle of policies from
design to practice.

It has been mentioned above that the case study projects analysed in the YOYO project
cover a broad range of different types whereby a variety of meanings and forms of
participation are implied. In this regard, different dimensions of participation may be
distinguished such as participation in terms of:

• voluntary (and thereby chosen) attendance of the project;

• involvement in project-related decision making;

• a community approach such as social and civic engagement; and

• biographical self-determination which is most relevant for the objectives of this

research.

At the same time, analysis needs to ask how case study projects realise participation – or
what elements of their work project workers refer to as participation. In the analysis such
modes of participation can be related with young people’s accounts of motivation leading
to a set of empirically saturated participatory constellations of motivational change.

3.1. Young people’s experiences of participation and their motivational

impact

In the following, we will present some exemplary case studies and consider how they
understand and realise participation in order to enhance motivation. The selected cases
relate to the five types of projects and relate to three transition regimes without of
course being representative as they stand for good practice and are exceptions to the
mainstream. In the case studies we have analysed structures, goals, target groups and
contextual conditions of the projects and the specific participatory strengths but also
limitations of the projects in relation to individual motivational experiences of young
people. By this, meanings and forms of participation become transparent as well as their
motivational effects.

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 3.1.1. ArciRagazzi,Palermo, Italy: priority of participation in youth work

ArciRagazzi in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, is a youth association organising leisure and
cultural activities. It is a local branch of a national association, partly financed through
membership fees, partly by public and private funding. A prime objective is to provide
young people, especially those who are living in deprived neighbourhoods or are coming
from detention centres, with life perspectives beyond unemployment and/or involvement
with the mafia. This is even more important as youth unemployment reaches 60% due to
long waiting periods before entering a regular job. Typically, for Southern Italy this
affects young people from all educational levels. Therefore, groups of participants at
ArciRagazzi are heterogeneous in terms of class and education. The project workers are
highly aware that only through participatory cultural activities with a specific community
approach they get access to these children and young people. Activities are a series of
participatory planning initiatives in which children, adolescents, and families collaborate
to develop and improve public buildings and spaces. All initiatives are based on young
people’s skills and wishes experimented and ‘reinforced’ through play, such as
handicrafts workshops, fairs, concerts, debates, information points for young people,
meetings and assemblies with the youth to decide on project management guidelines,
initiatives in career orientation and transitions to work. The project also aims at the
enhancement of entrepreneurship. In fact several young men and women have made
careers from simple usership over voluntary engagement to semi-professional careers as
freelance project leaders. A series of cooperatives – ‘animation and training factories’ –
have been created and, whilst independent from Arciragazzi, they would work in close
cooperation with them.

Most important in the participatory work of Arciragazzi is the acquisition of active

citizenship tools, which serves simultaneously the local surroundings and the individual
young people. By the project’s activities the local atmosphere for children and young
people has become much more ‘their own space’; on the subjective level, this goes along
with experiences of self-efficacy: to note to have the appropriate means to actively
engage at one’s disposal, and to recognize the own influence on the local environment.
The latter is the core means of enhancing young people’s motivation. This is where
responsibles see the project’s potential effects for young people’s transitions to work,
however, if these are not addressed systematically only a few young people directly
engage as semi-professional youth workers:

“We wouldn’t be accepted so well from the beginning if we were

perceived as vocational guidance operators.” (Project responsible) – “I
believe experimenting is important in the transition from school to work,

64
 to have time and opportunities to realise what you like, what not ... This
also involves the possibility of making mistakes, and discovering your
potential.” (Project worker)

The second strong point of Arciragazzi is to be seen in the responsibility given to the
young people, e.g. by highly participatory project-related decision-making processes. The
issue of career orientation is dealt with by the association only when explicitly raised by
young members who show a strong professional inclination for a given activity. This is
the case of Pamela, who, in the meantime, has decided to study social work:

Pamela, female, 21, describes the general situation of young people –

including herself – in her area as depression, due to the predominance
of the Mafia and due to a certain fatalism concerning future, because of
the structural lack of paid work in Sicily. She relates her own
motivational changes to the progressive involvement in the project,
assuming always more responsibilities and discovering new fields of
action and intervention - first animation with children, then organisation
tasks in the association. This brought her towards a much more active
attitude: “Oh sure, it is well known that in Palermo there's no work, but
to keep on saying ‘there are no opportunities’ and still day-dreaming
about the so called ‘permanent job’ seems to me a waste of time. I have
personally understood being inside Arciragazzi that you have to create
your job by yourself, inventing new professions, considering your own
wishes… But to keep on complaining and then doing nothing, never
takes you anywhere.” She underlines the opportunity of experimenting,
which includes the concept of “learning in practice” but also the desire of
having the chance of doing things and making mistakes: “The first thing
is, nobody should tell you: “do that and that” but it’s you in the first
place who have to take decisions ... a sort of self-experimentation. We
also realise we have made some mistakes during this year-long project
but it was nice, even making mistakes, growing up, it was like self-
training.”

Pamela stresses the experiences of self-efficacy, once being involved in work as animator
of children. It is predominantly this rewarding experience, which provides her with self-
esteem for the future – knowing that this future may depend on her own engagement.
One may interpret this attitude as perfectly fitting individualisation but in the context of
the Sicilian labour market it reveals to be realistic inasmuch one cannot rely on pre-
defined structures. As third sector youth organisations are often the only actors to close

65
the structural deficit of the Italian transition system there are several young people like
Pamela in the case study projects whose transitions show alternative patterns although
being highly precarious.

Arciraggazzi definitively transgresses the scope of action of a youth work project; this
concerns not only its engagement on the level of the community, but also its (indirect)
activities for preparing young people for a pro-active attitude towards training and work
entrepreneurship in the area of cultural youth work.

3.1.2. Simon Youth Project, Cork, Republic of Ireland: priority of

integrating homeless youth

The Simon Youth Project, Cork, Ireland, is an international voluntary agency that
provides succour to homeless women and men, usually through homeless shelters; each
hostel or area is a completely independent unit. Apart from covering existential needs, it
offers counselling and support for further integration if requested. Due to a significant
increase in homelessness amongst young people (18 - 26 years) the Cork Simon
Community in1998 with state funding through the Young People’s Services and Facilities
Fund initiated a service dedicated to supporting young homeless persons. Substance use
was identified as a major factor amongst the homeless; therefore, prevention, support
and help/risk-reduction in this area is a prime goal. The service-using group tends to
suffer from multiple deprivations, i.e.; ‘broken homes’, problematic and risk-laden
substance use, criminality, early school leaving and mental health issues, which
underlines the multi-dimensional context of homelessness. Homeless youth is
economically, institutionally and culturally excluded and socially isolated. Subjective
needs and project goals can in this regard be summed up under the heading of ‘re-
integration’ encompassing all life-contexts. Nevertheless, the Simon project can be
regarded as a mainstream project within policies for youth at risk. The project has
experienced significant changes since the research process commenced: Changes of
personnel – the original (female) worker left the project – as well as re-structuration,
with the youth and drug project and outreach project moving out from the shelter and
physically relocated into a day centre as the shelter had implied some de-motivating
factors for young people. Apart from this, a substantial turnover in service users is
reported. The mis-use of psychoactive substances appears to have risen over the last two
years and the potential for violence on the part of the service users represents a big
issue for both staff and residents.

The project works on the basis that it is entirely up to the users how they use it. The
prime motives to join the project are extrinsically related to covering existential needs –

66
‘a bed for the night’. The project workers are fully aware of the labelling cycle in which
the young people are caught and therefore aim to avoid reproducing any negative
ascriptions. The core mode of participation in this project is trust – building up trustful
relationships with project workers in a warm, friendly and supportive environment. They
make the experience “that not everyone hates you” (19, female). This also includes the
condition that there is no obligation on these young people to make use of the project –
and this is the reason why it is difficult to measure the project’s influence on young
people’s motivation. Its function is more about stabilising young people ‘in the
background’, simply by being there whenever they need it. One example is Gavin, whose
transitions can be associated to the stagnant pattern:

Gavin, male, 20, comes from a town in North County Cork and has
been on and off the street since he was 17. He did not have a good
relationship with his parents, when questioned about parental support
after leaving school his parents told him to “get off your hole you lazy
bastard, get out and do something for yourself”. Gavin left school
officially at the minimum leaving age (15). He was however completely
disengaged from the school system before leaving; “what I liked in
school was pulling the piss and having a laugh, I done nothing, I didn’t
get on with teachers”. Subsequent to leaving school, Gavin moved out
of the family home and drifted into homelessness. He also became
involved in drug use and criminal activity. Gavin believed that he was
being singled out for attention by the local police and therefore moved
to Cork when he was 19; “once you have a name for something you get
blamed for everything and you come from a small town. Things spread
out about you, you won’t be able to get a job anywhere. You get hassle
off the law, you get in trouble with the law, you be getting pulled up
against the wall, hands in shoved in pockets”. Gavin spent six months in
prison between the two interviews. Eventually, through steady contact
with the project his situation stabilises a bit; and: Gavin has been in a
steady relationship with his girlfriend (who was also homeless) for more
than two years. During the course of the research project they managed
to access rented accommodation.

Although the effects of the project on Gavin’s transition cannot clearly be identified, he
obviously did benefit from the fact of being personally acknowledged in the Simon
project, which meant for him: stepping out of the cycle of being labelled as criminal. One
also could assume that the project has allowed him for some encouraging experiences
which helped him to get a rented flat together with his girlfriend. The latter then could be

67
called a combination of motivating factors: detecting a personal goal, which then could
be pursued, and the experience to achieve it. The project more often acts in the
background but facilitates the process – by trust, by daily support, by simply being there.

In its limited possibilities resulting from the extreme marginalisation of its target group
and the integration obstacles of the regular transition system the Simon Project stands
for a redical low-threshold approach of participation. This means to act upon young
people’s wishes and needs and to guarantee a reliable relationship, personal respect and
acknowledgement; and from there to provide bridges to other arenas of social
integration.

3.1.3. Cityteam, Rotterdam/Utrecht/Zoetermeer (Netherlands):

preparation for training and work

Cityteam is based in three cities in the Netherlands: Utrecht, Zoetermeer and Rotterdam
– the latter however has closed down due to local funding problems which arose during
the timeframe of the research. Cityteam provides professional orientation through a
flexible combination of workshops, voluntary work and internships in private companies,
accompanied by career counselling and coaching, in order to open up individual pathways
for its participants. The target group of Cityteam consists of a mix of young people with
different ethnic and transition backgrounds: most of them experienced riskful transitions
(school dropouts, low qualified, unemployed, etc.), a smaller number of participants are
less at risk but felt they needed a time out for orientation. The participants are mostly
younger than 20 and have at most a secondary qualification. The share of the first group
of young people has increased lately, due to the fact that Cityteam has become more
involved in providing programmes for publicly funded re-integration trajectories.
Cityteam operates at the crossroads of youth work (combating social exclusion), career
counselling and the re-integration in education or work, and may be regarded as an
example of independent transition institutions and public / private partnership, the latter
occurring more and more often in the Netherlands; but it seems to get more and more
dependent form scarce public fundings. This endangers its approach because of the
predominance of youth at risk in up to now rather balanced groups and the focus on re-
integration into education. With its focus on temporal work it also reflects the trend in
labour market policies towards more flexibility. However, it still has a different approach
of biographical participation: “In existing arrangements, if a young person comes in, it is
already clear that he will become a painter. I think that is nonsense. A young person
should decide for him- or herself what he or she would like to become.” (Director).

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Cityteams most relevant mode of participation is leaving outcomes of the intervention
open. It is the young person him or herself to identify and explore personal goals and to
plan the next transition steps. This is true with the restriction, that more and more
participants do not enter the project as a matter of own choice, and should achieve an
institutional set of goals – whilst originally choice is the core mode of participation in this
project. Under the second precondition that it is possible to organise phases of voluntary
work and internships in flexible way, targeted to the needs and timing of young people, it
assists in developing a choice biography, backed with a series of practical work
experiences. The step-by-step procedures, embedded and accompanied by personal
counselling and coaching get crucial relevance First because they promote self-
responsibility and offer social hold at the same time, and second, because they assist in
motivation management: coping with drawbacks by increasing biographicity allowing the
individual to look forward to the next more promising experience.

Fouad, male, 23, from Moroccan descent after leaving primary school
has committed criminal offences that put him in jail for approximately
four and a half years. The two years after this he had a number of small
part-time jobs via temporary employment agencies and had to follow a
rehabilitation trajectory. During this period he decided that he wanted to
become a social worker and he tried to enter a professional school to
learn for this occupation. However, due to his past and his lack of
educational and social capital, schools in his living area rejected him
repeatedly. Getting tired of the petty jobs and the frustration of getting
turned down each time, he was mediated to enter Cityteam Utrecht,
“because I didn’t know how to do certain things, to cope with
disappointments. I really wanted to throw the towel”. At Cityteam he
followed workshops and organised events, such as an international
exchange between youth projects in the Netherlands, Latvia and
Slovenia. He did not follow an internship “as I knew already what I
wanted to do”: at the time of the interview he was planning to start a
study in social and cultural work, in order to do a better kind of social
work as the one he himself has experienced. “I have seen a lot of
community centres and I think they are doing it wrong, how youth
workers dealt with young people there … I know what they go through,
I’ve been in that shit as well … and I like the line of work and can do it
for a longer period of time”. He used Cityteam also to get enrolled into
the respective professional school. He has learned to look at his history
as a potential: “What could I do to turn my personal history into an

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 asset … Through the project I got a totally different perspective on
things.”

Fouad underwent considerable motivational change, from de-motivation to regaining

motivation, already in the period before entering the project. He used Cityteam to
sharpen his interest of becoming a social worker, also by looking at role-models he could
find there, and to start putting his plan into practice by entering an education for social
and cultural work. He made crucial experiences of self-efficacy and learned the social
skills necessary to get enrolled. It is a mixture of a critical view towards youth work in
general (but also towards Cityteam) and empowering experiences in the project which
give him an extra push forward, because he can look at himself as the director of his
decisions.

Cityteam clearly enlarges the scope of participation compared to most other pre-
vocational schemes by insisting on open outcomes of young people’s (re)orientation
processes. This is true with the restriction, that more and more participants do not enter
the project as a matter of own choice but are supposed to achieve institutionally set
goals.

3.1.4. Shalom, Freiberg, Germany (East): priority of (subsidised)

employment

The Shalom project, run by a large Christian association in the rural region of Freiberg,
Eastern Germany, offers long-term unemployed young people aged 18 to 28 subsidised
employment combined with re-training. The project is partly funded by a Federal
programme to combat right-wing extremism with measures of labour market integration
while the wages for the 10 participants are covered by the Employment Service. It aims
at building up labour market orientation, work experiences and competences. In
researching and presenting Jewish life and work in Saxony and Northern Bohemia the
project contributes to a sensitisation against anti-Semitism and racism, a phenomenon
widespread in the region and also amongst some projects participants. It combines socio-
cultural work, research and training with the possibility of offering the participants a full
wage for three years and thus medium term financial security. The structural context is
the East German process of economic re-structuring after unification, with high
unemployment also for those who have completed apprenticeship training (yet often
non-company-based training which accounts for a third of all training places in Eastern
Germany). The project is part of the compensatory measures to which young
unemployed people are transferred by the employment service. Modular training has
been developed corresponding to the standards for professional training in ‘media,

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archiving and information’ however, these are not acknowledged by the Chamber of
Industry and Commerce. The main problem however is that after the scheme – no
matter if pure employment or training – the participants would not get work. Shalom
together with all other employment and training schemes cannot solve this structural
dilemma, but has to work within it – to close a gap in service provision for young people
on the verge of total disengagement and help them to find and make their way back to
some kind of trajectory.

The Shalom project shows very clear that choice concerning the attendance of a project
may become decisive: participatory experiences offered by a project only can influence
their motivation positively as long as they ”fit“ in a biographical sense and this is true
only for one part of the group; those young people can open themselves for respective
learning processes, experiences of self-efficacy; their activities enfold motivating effects:

Katarina, female, 26, trained as ’wholesale and retail assistant’ in a

non-company based training although she would have preferred training
in a real company as she describes herself as ambitious. Afterwards she
does not find a job and is unemployed for two years, which she mostly
spends home alone. The employment office offers her a training course
in the telecommunication sector, during which she becomes pregnant.
She has to quit the course and takes parental leave. After this she is
unemployed again. She loses motivation and states. “I really felt shut
in. I let myself go at home. I hated myself, it was awful.” Working in the
Shalom project has changed her outlook on live: ”I have finally found
my vocational profile (graphic design) … I want to go that way. My
original training got me nowhere but this is something I am interested in
… I also think that I have become more open … I would probably have
just lived along. You start to think further. I am different now, more
positive … The work has changed me. Maybe not the project as such. I
earn my own money. This is probably what got things going.“

Whether or not her newly discovered field of interest will give her a better chance on the
labour market remains open,because of the poor opportunities in the region, especially
for those coming from employment schemes. But she has detected new professional
interests (and she has also changed her private life by separating from her partner),
while rewarding experiences on the social, as well as on the monetary level, have
contributed to increase her feeling of self-efficacy. The financial incentive as a motivating
factor to contribute to the practical success of the project work must not be
underestimated.

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 “It’s the wage people receive, which in most cases makes them
participate at all. Nevertheless, receiving a wage gives the participants
time to ‘breathe’ and may open up resources for re-orientation and self-
development.” (Shalom, Germany).

Here the interrelation of extrinsic and intrinsic motivational aspects becomes visible.
However, for those participants whose interests are not met by the project activities this
incentive hardly can compensate for being sent by the employment service to a job
which is not a real one as is the case with Robert:

Robert, male, 28, looks back over a frustrating career: he had to quit
his first apprenticeship (machine builder) due to health reasons. After 8
months of unemployment he successfully finishes a three year
apprenticeship as a brewer, but without sufficient practical experience
he can not find a job. Then he worked on temporary basis for a while
after which he starts a certified re-training scheme as a technical
draughtsman. Again, he successfully finished the course and again he
can not find a job, only occasional jobs, mainly with computers. After
another year of unemployment the Employment Service places him on
the Shalom project. “I didn’t expect much … I was unemployed and had
nothing to do.” In the course of the project he acquires a very critical
perspective. He claims that the educative components of the project,
especially with regard to computer/ software knowledge do not suffice to
“really learn new things”. He insists that it is a job, good enough to fill
the cv. He has no doubt that the project’s content won’t help him to get
a job. “Doing web-design it doesn’t matter a damn whether you know
Hebrew or not.” Apart from the singular tasks he is asked to fulfil, he
claims he has no idea about the vision of the project itself. He expresses
his disappointment, believing to be the target of a anti-racist education
programme, which he doesn’t wish to be identified with. In view of the
limited duration of the project he fears, that he will not be able to cope
with another period of unemployment.

Robert cannot attribute anything positive – neither to the activity nor to the way to deal
with it nor with the scopes for own decision-making in the project – because he considers
his attendance primarily as a job leading to nowhere.

The possibilities of participation within the Shalom project are limited and characterised
by its struggle with its pre-defined function as an employment scheme for which

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participation is not an objective. While attempts to be acknowledged as a training
provider have failed, participants are recruited through the employment service on a
quasi coercive basis as they do not have any alternatives. At the same time, due to the
situation of the Eastern German labour market, it is unlikely for most participants to
stabilise their careers after the project.

3.1.5. Cooperative ‘Infinite Patience’, Alfafar, Spain: participatory

training and employment

The Cooperative ‘Infinite Patience’ is located in Alfafar, in the surroundings of Valencia,

Spain. This neighbourhood is located in the countryside, without any services and poor
housing conditions The project provides young people with a range of activities, be it the
organisation of cultural activities and voluntary initiatives, providing contacts for
occasional jobs, acting as employer itself according to contracts with the municipality or
assisting in self-employment. Work activities are mostly directed towards services in the
area of social and cultural infrastructure, repairing houses in the run-down
neighbourhood. Apart from employment the project to a minor degree also offers training
courses (job search, management, basic computer skills), for which young people receive
a certificate and which partially helps to get jobs. Most of the young people are long-term
unemployed, come from immigrated families where drug problems are frequent. On the
one hand, they come to the project because they have no alternative than to get some
work. On the other hand, they look for acceptance of their mostly alternative lifestyles
for which the project serves as a kind of cristallisation point and open milieu. Being
organised as a cooperative, means equal opportunity to all to participate in all project-
related decisions. This principle in a way is extraordinary for a project which has the
function of an employment measure, and it indeed has enabled political activities, such
as strikes and marches. On the political agenda youth unemployment has been replaced
as prime topic by precariousness of jobs – in fact, the increase of fixed-term jobs mostly
affects young people while only slightly reducing youth unemployment.

The cooperative Infinite Patience is a good place for young people who do not have any
alternatives regarding training or work and who search for ways of integration without
having to adapt too much to formal training principles or employers’ demands. It offers
possibilities to do something, to make an own contribution. In fact, intrinsic motivation in
terms of happiness and self-realisation – because of doing a specific activity or because
of doing it in a meaningful setting is seen as more important as a regular career. As a
cooperative, the prominent modes of participation are shared responsibility of all
participants for their project, and trust through lived solidarity; thereby young people
gain experiences of self-efficacy – which in this project from the start are a collective

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issue. It underlines strengths instead of deficiencies, and it sets on the time-factor in
learning trust in oneself and in the community by staying with the cooperative for a
while. Participants learn a change of value and together with this a change of
perspectives, attitudes, and also motivations.

Toni, male, 30, after a chequered past marked by delinquency,

marginalisation and drugs consumption, has become involved in the
Cooperative where he has been able to leave behind his past; he stops
consuming drugs and works in the project with intermittent periods of
unemployment and employment; a situation allowing him to receive
unemployment benefits. The project is not only a means of subsistence
for him; thanks to his participation in the radical, alternative philosophy
of the project, he has learned to be socially acceptable without giving up
his critical spirit. He is in close contact and collaboration with similar
projects in other Spanish regions. He has achieved some affective
stability, thinking at the moment about living together with his girl-
friend somewhere else. He gives special value to the climate of
solidarity, affective bonds and companionship in the project. He has
found a peer-group that understands and accepts him and which
enabled him to do the big step to live on his own and even develop
plans to change residence. He feels much better equipped for work, as
his self-esteem has increased. Currently he is working as a coach to
guide new participants of the Cooperative. This recovered autonomy lets
him continue in the project, not as a beneficiary, but as a ‘worker’, i.e.
as an active partner. According to him, this change is not only due to
the support he has got from the Cooperative, or to the employment and
the subsequent benefits, but also because he has been taught about
how to be valued as an individual. He has found his place in the world.

By trustful relationships, by taking over a responsible role in the project with its
rewarding side-effects but also by not being forced to give up a critical attitude but to
invest it into a joint endeavour, Toni slowly but surely has built up self-esteem and a
positive way to look at his transitional biography. He is one of the participants who
profited from becoming aware of a broader horizon, learning to look at himself in the
context of his social environment, learning to take over responsibility; this provides him
with a feeling of purposeful engagement, with personal mattering which is socially
recognised and acknowledged.

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The cooperative Infinite Patience is more than a conventional employment scheme
although in a situation of lacking opportunities there are not many alternatives. However,
participants are not put under pressure to adapt to predefined goals. Step-by-step they
are enabled to gain ownership of the collective process which becomes a meaningful goal
in itself justifying any kind of jobs. Individual orientation towards accepting available
work or to maintain individual aspirations is embedded in a safe environment, a good
atmosphere, an alternative culture, a feeling of belonging and of strong solidarity. Self-
efficacy is deeply linked with common efficacy – the feeling of being part of a strong
community.

3.2. Perspectives of motivational change through participation

Referring to these case studies it is possible to analyse the effects of participatory

approaches on young people’s motivational careers in a more systematic way by relating
different modes and dimensions of participation to subjective experiences and
biographical change. The section is structured around modes of participation which have
been brought up by project workers and enlarged by case study analysis. The way in
which different modes are combined and related to different dimensions of participation
creates diverse participatory constellations. An important aspect in this regard is to be
aware of the fact that some of these modes correspond to the original function and
objectives of the projects while others imply to transcend institutionally set boundaries.

One may say that choice represents a meta-principle of self-determination and

participation. This is reflected by two key integration mechanisms of modern and late
modern societies: the democratic appraisal of individual citizens and the economic
reliance on individual consumers. With regard to the projects, choice matters first of all
regarding the individual decision to attend a project or not, but also how to ‘use’ a
project for individual needs and interests has been identified as a basic mode and
dimension of participation. Access to the projects is free and voluntary in the cases of
ArciRagazzi, Simon and Infinite Patience (and for the majority of the other case study
projects). By providing free access and voluntary attendance projects can build on
(intrinsic) interests of young people which lead them to join the projects. This is
especially the case in youth work and in the more preventive integration projects. In the
case of the Simon project the low threshold approach and the freedom to use the project
‘only’ to cover material needs is due to the degree of disengagement of the young people
who otherwise probably would not get into contact at all. Projects like Infinite Patience
obviously reflect the failure of institutional systems, inasmuch as they try to avoid
structures which may be experienced as pressure, being forced or as stigmatising and
consequently de-motivate young people. Although working on the hard issue of paid

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work they consciously decide to keep thresholds low in order to allow young people to
develop individually appropriate and subjectively meaningful relations with the project.

Self-chosen action always is closer related to subjective needs and interests – whether
directly (intrinsically) or indirectly (extrinsically). This may include financial or material
incentives or wages which meet financial needs to build a bridge to more intrinsic
experiences. The relevance of choice becomes especially visible where it is limited or
denied, where project entry is coerced more or less directly by gate-keeper institutions
as is the cases of Cityteam and Shalom or other projects laying priority on pre-vocational
preparation or on training and employment. However, choice does not only play a role
with regard to the basic issue of joining a project or not. It also occurs within the
projects; either in terms of choice between different activities or with regard to the way
and degree of involvement.

Where projects address the issue of young people’s biographical orientation and life
planning, choice and participation require open outcomes instead of channelling
individuals towards specific directions right from the beginning. This applies for the
Simon Youth Project allowing for mere pragmatic use and while normally not for pre-
vocational schemes that are clearly labour market oriented; not necessarily by providing
hard qualifications or jobs but by making them employable by orientating towards
accepting any job. It is one of the key principles of the Dutch Cityteam project that it is
the young person him or herself who is expected and supported to find out what personal
goals to follow and what transition steps to take within the project and afterwards. With
regard to the pre-vocational sector open versus re-defined outcomes may be seen as the
key factor for distinguishing participatory from non-participatory approaches in terms of
biographical self-determination. And this is often linked with voluntary or forced access.
This becomes obvious in the Cityteam project with regard to those sent by the
employment service on a compulsory basis.

One mode of participation which is even more basic is giving young people the feeling of
being personally accepted: ‘come as you are’ refers to individual needs, peculiarities,
obligations and constraints across different transitional strands. This counter-strategy to
negative labelling and stigmatisation responds to young people’s need for recognition as
individuals with normal aspirations. As long as this need is ignored, young people cannot
start to look at the next steps as their own – they feel alienated from the start. This was
also experienced during the interviews: as soon as interviewees felt encouraged to
present themselves as experts for their own life situation a more participatory climate
developed and the communication situation became more symmetric. In this regard this
principle corresponds strongly with the mode of open outcomes (see above). This is most

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obvious in the case of the unconditional support provided by Simon Youth Project to the
group of homeless young people. But is also reflected where projects refuse to ascribe
stagnation and disadvantage in young people’s transitions to individual deficits but focus
on strengths instead. Again this is a key issue in projects addressing youth at risk either
in a more general preventive perspective or in pre-vocational like Cityteam or in training
and employment measures like Infinite Patience. The approach allows for experiences of
success, with regard to learning can be interpreted either by lowering the education and
training level which however means reproducing rather than overcoming the deficit-
perspective; or it can be interpreted by changing the ‘subject’; by shifting attention from
areas in which persons fail in meeting formal standards to activities in which they are
strong – because they are related to their subjective interests. This means not to isolate
the issue of increased self-efficacy from the subjective relevance of goals. Of course
focussing on strengths is closely related with allowing for project-related decision-making
and a more general climate for holistic approaches, in which young people can feel
acknowledged in their (special) strengths as well as in their (special) problems. In the
main, most of these young people have made the experience that their needs are sorted
and addressed according to a hierarchical institutional logic which valuates some of them
as primary and others as secondary and which does not correspond to their way of
looking at them.

We found various constellations which interpret participation by providing places and

spaces to be appropriated and shaped by young people according to their own needs and
interests. Projects which focus on community-related participation enlarge these spaces
to the local level. They aim at the mutual relationship between subjective motivation and
active (youth) citizenship: the possibility of influencing, shaping and changing one’s
social environment as a way of both constructing the own biography and active
participation in the community. In the cases of the projects Infinite Patience and
ArciRagazzi the connection between space as part of the wider community and space as
to be jointly shaped and decided upon are incorporated by democratic procedures
internally and acting into the external community. Participation practically means that
project workers limitate their power and thereby is also closely related to project-related
decision-making. And it is closely related with focussing on young people’s strengths and
requires confidence in young people’s competencies and in their interest to invest them
in a cooperative context:

“If you would just let them do, far better things would come about than
you and I would even consider.” (Project worker, Kompass-Job-in-Club,
East Germany)

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While keeping spaces free for young people’s activities means to allow for experiences of
self-efficacy in self-determined activities, the issue of space extends to the issue of
accessability (choice) and individuality (recognition). This relates to external qualities of
spaces to represent cool places (Skelton/Valentine 1998), laden with youth cultural value
as in the case of the East German Kompass-Job-in-Club with its café-like atmosphere
which is an attractive place for young people to meet. Such projects can be used by
young people for self-presentation which is an important aspect of identity work and
thereby closely related to subjective need and interest (Stauber, 2004). Here, the
motivating processes relate both to a (youth-cultural) interest as well as to experiences
of self-efficacy. But equally as important seems to be that these locations also represent
warm places, which stand for reliable bonds, a warm atmosphere, which in some cases
even could replace missing families and become homes for young people during a certain
phase of their transitions. The second meaning points to a deeper need of young people
and represents the holding component to cool places. This gets visible in the way
projects offer opportunities for self-presentation: in projects like Batoto Yetu and
ArciRagazzi – but also Princes of Nothingness (Portugal) – performance is a key incentive
force. It is important that young people can decide themselves in how far they want to
become visible and step into the spotlight, but also that they are empowered by their
project-mates and -workers, and that they can draw back into the secure backstage of
the project. The fashion-shows related to the dressmaking training provided by the
German La Silhouette project represent a perfect symbol for this balance, with individual
young women stepping into the foreground but cushioned by the bigger group.
Supporting structures do not minimise experiences of self-efficacy. In contrast, they
allow for the creation of ‘communities of practice’ in which meaning, belonging and
identity are interwoven (Wenger, 1998).

Providing spaces means to give young people responsibility. This is of course related to
sharing responsibility through involvement in project-related decision-taking (as a
dimension of participation) for the group, a common task or goal. This also implies taking
young people seriously, addressing them as adults. Responsibility enhances a feeling of
being important and being seen as socially capable to make an own contribution, which
increases self-esteem and self-efficacy. This is most obvious in the case of ArciRagazzi
where young people at an early age get responsibilities as project leaders, for example,
to run a child recreation centre. In this case the project workers succeed in keeping the
balance between giving responsibility and maintaining an encouraging atmosphere in
which mistakes are accepted as experiences and learning. Such experiences with the
time evoke also own interests to take over responsibility. Getting in contact with
meaningfulness in a biographical sense dose not necessarily have to be in an individual

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project, but rather often happens in interaction between individuals and their social
surroundings. Some projects use this link consciously by providing opportunities of social
engagement: work with children, with elderly, social engagement in communities not
only for pedagogical reasons. The example of ArciRagazzi refers to the wider issue of
citizenship. It means that young people, if not having achieved an adult status must have
the right to take over responsibility, to have possibilities be active in their own rights as
well as for the sake of the community (similar Infinite Patience, but also Shalom). It is
important to see the difference between the right to take responsibility and the rights
and responsibility approach on which repressive workfare policies rely.

In one way or the other, all constellations of participation are based on trustful
relationships. Trust is both a basic need in itself which grows with the experience of
social marginalisation and a basic prerequisite for increased self-efficacy. First of all, this
regards the relationships between young people and project workers. Trust implies to be
valued and recognised as an individual. This has been demonstrated with regard to the
Simon Youth Project in a double sense. On the one hand, they only get in contact as long
as they trust the project workers not to follow the interests of institutions such as the
employment service, social security or the police. On the other hand, unconditional
support reflects that individuality implies fulfilment of needs of emotional hold, reliable
bonds, and personal acknowledgement. Especially, projects like Simon but also other
youth work and integration projects rely on the empowering effect of counter-
experiences to a life which up to date has been shaped by negative labelling and
mistrust. Counter-experiences imply small steps in which young people learn that they
are worth to be liked and appreciated, and small steps of self-reliance. This implies to
serve as a sounding board for young people in their processes of (re)orientation:

“Where in society do our kids have the opportunity to reflect upon the
demands they have to face when they have left school? To reflect
together with somebody else. Young people need a place to act out this
clash, why do you need an upper secondary certificate to work in a
bakery? They need a concrete person to talk about this injustice, and
maybe later on they see, ok, this is unjust, but it is like that and I have
to look for another opportunity. But, if they only have to face this
anonymous demand, they have no chance to cope with it productively.
All that comes out is that he or she takes this as a personal offense by
society.” (Leader of German outreach project).

In many cases it seems to be necessary that young people feel that the project workers
do not see them as clients but as friends, as an individual As the relationship is the only

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level youth workers dispose of they often seem to be willing to meet this expectation and
give the young people a feeling of friendship rather relating to them in a merely
professional way. Interestingly, this relational ‘surplus’ does not get devaluated or
damaged if invested by the project workers with regard to influencing young people to
engage in job search or training:

“Sometimes she (project worker) really was a pain in the ass, hassling
about writing applications for apprenticeships … But she took her time ...
If nobody really cares, you get the impression that nobody gives a shit
whether you get something or not.” (D, female, 20)

These example shows that reference to trustful relationships does not correspond with a
picture of participation as harmonious. In the context of de-standardised transitions and
a diversification of perspectives it is rather unlikely that young people’s and project
worker’s – or even institution’s – values, views and interests converge. Providing spaces
and developing a culture of conflict is a necessary prerequisite of participation in its
project-, community- and biography-related dimensions (cf. Stevens et al., 1999).

Trust of course is also involved in giving responsibility or in projects concerned with

serious production or services in the sense of showing confidence not only in young
people’s capacities and strengths but also in their ‘good intentions’. The dimension of
space has to do with trust inasmuch projects not only may be ‘cool’ places but ‘warm’
places as well standing for reliable personal bonds, a safe environment and a feeling of
belonging which in some cases could replace missing families and become homes for
young people during a certain phase of their transitions (in the context of the Simon
project the metaphor of ‘warmth’ in fact has material as well as social connotations). In
fact, many young people referred to projects as a ‘family’. This may enlarge to the
community dimension like in the case of Infinite Patience where the experience of
solidarity is linked with self-determined activities.

Project workers represent an alternative type of adult compared to teachers, employment

officers and parents. This ‘otherness’ is not related to a specific type or character, but
represents a experiential reality often stressed by young people. It is based not only on
professional habitus, e.g. as youth worker, but also a ‘different’ socio-cultural orientation
towards liberal, alternative milieus relying more on personal authority than on power.
Learning to know these project workers very often was for the young people a new inter-
generational experience. This points on the one hand to the general notion of ‘significant
others’ (Mead 1934) offering social interaction in which the ‘self’ is created and
strengthened by recognition, mirrored, feedbacked, and brought to self-reflection.

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Finally, trust is also related with the aspect of choice and this reveals to be the most
important mixture regarding sustainable motivating processes: freedom in the sense of
increasing ownership over one life through own decisions represents a kind of advance
given to young participants, which contrasts to the way they often have been treated by
transition institutions before entering the projects; but self-determination is not realised
in an individualised way, but is combined with accompaniment, support, and reliable
relationships. It is the link of freedom and belonging, of choice and hold, of self-
determination and reliable support which makes the difference to general demand of
individualisation. It should be reminded that participation is a response to the
individualisation of citizenship and social integration and the challenge of growing
insecurity and uncertainty. In this general perspective, it seems consequent to build
participatory policies on trustful relationships.

3.3. Conclusions

In this chapter we have analysed the relationship between participation and motivation
by relating modes and dimensions of participation with the perspective of motivational
change in the sense of increased self-efficacy and/or the generation of interest. We
interpret the analysis that possibilities of participation in fact are a precondition of
motivational change. The exemplary analysis of five case studies however has shown
that not participation as such facilitates motivation per se. We have shown that this
applies in a different way for participation in terms of voluntary attendance, involvement
in decision-making, community engagement and biographical self-determination. At the
same time projects apply different modes of participation such as the possibility of
choice, the commitment not to preclude young people’s trajectories but to keep future
options open, recognition of young people as persons with individual strengths, the
provisions of spaces for own activity and self-presentation, and trustful relationships. In
this regard, all projects aim at providing (and using) the biographic chance of a ‘fresh
start’ by initiating such a process (without ignoring the hindering/demotivating factors of
the transitional process up to date). This new process starts with personal recognition,
giving young people a feeling for their personal expertise (acknowledging their biography
up to date, and showing confidence in their biographical progress in future). Magnusson
(1993) in his 5 P’s of planning to raise youth initiative sets ‘pride’ at the beginning of a
re-motivation process (followed by passion, purpose, performance and poise (see also
chapter Nine). Similar Amundson (1998) regards personal ‘mattering’ as a crucial basis
for any re-motivation process (cf. Schlossberg et al., 1989).

This also can get the meaning of motivational management, above all, if it includes the
reflection on personal limits and structural boarders and points to a kind of realism

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regarding the scope of own efforts. We have referred to this as the biographical
reflexivity or ‘biographicity’ which means: to consciously construct one’s biography. By
this it becomes obvious that motivation is a prerequisite of (biographical) learning while
motivational change itself has to be seen as a learning process.

4. Contexts and dimensions of learning biographies

The uncertainty of present and future economic and social developments has strongly
affected education and the institutionalised forms of learning. Education and training
institutions can no longer “promise” their students stable social and professional
integration; the (gendered) normal biography that was set into motion through mass
education, no longer provides a compass for young people. As a consequence, learning
takes on new meanings; learning to learn – lifelong – is what the knowledge-based
society demands.

We have identified a reflexive competence to deal with these contradictions –

biographicity (Alheit & Dausien, 2000) – as a key aspect of the development of an
individual’s learning biography, one that combines these different experiences of learning
in a biographically meaningful career. Non-formal and informal ways of acquiring
knowledge therefore become increasingly relevant for society as a whole. But while there
is a growing consensus among researchers, policy makers and educational practitioners
about the necessity to modernize formal education and training, our findings show that
experiments with successful combinations of formal and non-formal learning are rare.
Therefore our first interest in investigating the case study projects is how different
elements of non-formal learning are conceptualised within the projects; in fact we have
to speak about non-formal learning which is arranged to facilitate specific informal
learning processes while we have little information on informal learning. The aim of the
analysis is to ascertain how the projects manage to integrate the different aspects of
learning; the social and the identity aspects of learning; how they deal with the
motivational and personal prerequisites of successful learning. In essence, what kind of
learning is happening within the projects? What kind of competencies do the young
people acquire within the projects? How are the project’s pedagogical frameworks
influencing these processes? In order to establish this, the pedagogical models on which
the projects are built upon will be contrasted with the learning experiences as
represented by the young people themselves. As a starting point, we will utilise some
examples drawn from the experiences of a contrast group of young people with choice
biographies to show how they make use of different forms and contexts in shaping their
transitions by meaningful learning.

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 4.1. Perspectives on learning

As we have pointed out earlier, a contrast group of young people with choice biographies
(biographical ‘trendsetters’) were interviewed for whom it is difficult to find a common
denominator. They did not have similar school careers, nor did they originate from
comparable social economic backgrounds, although they were often, but by no means
always, from families with considerable cultural capital and this had been transferred to
their offspring. Instead, what appears to unite them is their attitude towards learning and
working. This is especially impressive in those cases where young people started among
our disadvantaged group and through the empowering experiences within case study
projects they were encouraged and nurtured and regained new motivational potential.
Work is an extremely significant part of their lives and identities. They describe it in
terms of ‘fun’, ‘self-realisation’, ‘passion’ and ‘curiosity’. Most of them have chosen self-
employment or set up enterprises, often taking on high levels of responsibility,
considerable obligations and risks.

In the following examples, we will single out some significant learning experiences
contained within our interview respondents accounts. These are considered according to
three thematic fields of analysis. The first perspective is how trendsetters cope with the
division between formal and non-formal learning contexts. The second perspective deals
with the social dimension of learning. In the third perspective, we will consider how the
learning experiences of young people are interrelated with the other aspects of their
lives, their life plans and identities and the extent to which they develop into reflexive
learning biographies.

The young ‘trendsetters’ had an astute awareness of the tension between formal and
non-formal learning. All our interviewees told us about their frustrations and
accomplishments with learning, and on which conditions and circumstances each were
based. The formal system was generally deemed to be unsatisfactory whilst non-formal
and informal learning environments were the preferred mode of learning according to
their perspective.

Formal education was criticised because of its irrelevance for practical life settings and
problems, whether at secondary school or university level. Formal settings are perceived
as anti-sensual, anti-cultural and directed against intrinsic motivation and the
development of personal projects. These young people prefer to opt out of the
educational system, although all of them demonstrate an awareness of the currency and
value of qualifications and diplomas. While most of them do not in principle object to
continuing in post compulsory education some of them “dropped out” of university

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because they found the learning experience irrelevant and removed from reality.
However on the whole these young people succeed in one way or another in finding a
balance between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and push themselves in a search for
new fields of learning and exploration. Explorative learning is closely (and reciprocally)
related to communicative skills and competences. As one young Dutch man who had
successfully set up a catering business stated: “I’m a talker”. Peer learning is part of
their youth-cultural capital, and much of their learning and working takes place within
peer group contexts, although communicating with other kinds of people in different
positions and professions is also deemed as important (cf. Keupp et al., 1999; du Bois-
Reymond, 2000; Stauber, 2004).

Biographical ‘trendsetters’ often develop learning strategies at an early stage and engage
in elaborate hobbies and informal peer contexts in compensation for an unchallenging
school experience. In the margins of the uninspiring (but safe) world of school they
create their own worlds of activities. Not all however were high school achievers, some
only developed successful learning careers later when they have a more accomplished
command over them, whilst others dropped out of school and continued their study
outside the formal system.

Carlo, male, 27 (Italy), at secondary school was deeply in love with

his philosophy teacher who also motivated him to study philosophy.
Concerning his learning at the university, Carlo says: “I’ve always been
successful in my studies but I didn’t like to attend university…
everything was so academic and so different from my own approach
which is more anarchistic / artistic, although I could apply my approach
to the analytical philosophy…” After dropping out from university he
worked for one year at McDonald’s and at the same time at an
alternative radio station. “Working in a fast food restaurant was awful,
but paradoxically seen as a positive experience, since that awful job
gave me the picture of what I don’t want, which is a hierarchically and
stupidly organised job.” Originating from a “bourgeois” family as he
says, engaged with a gay centre in Bologna, organizing festivals,
working as a barman and eventually becoming responsible for the
documentation centre and the library there. Proudly he states: “I’m the
only one in the country who manages an entire library without even
holding a university degree”. And he adds: “I don’t think I got any
education from the traditional educational institutions I attended. The
only institutional person was my philosophy teacher at the grammar
school, but he also felt a victim of that educational system.”

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Keupp et al. (1999) identified the biographical relevance of social networks as optional
spaces in the sense of repertoires of life plans and role models, social relevancies in the
sense of belonging and participation in communities of practice (cf. Wenger, 1998). Such
networks are resources for coping and reciprocal support. Our analysis shows how the
constitution and subjective relevance of informal networks of young women and men
affect their learning biographies. We also found the subjective dimensions of peer
networks – such as reflexivity of networks in the context of the personal biography,
subjective functions of networks in terms of belonging, safety, encouragement,
orientation, practical and financial support, individual networking strategies, biographical
effects of networks in terms of subjectively meaningful learning experiences, access to
systemically and subjectively necessary resources.

In their heterogeneity, network relationships became relevant for Carlo in manifold ways,
providing a diversity of resources, experiences and qualities: the youth cultural network
primarily provides information and exchange in the form of practical support; circles of
friends (be it wider circles or a personal relationship) are important for feelings of
belonging, trust, and encouragement. The biographical relevance of network
relationships cannot be evaluated only by the extent to which the persons in question
reflect upon them as in many cases, reflection and consciousness only developed in
biographical retrospective. However, these young people demonstrate self-concepts as
individuals who move within and depend upon social contexts, they lay stress on both
individual and collective agency. In reciprocity they have created a social network that
they rely upon, and a framework through which they jointly progress. It is noteworthy
that they all very conscious of just how much they depend on such contacts. There exists
a possible paradox at the heart of this type of networking and collaboration. There are
pre-requisites for strong self-presentation skills and high self-esteem, yet, there is a
humility seen as the dependency on the development of viable network relationships.
Although the business areas these young self-employed work within are highly
competitive, the youth cultural scenes which nurture them with ideas and meaning, can
be described as ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger, 1998), where peer learning is
embedded in a social context of mutual support (cf. Walther et al., 2005).

Risk-taking needs self-awareness and trust in one’s own capacities, as well as the skills
to use available resources and the ability to discover new ones, in applying the principle
of trial and error – like most contemporary young people they do not plan far in advance
(Leccardi & Rusmini, 2004). Instead, they develop multiple option strategies (e.g.,
combining casual work with self-employment), which require perseverance and
organising capacities, and at the same time the flexibility and confidence to switch jobs
or dismiss a project if it proves invalid.

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What all trendsetters want, is synergy between life and learning, life and working,
learning and working; in other words they want to enjoy a holistic life whilst making work
a life project. A life project may have developed over many years (and be aspirational)
but need not necessarily involve long-term planning or be neatly circumscribed. It may
also consist of the simple desire to achieve a situation in which different life activities: –
educational, professional, private, fit together in a complimentary way.

As we have seen above (chapter III., sections 2. and 3.), motivation is a crucial resource
in the learning careers of young people. However, meaning and personal interest depend
on open settings.

Arnold, male, 28, East Germany, is a passionate bike rider. He bought his first BMX
bike with his first unemployment money and with the support of some sponsors. He and
his friend visited the U.S. for three months where Arnold took part in shows that boosted
his career as BMX biker. Returning to Germany, he was again unemployed for several
years. In between he helped a friend in a bike store. He deliberately lived off benefits and
also partly off sponsors in order to fully concentrate on biking and bike shows. Jobs that
have nothing to do with biking do not interest him. He attended a business-training
course for young entrepreneurs, which was not of much use to him, “the people there
have never been self-employed in their lives, they can’t really tell anything about it. And
you can’t learn everything from a textbook, that doesn’t work. It is life you learn from
most”. He had great difficulties in acquiring the necessary funds to start his own
business. But, ”I wanted to have my store and I didn’t let them get me down, with every
refusal from the bank I got more and more motivated.” The bike store, which Arnold runs
with a partner, finally opened as a franchise enterprise for trend bikes, “In the end the
most important thing in business is that you know all about your stuff. When I sell BMX
bikes, people buy it. When I opened the store I had all the people interested in BMX
bikes on my side after two days.” Meanwhile he has several employees, among them his
own father. What motivates him is the fact that he can accomplish own ideas and be
really good at it. In retrospect he says: “For me it was all about riding bike.” However,
his ambitions for the future remain open. His bike store is doing well at the moment but
he can imagine giving it up in five years and starting in a totally new field, “maybe I’ll
start doing TV or work as an actor”…

While Arnold's story fits neatly with the concept of motivational change that we
developed earlier, his learning career was not that straightforward, it took him several
attempts to find the setting for learning that matched his interests. While he already had
acquired the technical skills informally by “being a biker” these were not acknowledged
by the bank or by the training system something that is partly a reflection of the highly

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standardised nature of the German training and employment system. Unconventional
ways of acquiring competencies demands a lot of personal perseverance; more so than
within the less rigidly standardised systems where this way of constructing a (learning)
biography seems more common.

Our sample shows that trendsetters have an open attitude towards their future: what
they do now may continue or not, it is open to an ongoing review. Such an attitude is
based on a mixture of trust and scepticism and is, we would argue, perhaps the most
appropriate response one can have when faced with a contemporary ‘risk’ society. As
many of them are self-employed, there is a particular demand in all of their learning
biographies. They constantly have to reflect on the possibility of adaptation of their
informally acquired competencies to the formal labour market. Their bad experiences
with formal education and training also contribute to an increased awareness of what
they actually want to learn. This biographical balance of what they have learned and the
evaluation of what competencies they require for their job makes reflexivity a central
competence in their learning biographies.

4.2. Learning Arrangements in five case studies

‘Disadvantaged’ young people enter the transition to work system with a lack of
competitiveness in terms of cultural capital. Similar to the young people who have
developed positive choice biographies, they also strongly criticise school for its lack of
relevance to real life, however in contrast to the trendsetters, these young people
experienced school in the context of educational failure. In the following section, we will
analyse the learning concepts in five selected case studies. These cases come from five
different transition regimes and represent three different typologies of case study
projects.

4.2.1. Batoto Yetu, Lisbon, Portugal: Integration of youth at risk

At Batoto Yetu, on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal, young people of African descent
learn African songs and dances and then rehearse to perform live in many local, national,
and even international artistic and cultural events. The immigrants from the former
colonies live in precarious social conditions, in degraded neighbourhoods and still
experience social and professional integration problems. Second generation African
children often experience difficulties in adapting to the formal school system, leading to
school failure and early school leaving. These young people lack places and activities that
can be considered an alternative to formal education. Many begin to work early in life in
the same unqualified jobs their parents have. Others engage in risk trajectories
connected to drugs and delinquency. The municipality of Oeiras (where this project is

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located) has one of the largest African communities who is slowly being re-allocated to
houses sponsored by the city council. Batoto Yetu, by aiming specifically at this
community, tries to promote a closer contact with their African origins and culture and,
at the same time, promote a better integration of these young people, by increasing self-
esteem and stimulating learning careers. The work developed by Batoto Yetu, allows
them to integrate their cultural roots into daily life, encouraging young people to study
and to “achieve a positive evolution in their academic work”. Even though rehearsals take
place every Saturday afternoon, the association’s premises are used not only to
rehearse, but also as a meeting point where young people find room for studying, doing
homework, leisure activities, and support in their everyday successes and difficulties.

Batoto Yetu can be seen as a unique combination of intrinsic motivation (for dance and
performance) and extrinsic goals (ensuring young people pursue their educational
career).

Young participants must have a good record of achievement at school if they want to be
part of the project and dance in live performances. Surprisingly, many young people from
Batoto Yetu, have successful academic careers and enter university; others choose a
career in dance or music. In fact, their passion for dance and music triggers their
motivation to study and to overcome their difficulties and if to succeed in school is a
necessary condition of being part of Batoto Yetu, they try to get around their limitations
and become motivated to study.

Behind this methodological approach we can recognise the major guidelines of the
‘pedagogy of desire’. The pedagogy of desire draws from Jean Piaget’s work on the
capacity of the student to collaborate in pedagogic redefinition; from Emília Ferrero’s
stressing of learning modalities as opposed to the educating modalities; from Paulo
Freire’s pedagogy of autonomy and emancipation of the student (see Garcia Castro et al.,
1998). In Brasil there are several projects guided by this pedagogy of desire that
recognise that the strength or the energy that allows all things in the world to have a
“purpose” results from the passion of desire.

B. a 22 year old male comes from a family with a migration history

from the Cabo Verde islands. His school career seems to go the way
many of his peers have experienced. Their self-concept is marked by the
negative ascriptions of the Portuguese society towards young men from
an African background. Batoto Yetu provides him with the value
framework to re-frame this experience and be proud of the music and
cultural tradition: “A guy feels good on a stage, with the people clapping

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 their hands. Yeah! A guy feels good. Very cool! It is self-esteem!” He
evaluates this experience against the background of his school
experiences: “We are here not because of those in the board of
directors, but we are here for ourselves ... It’s about us having that will,
to be here with each other.” His long experience as a dancer makes him
adopt a role in the project as tutor of younger kids while parallel he is
enrolled in a professional course in computing. In his account of how
Batoto Yetu has impacted on his learning career, he states: “I’m no
longer in school, you know? I might even be one of the oldest here, I’m
20 years old ... I’m still a kid, but I know a lot, you know? I have a
different perspective on things, I can have a different reading of facts, I
can think like an adult, you know?”

At Batoto Yetu informal knowledge and peer learning is always present and appreciated,
where creative imagination and improvisation are constant happening within every
rehearsal. In the pedagogy of desire, young people must take on two different roles
(subject and actor) (Freire, 2000): the feeling that they are desired will allow them to
desire for themselves (Carvalho, 2000; Vilanova, 2000). They are invested in as subjects
(dancers) and then become actors (teachers). The older ones in the project become
responsible for socialising the new members into the group’s dynamics, they teach dance
steps, songs, and music.

“You seldom see the small ones getting there, in the middle of all that
noise (...) Usually boys with a macho attitude, go there to be near the
musicians and they stay around beating drums. Some musicians are
born this way” (Batoto Yetu, director, female, 77-82).

Batoto Yetu succeeds in providing a different cognitive and emotional framework that
makes active coping with societal prejudices possible. At the same time, music and dance
offer the opportunity to widen their perspectives in particular among the boys
appropriate gender roles.

4.2.2. “We want to Become Independent”, Bucharest, Romania:

Integration of youth at risk

The project “We Want to Become Independent” was carried out by the Community for
Child Support Association (CCSA), a non-profit, non-governmental and non-political
organisation in public childcare institutions in Bucharest City (so-called “placement
centres“). As there is a comparably high share of children and young people in public
care in Romania, the transition between public care and an independent life is a very

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important topic. The transitions of project participants have been severely hampered by
their living in a very formalised institutional system, with little room for participation in
decision-making concerning their pathways. Even their educational careers have often
been decided upon in a rather administrative manner. In this case the project was
concerned with providing young people with the basic life skills for independent living
such as preparing meals as well as training for job interviews. In a successor project the
young people were provided shared apartments to get used to living on their own while
they were also helped to find their first job. Although this might not be enough to enable
them to decide on their own trajectories, considerable progress has been made by
designing this project by bringing the young people closer to those peers who are living
in ‘normal’ social contexts. This part of the work goes along with formative activities for
parents, educators, and teachers to improve education methods as well as the
relationships between educators/trainers and children. One of the main aims of the
project is to display to formal educators, a view of a different and more effective way of
education (with due consideration to the specific social and psychological profile of the
institutionalised youth). The project is a typical non-formal learning project, carried out
within a very standardised formal system.

During the eight months of work with teenagers from six orphanages, the CCSA trainers
found out that these young people mainly suffered from a lack of motivation and
confidence rather than a lack of knowledge and information. For the young people,
having a job was seen as the main prerequisite for independent living, so that one of
their main expectations was to learn how to find suitable jobs. They also discovered in
the course of the project a certain deficit of socialisation that made them feel different
from peers living in “normal” social contexts – with parents, relatives, friends,
neighbours, etc. Therefore, the project workers used a very flexible style of working with
these teenagers, eliminating formal didactics and refraining from official rhetoric in order
to get closer to their clients and their problems.

The activities of the project were complementary to the activities of the formal education
system, intended to provide the participants with opportunities for learning what they
were missing because of their broken families and the rigid school system. This refers not
only to training and equipping them with the skills for independent life, but also to a
different educational environment, based on free initiative and the interactive
participation of the participants, with the aim of changing their whole life model, that is
deeply rooted in the orphanage and based around dependency and passivity.

Alexandra , female, 16, comes from a disorganised family and was

abandoned in a crèche when she was 2 years old. She has spent her

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 childhood in a placement centre up until the moment of her first
interview, when she was in the 8th grade, having benefited thereafter of
a social dwelling under the next phase of the project. “I don’t like school
at all, but I have to attend school and to learn.” The atmosphere here
isn’t very different from that in the orphanage, she is facing here the
same problems she had to face there, only here she is more
independent. as well as the lack of concern of the personnel for the
problems of institutionalised children, “we simply are not listened to.”
She doesn’t have a very good relationship with the educators. She is
continuing her studies, she is in the 10th grade in a vocational high-
school, her interest in school is the same as it was at the time of first
interview, but she has noticed an improvement regarding her
relationship with classmates and teachers. She thinks she has matured
and has become more sociable: “If you succeed to have a good
environment, you can ask a friend for help. If you have such heart-felt
friends to whom you know you can go and say ‘look man I am in need;
could you help me, at least for a while’… you anyway resolve something
in your life.”

Learning by doing and peer-learning were the main methods used within the project, and
this was done through a range of activities that offered opportunities to all participants
for performing roles according to their aptitudes and preferences. Some of the project
activities were carried out within the premises of the placement centres, e.g. dancing
classes, writing CVs or preparing interviews with potential employers, preparation for
holiday camp and so on and often under the eyes of the centres’ personnel. The
participants felt they were in a safe space, where they could act independently.
Moreover, when they were out of the institutional space they had the opportunity to
combine learning experiences with activities of their own liking, such as dancing,
shopping, or cooking something they liked to eat, which also provided space for trying
out and practice particular talents and skills.

4.2.3. Open Youth Education, Egaa, Denmark: Preparation for education

or training

Open Youth Education in Denmark was a countrywide initiative launched by the Social-
democratic government in 1994, and closed down by the Liberal government in 2002. Its
goal was to (re-)present an alternative to traditional youth education, as a reaction to
and action towards the residual group of young people who each year either could or
would not start at or complete a traditional secondary youth education. The target group

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of the Open Youth Education was described as all young people (“weak” and “strong”)
who either were not able to or interested in attending the existing types of youth
education. The purpose of the Open Youth Education was stated as: “The purpose is to
give young people the opportunity to complete an individually arranged educational
course which will yield comprehensive qualifications and develop the young person’s
personal competencies”.

The goal of Open Youth Education was to facilitate an entrance to either further studies
(either as “building a bridge” back to traditional forms of education or leading towards
further education in creative, but not formally recognised educational areas), or directly
into employment. Students were assisted in the construction of their own educational
plan with parts from formal, informal and non-formally arranged forms of learning. In
this way, transfer of informal competencies to formal qualifications (e.g. selected courses
from upper secondary schools) was possible. The rationale behind this combination of
self-chosen formal/informal elements was to create incentives and re-motivate young
people to continue with their education. The informal elements were thought to
strengthen independence and orientation, and to enhance their motivation and self-
confidence by making the restrictions and demands of educational opportunities more
transparent. The participants seemed to be very much aware of the importance and
transferability of informal learning to their future educational or labour market
trajectories.

“I have learned to express myself much better. I used to be too shy and
afraid of other peoples’ opinions. So that is what the education has
taught me: that you can actually speak your mind… and I have learned
a lot of discipline, because I had to be so independent. You yourself are
the master of the course”(M.,18, female).

This participant goes on to describe informal learning as learning through living and
learning at a junior high school together with other young people, by having to find out
about different educational and job-possibilities by herself, and by having to contact
those schools and jobs on her own initiative. It is learning by doing, mediated by peer
learning: getting inspired by what other young people dare and do, getting tips and
information from peers, and experiencing through practice, what one can actually do
oneself. For this participant, the informal elements of learning were experienced as
having contributed to her now wish to start at upper secondary, as she now feels ready
and more self-confident. This cannot be learned theoretically and also seems hard to
organise formally (besides the “loose” formalisation of the informal that characterises the
Open Youth Education).

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 F. , female, 19, had to leave her biographic family early and was
brought up in different foster homes and institutions. With 16 years she
settled on her own and started Open Youth Education. Later on she
stopped because of personal problems. 1½ year ago starting at Open
Youth Education for the second time, she said: “Maybe it sounds as if I
do not know exactly what I want to do, but I am getting more creative
up here (at the folk high school). I get more ideas…. Maybe I am just
enjoying myself and life instead of constantly thinking about what to do
or to become”. F. does not accept the idea of doing things in a
prescribed way. She is not afraid to do things differently, but at the
same time, she knows, that she has to acquire an educational degree in
order to move further on at some point. “It simply should not be like,
that things can only be done in one way, it has to be based on the wish
to experience a lot of things, at least that is the way I want it to be”. F.
does not rely on either foster parents or social counsellors. She connects
to peers or people whom she meets at school. She strongly believes in
herself and plans of further education and future jobs she is heading for
while at the same time she tries to keep her options as open as
possible. “It is all about going in one direction now, but I do not want to
become some small robot, it is my life and it is my education. I ought to
decide what I want and feel, without getting forced into some pattern –
I am totally convinced, that I can do a lot of good things for other
people without having an official stamp as a qualified health – or social
worker”. F. does not have a specific plan for her future. She wants to
learn and stresses that everything is possible as long as the individual
works hard, shows the necessary discipline, and is allowed to develop.
Her “fuel” is the wish to develop her passions and her social contacts
between people and life in general has to “zigzag”, i.e. that a linear
development is neither possible nor desirable.

Two factors are important here: On the one hand, the content and goal of the education
was laid in the hands of the young people themselves: Young people were given the
opportunity to construct their own educational course, based on their own interests and
goals. The only requirements were that they chose three different courses and schools to
attend for the 2-3 years duration of the education. For many young people this turned
out to be a chance for learning and developing in more creative/artistic direction; a
direction not represented in the traditional forms of youth education. On the other hand,
the purpose statement of the Open Youth Education explicitly recognises the importance

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of developing personal competencies through informal learning experiences:
responsibility, independence, developing an ability to plan, to express oneself, to co-
operate with others, and developing a spectrum of abilities in the musical-creative area,
through peer learning, learning by doing were all recognised as an important an
inseparable part of formal and theoretical learning.

4.2.4. Lifting the Limits, Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK: participatory

training and employment

Lifting the Limits, is a one and half year long programme for young mothers, aged 16-25,
from Armagh, and surrounding rural areas developed by Youth Action Northern Ireland.
Teenage pregnancy is one of the main reasons for girls leaving school without
qualifications and the Community Leadership Programme for Young Mothers is one
measure aimed at addressing some of these difficulties and enabling young mothers to
overcome barriers to education, training and employment. The programme aims to
support the inclusion of young mothers into future employment by providing them with
the opportunity to undertake a training and employment programme in community
development which is geared to their needs. It combines theoretical models and practical
skills with on going work experience. It also seeks to stimulate and contribute to
community development in areas of social exclusion and disadvantage. In this
programme participants did this by outreach activities to other young mothers. Two peer
support workers (former participants) were employed on the programme to support
participants in their learning. The Community Leadership Programme is a recognised
qualification (NVQ III level) and successful completion enables participants to seek entry
to Higher Education in Community Youth Work. The integrated ICT training component of
the programme includes the European Computer Driving Licence, internet and web
design. Criteria for being considered for the programme were: basic literacy,
interpersonal skills, and knowledge of the basic aims of the programme and issues facing
young mothers, enthusiasm, commitment and a belief in the ability to develop oneself
and communities. In order to facilitate their entry onto the programme and to ensure a
high completion rate, the specific needs of young mothers were taken into account:
reduced working hours of 25 per week, a proper wage and employment contract to allow
young mothers to move out of benefit dependency and contribution towards childcare
and travel.

Once the conditions for participation have been set in place the motivational levels of
participants are typically high. This is due to the high levels of support that are built into
the programme at every level, support that was not one-dimensional and solely tied to
programme issues, but multi-dimensional, extended to all other aspects of their lives.

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The children of the young mothers also provided a source of motivation as the young
mothers wished to be able to provide for them and to be free of the benefit system.

The notions of peer support and peer education have been crucial to the Community
Leadership Programme whereby the young mothers acted as peer educators for other
young mothers, as well as receiving support and training from two peer support workers.
Peer educators previous participation in the programme meant they were role models for
what can be achieved thereby increasing the current participants’ desire to succeed. This
‘cascading model’ of peer education has been very effective within the programme as it
provides the context for a great deal of learning to take place as well as acting as a
strong motivator.

This holistic approach means that on leaving the programme they will be more equipped
to cope with the challenges that face them in their personal and working lives.
Throughout the programme the young mothers were encouraged to reflect on and access
their own learning. In doing so they were able to identify biographical turning points,
which in turn reinforced their motivational levels: “I have been able to identify hidden
skills and gain a sense of self worth and self-esteem.” One young mother spoke of how
she had witnessed the development of young mothers on her course and of how this
empowering experience increased her expectations, motivation and commitment to the
programme.

Colette, female, 25, comes from a large working class family in a rural
community. Her attendance at school was erratic, as she frequently had
to take time off to care for her invalid mother. Despite this she gained
seven GCSE’s, however, her mother reinforced /constantly told her that
‘girls’ had no real need of ‘education’ as they would marry anyway and
that ‘a wee job in a shop will do you’. As a result of this negative
influence further education was viewed as something of no value to her
(although her brothers were encouraged to go further). After Colette left
school at the age of eighteen she had various casual jobs before she had
her baby. For the next couple of years she was totally dependent on
benefits and realised she was beginning to lose sight of her own
personal goals. In order to address this, and to give herself some
challenges, she and a friend started a youth club in a local housing
estate and it was through this that she got the opportunity to do a range
of small courses, e.g. counselling. When her son was two she registered
as a volunteer and later she attended a Women’s Centre to study for an
‘A’ level. When asked why she did do all this work; start a youth club,

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 undertake courses, work as a youth worker and put herself under such
pressure, while at the same time bringing up a child, she explains that
she wanted people to take her seriously, she wanted to be a positive
role model for her child and that she needed to prove to herself that she
could do it and states “when I look back now I can see, they were all
stepping stones” and by joining Lifting the Limits she hoped her path to
educational and personal success would become more stable and not so
haphazard as it was before.

The example of Colette shows how the project manages to provide learning opportunities
that increase the young mothers’ confidence to challenge the stereotypes and inequalities
they may face in their everyday lives. However, it also shows how motivated so-called
disadvantaged young people can in fact be – waiting for a meaningful opportunity. When
young women/mothers feel valued and supported they are more willing to share their
own thoughts and ideas and show increased desire to become more involved within their
own community. But the empowering aspect of the project is only one aspect. The
second crucial factor for being able to provide young women with a new hook in their
learning biographies, is the enhanced career progress made possible by the recognition
of the project as a qualification (NVQ III level) providing access to higher education. The
down side of this project – as in many of our case study projects – is the precariousness
of the funding of the project leading to the postponement of plans to run a further
Community Leadership Programme.

4.2.5. Atelier LaSilhouette, Munich, Germany: participatory training and

employment

The project Atelier LaSilhouette from Munich offers standard vocational training in
dressmaking for young women mainly with a migration background. But, it also provides
a holistic set of support measures to those who often are not even allowed to start a
vocational training because of insecure residence permits. This includes care for a good
start in the labour market, facilitated by a network of former trainees, which
compensates the respective deficits of young female migrants in regard to their
professional life. An additional half-year is foreseen to accompany each participant – and
in principle as long as she needs it: job search in well-reputated firms, application
portfolio, interview preparation etc. It is not only with these elements that the project
differs from other regular training schemes, which in Germany often lack the insertion in
the labour market. Apart from vocational training, where it fulfils regular standards, the
project provides support in almost any life issues – counselling as regards housing,
accompaniment to institutions (the Foreigner’s Office, the social security), language

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courses and assistance with regard to professional school. Another speciality which is
highly attractive for the young women is that they are involved in creating and producin
g an onw collection which they also present at public fashion shows. Some of the former
participants engage voluntarily in the ongoing work of the project, e.g. as tutors in
several subjects for professional school, by supporting the preparations of fashion shows,
by counselling in various questions concerning labour market insertion.

To work in the area of fashion appears to be an excellent catalyst of motivation for young
women, because it relates to their interests and to the informal styling competences they
most often have, independent of their formal skills or educational levels. From the very
start they produce own pieces as well as those for clients which provides the potential for
intrinsic motivation linked with fashion and therefore leads young women into processes
where they can experience their skills becoming increasingly professional. Such
experiences are extremely important for those young women whose learning biographies
are marked by negative school experiences and other discouraging life events, who
without the project would probably never have reached this extent of productivity and
creativity:

“And then I sewed a bag (...) yes, and I managed really well, and I was
so fascinated about this bag and about myself and – yes, about being
creative” (Jelena, 21, female, Germany).

Learning objectives within the project are closely related to the transition problems of the
participants. On the one hand it is a formally acknowledged training course providing a
route to qualified work, without which these young women would have been unlikely to
achieve. This includes support for vocational school, language courses and in one case
even a course of literacy. While fulfilling these formal demands, the project organises
training by tackling the needs of the participants to (finally) make successful experiences
(again):

“And what I really like is that from the beginning ... we work for the
client. And not like that: oh, you get the easier things, because you
have just begun! But here, you get the piece. You are thrown into cold
water. But this is positive, because you learn much faster and much
more than in other firms ... And this is something you notice yourself”
(Dani, 20, female, Germany).

The project uses the potentials of informal learning through creating non-formal spaces
for learning – e.g. ‘learning weekends’ to prepare for exams in the premises of the
project, where a learning space is created, with peer support, breaks, common meals

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etc., in doing so it ‘informalises’ formal learning by providing a comfortable time-space
environment. These new ways of coping with formal demands are particularly relevant
for young women with negative school experiences and ‘in-and-out-trajectories’, who
have to re-gain motivation for learning, but also to those who would simply not find a
quiet place to concentrate at home. And they are extremely important for those young
women who due to severe life events easily drop out, are hindered, cannot concentrate
etc. The project creates a buffer for such life events and enables the young women to
develop some continuity in their learning. The project leaves space for peer learning and
uses the relevance of peers as learning motivators.

Obviously, the fact that the project leads to a ‘hard’ qualification that can be directly
applied to a professional pathway enhances the sustainability of such biographical
learning.

“I plan to be a journeywoman for three years. The first I will work in the
industry. Then I will go to a gentlemen’s tailor if I am allowed to do that
as a dressmaker; and in the third year I will make wedding and evening
dresses. After these three years I will go to the master school and the to
fashion design school. And then I will open my own business. That’s my
plans!” (Reyhan, 18, female, Germany).

In sum, the basic learning concept at LaSilhouette is biographical learning: to achieve

competences to cope with the past (severe life events) and overcome de-motivation and
disengagement, and to acquire competencies which are important to proceed in the
German transition system – ‘hard skills’ such as professional skills as well as the whole
range of ‘soft skills’, which get increasingly important: skills to present oneself, social
skills, and also skills to successfully search for institutional help. It helps young women to
develop biographicity – as a basic competence to integrate new demands and
experiences into the repertoire of personal coping (Alheit & Dausien, 2000). Such
biographical learning at La Silhouette takes place as a balanced combination of formal
and informal learning.

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 4.3. Discussion: learning biographies in different contexts

In psychological and pedagogical theorising about learning, learning and teaching have
for some time been conceptualised as „two sides of the same medal“. However, this view
has been challenged and scholars now stress the difference between the perspective of
the learning individual and teaching. As we have argued throughout this report, this gap
is becoming even wider with the changing nature of transitions to adulthood in late
modern society. Teaching institutions can no longer rely on the reservoir of meaning and
motivation that stems from the promise of a better future that can be reached by
individual educational effort. This promise no longer holds true and learners are well
aware of this. As we have argued in the previous section, the concept of participation is
an appropriate way to analyse the gap between the learners’ and the education and
training institutions and to look for possible ways to narrow this. One shift in theoretical
reflection about learning was the turn to look at learners not only as being able or not to
cope with learning demands intellectually and motivationally, but to perceive their own
meaning making as an important part of the learning process. Equally, a social
constructivist perspective on learning processes inspired theories about learning to
sketch learning processes in their relation to social contexts. Our findings show how
learning institutions can implement this view on learning and what elements of the
learning processes can be institutionally provided. We began by outlining three different
perspectives on the learning process and how they can be stimulated by projects. In the
following, we will draw together the main points of this analysis.

4.3.1. Informal and non-formal

The distinction of formal, non-formal and informal learning is most useful in

differentiating between the different institutional spheres of learning. In recent debates,
this is often blurred by a vision of completely different approaches to learning which
often results in abstract dichotomies about the one being more valuable than the other
(Colley et al., 2002). What we apply here is the view that it is more useful to distinguish
between dimensions of informality and formality to evaluate the special qualities of the
learning contexts created by projects.

Informalising formal education: This is probably the narrowest meaning of non-formal

education simply referring to learning taking place ‘outside of the education system’:
NGOs offer young people what public institutions in education do not offer through non
formal education (CCSA, Romania), yet without evidence of a systematic approach. A
broader approach of ‘informalising formal education’ is represented by the Danish Open
Youth where education aims to ‘reconcile formal components with less formal ones’ and

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with ‘formal acknowledgement’. However the goal is to achieve that through non-formal
learning.

Holistic learning objectives: Most experts agreed that one characteristic of non-formal
education is to address the ‘whole individual’, i.e. a much broader range of competencies
than that covered by school curricula in the form of life skills or personal development.

Holistic objectives require open pedagogical approaches. The basic principle is well
formulated by a Danish youth worker from the Girls and Boys House: ‘The public system
makes plans of action, while we are creating spaces for action.’ This means a more
indirect approach in the sense that certain spaces may inspire a certain kind of activity
which in turn – as by-products – imply certain learning processes and outcomes. This
includes the consideration of imitation as one of the most basic ways of learning the
Danish youth workers refer to this as to ‘steal with the eyes’ (Girls and Boys House)
which however is increasingly less possible in public life. What our case study projects
achieve is to narrow the gap between “real life” and the learning contents. Both groups of
young people – the ones with choice biographies and the ones we have called
‘disengaged’ complain about the abstract challenges they have been exposed to in formal
education. In contrast to this, our case study projects take everyday life as the starting
point for learning (CCSA, Bucharest) or provide real life challenges with a high intrinsic
value for their participants for example in the case of Lifting the Limits. This results in
learning contents and competencies that can be achieved step-by-step in participating in
these activities, which can be loaded with personal meaning. These informal learning
processes start from the interests and the life contexts of the participants that permit
them to integrate their desires for self-realisation, passion and curiosity. In particular
activities related to culture and youth culture are apt to evoke the principles of the
already mentioned “pedagogy of desire”. Dance (Batoto Yetu), fashion (LaSilhouette) or
leadership in youth and community centres (Lifting the Limits) seem to create learning
opportunities that are very close to the life worlds of their target groups. The main
effects of cultural activity are referred to as

“… promoting self-esteem, and that will help form their personality, their
character and it will make them more confident, more brave on their
encounters with society” (Batoto Yetu, Portugal)

while at the same time it serves to open doors for further reflection in terms of school
achievement, risk behaviour or family problems without losing their accessibility.

Learning by doing is often referred to as a central feature of non-formal education. In

order to create the space for learning by doing young people are given responsibility for

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their own projects or tasks along which they can grow. It is therefore closely related with
the spatial dimension of participation (see chapter III., section 3.).

4.3.2. The social dimension: communities of practice

The relational dimension of non-formal education in one respect refers to the project
workers who serve as ‘sounding boards’. The young people from Open Youth Education
provide a significant example calling their instructors “friends”. It was clear from the
interviews that trust plays a key-role in healing the damages caused by the lack of
dialectic and direct relation between the young participants and the institutions in charge
of their social and labour market integration. This extends to the even more basic needs
of emotional care. Another aspect of the relational dimension concerns peers and a
majority of case projects relied on forms of peer learning (to be intended even in the
wider sense of contextual learning; Mørch, 1999):

“And kids create the habit to beat the drums and to be there in the
middle. Usually boys with a macho attitude, go there to be near the
musicians and they stay around beating drums. Some musicians are
born this way.” (Batoto Yetu, Portugal)

In the vocational projects, peer learning plays an important role as a positive side-effect
of training in small groups, participants learn to overcome the separation between
cultural and professional pathways and emotional/affective ones. Through peer learning
young people also acquire transversal competencies, relational and procedural, which are
essential to professional insertion. The experts seem to be convinced that the non-
intentional side of peer learning plays an important role in supporting the intentional one.
This is what has been referred to earlier with regard to the relation between informal
learning and non-formal education. In some cases (e.g. Lifting the Limits, UK) courses
are run with the help of peer tutors. Others like La Silhouette (Germany) consciously aim
to keep groups heterogeneous in order to use this potential of diversity through
complementary strengths and the availability of role models. But some project workers
highlighted that such resources and experiences are not neutral, but often have a
positive or negative connotation.

In the case of La Silhouette, we find a lot of evidence in the accounts participants of their
first positive experiences in and with the group, the loss of shyness and mistrust and
increasing confidence. The feeling of being part of a group is perceived as a learning
process regardless of the difficulties and repercussions. The young women recognise the
fact that negative experiences can be integrated in this process as a sign for the quality
of the trustful relationships they have built. Gender homogeneity in this case seems to be

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helpful in terms of safety and trust. At the same time, it seems to be crucial that the
group finds a balance between neither locking itself in nor locking somebody out in order
to remain able to build bridges both for newcomers and into the labour market. This is
facilitated by the limited size of the group with twelve trainees forming the ‘project
family’ as it is often referred to, but extended by the former trainees towards a possible
and achievable future, that serve as role models of self-confidence and success and also
provide contacts to real jobs.

Feelings of belonging, balanced towards the inside and outside, can hardly be achieved in
projects, which by their explicit reference to ‘disadvantaged youth’ or similar paradigms,
are prone to stigmatising effects. Such deficit-oriented approaches still predominate as a
legitimation of the majority of schemes (Walther, Stauber et al., 2002; López Blasco et
al., 2003). Yet, support can only become meaningful for the identity of young people if it
is attractive and presentable in a youth cultural respect, and if it corresponds to their
own aspirations and presentation within a peer-group context. For the projects, this does
not mean refurbishing their entire approach according to some youth culture, but rather,
to keep their structures open for ways – symbolic among others – of active
appropriation. By this, learning areas are created: in Etienne Wenger’s theory of the
sociality of learning (1998), the affiliation to ‘communities of practice,’ where experiences
can be shared and meaning can be negotiated, is an indispensable requirement for
learning. Learning and the acquisition of membership, in this theoretical approach are
regarded as interdependent. Findings from earlier studies show that discouraged young
people in particular can profit from performing arts as an effective group builder (Miles et
al., 2002).

Community-centred approaches to youth issues in particular aim to enlarge social spaces

by creating new social relationships, and have positive impacts in this respect (Bradford,
1997).

In terms of the informal learning young people experience outside of non-formal projects
some experts mentioned negative aspects. These related to the imitative character of
(informal) learning, especially in the context of sub-cultural behaviour. A project worker
from the Simon Project (Ireland) highlighted how young people can learn dysfunctional
behavioural patterns (such as shop lifting, street drinking and aggressiveness) – they
learn to be homeless. A project worker of the Romanian project CCSA/We want to be
independent was concerned with young people’s learning through their involvement in
the informal market economy, which might undermine their work ethics. In general,
project workers were very much in favour of and criticised the lack of ways to
acknowledge informal learning and peer education. There was a broad unanimity that

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formal education is not sufficient for educating ‘the whole individual’. In contrast, it was
argued that the whole range learning opportunities that arise in everyday life settings
need to be taken into account while a general prerequisite for this was the will and ability
to value individuals’ experiences and feelings.

4.3.3. Competence gain and learning biographies

As we have stated in the theory chapter a conceptual link between learning processes,
learning outcomes and learning arrangements is the idea of competencies. Therefore we
will analyse the project’s learning potentials along the analysis of what competencies the
participants gain through their participation in the projects and how this is related to the
learning arrangements provided by the projects. Nevertheless, there are noticeable
differences in the accounts of project workers of non-formal education, which is related
to the dimension of outcomes the different projects are able to provide. Broadly
speaking, representatives of projects providing formal training and qualifications display
less consciousness towards a broader concept of competence (partly this applies as well
for representatives of pre-vocational and employment measures). This includes processes
of biographical reflection and assessment of previous experiences and individual
strengths. Therefore, one of the most important skills of the educators who work with
young people is to raise their awareness about their (sometimes hidden) skills and
capabilities by providing them with opportunities to experience themselves in various
contexts.

“They end up understanding many things that they don’t even do; they
listen here and they listen there, and afterwards, when they get to the
labour market, these things may be important.” (Batoto Yetu, Portugal)

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IV. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

In this final section, we will draw together the main insights from our study (1.), and
outline the ambivalences and perspectives in terms of participation as well as making
recommendations in relation to the effectiveness and legitimacy of transition policies
(2.).

1. Potentials of participation for citizenship and social inclusion

The basic idea of the YOYO research was to find out whether projects which try to
support young men and women in their transitions to work in a participatory way
succeed in enhancing motivation among young people in a way that they actively engage
in the construction of their own biographies. The relationship between participation and
motivation is the first step in our research question, the second relates to learning as the
means of developing ones own life plan by acquiring new competencies. Competencies
that reflect ones own biography – increasingly insecure and uncertain – and
competencies that can be converted into other resources that aid social integration such
as a job or access to further qualifications. We have argued that a participatory approach
to re-motivating disengaged young people for the development of learning biographies
involves the recognition of informal learning and/or the use of non-formal learning
methods.

1.1. Perspectives on success

We made an initial distinction between the systemic and subjective aspects of social
integration and the status and practice of citizenship that can offer a new reference point
to assess the success of transition policies. In fact, the increasing gap between the
perspective of institutions on social integration and that of individuals is a key aspect of
the de-standardisation of young people’s transitions to work (Walther, Stauber et al.,
2002). In the following we will try to highlight the main factors and perspectives by
which transition policies can bridge this gap through the incorporation of participatory
and non-formal elements as a “reflexive loop”. We need to bear in mind that different
actors within the case study projects have different views on what they themselves see
as success. Young people stressed the personal gains they had made from their
participation, which could often consist of specific benefits such as having a space of ones
own. Of course, expectations varied according to the type of project. In training and
employment related projects the expectation was often to improve competitiveness on
the labour market. It is important to note however that this clear definition of success is
bound to certain conditions like being treated with respect, personal acknowledgement,

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and having an element of choice. Funding institutions and policy-makers take a different
perspective, although there is an acceptance of ‘soft’ factors of success like personal
growth and involvement in local communities within youth work, this was rarely the case
in the field of training and employment policy. Interestingly, we have found what we
have called ‘participatory training and employment projects’ where representatives of
funding bodies measure success on both scales. This combination of soft skills, highly
participatory and youthful approaches with ‘hard’ outcomes (qualifications) seems to be
more likely to be invested in if the usual ways of supporting certain target groups fail.
Professionals often take on an intermediary position between what funders and policy-
makers expect from their work and what young people think successful projects should
offer. In youth work projects, they stress learning aspects like personal growth and the
life skills they develop in youth work. In evaluating success professionals often judge this
in terms of the degree of active involvement of the participants, whilst at the same time
they try to legitimate the open, informal and voluntary character of the work.
Professionals judge success on the extent to which they contribute to the construction
and re-construction of learning biographies. Although the contribution of their projects is
seen as a requirement for young people’s labour market integration in terms of
confidence and orientation, professionals see a holistic perspective as an essential
prerequisite.

The YOYO-perspective of success, defined in terms of self-determination, is best

described by what the young men and women with choice biographies (du Bois-
Reymond, 1998) perceive as success. In so far as these young people successfully
manage to bridge the gap between systemic and subjective integration we can use their
idea of and ways towards success as a set of criteria to inspire our evaluation of the case
study projects. Building their careers around their personal interests, even if they have to
take detours, is the main feature within their accounts. But shaping their career paths is
not always a conscious activity with a long-term plan, it is rather insight into the
contingencies of post-modern life conditions and the desire to enjoy the present (Pais,
2003); learning being a part of that present. These young men and women have a
flexible working attitude that does not so much arise out of necessity but rather from
their own initiative: changing jobs suits their needs. It comes as no surprise that they
attach intrinsic meaning to work and the types of learning that matter to them; both are
an extremely significant part of their lives and identities: fun, self-realisation, passion
and curiosity. All feel personally responsible for what they do, yet many realise that they
depend not only on their own energy and initiative but also on strong networks (Walther
et al., 2005).

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 1.2. Factors of participation, motivation and biographical learning

By linking the analysis of individual processes of motivational change to the investigation

of case study projects in the context of local transition systems we were able to reflect
upon success at the level of pedagogical practice as well as of policies in general. In the
case study analysis we have identified ‘modes’ of participation, which can be seen as
factors under which participation is possible and have the potential to lead to
motivational change. Correspondingly, we found a range of approaches to non-formal
education through which projects assisted young people in developing learning
biographies; not only are motivational change and biographical learning closely related,
the concepts of participation and non-formal learning also overlap. In the following, we
analyse the preconditions of such factors in terms of the successful implementation of
policy and practice (McNeish & Loncle, 2003).

We have identified the possibility of choice, to decide as an individual whether to join a

project or not and under what conditions – as the most fundamental aspect of
participation. Choice is a key prerequisite of identification, to see oneself as a subject
that takes conscious decisions rather than merely reacting to external stimulus. The
aspect of accessibility of learning opportunities in young people’s life worlds in a similar
way refers to young people as actors who themselves connect the potential content of an
opportunity structure with their own knowledge, skills and interest. A practice based on
choice implies not only individual decisions but also the structural availability of
alternatives to choose from while the principle of accessibility corresponds to a policy
concept of youth as citizens who have a right to an infrastructure related to their
potential needs. This opens the possibility that the intrinsic quality of leisure activities
(like dance) is used to instil feelings of self-efficacy as well as the more extrinsic aspects
of life; such as training or work.

This is closely related with the prerequisite of flexible measures and open outcomes.
Young people have to a large extent internalised the necessity of not fixing their life
plans but keeping their options open. In many cases however education and training or
counselling blame the young people themselves for their disorientation and a lack of
commitment. In this respect, a key factor for participation and non-formal education is to
accept young people’s reluctance or difficulty in making specific plans as a reaction to the
de-standardisation of careers, and therefore making allowances for step-by-step
approaches with legitimate options of entrance, exit or shift to other directions. Project
workers refer to this as serving as a ‘sounding board’ for the young people, as a reflector
for subjective orientation that is dependent on the ability to distinguish between ones
own assumptions and young people’s choices; and not to make support or learning

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conditional upon normative expectations. From a policy perspective this means to shift
the focus from an outcome-orientated approach towards process-orientation – or: it is
more important that individuals engage in learning process (and thereby learn to learn)
rather than learn specific skills or knowledge codified by specific qualifications; and to
provide this with an acknowledged social status. If policy and practice have identified
certain goals as desirable it is important that young people actively identify with them
and choose them as meaningful options. At Open Youth Education (Denmark) young
people had the possibility to develop individual education plans including (expensive)
travelling – without any guarantee that this will have an inclusive effect.

A second range factors that connects participation, motivation and non-formal learning
processes is to offer young people space which is not pre-defined in terms of power, role
and purpose. There are several projects that provide an attractive mixture of ‘cool’ and
‘warm’ places; of self-presentation and self-assurance. Such projects are primarily places
‘to be’ – where one feels good. In these spaces young people are given the responsibility
to develop and carry out their own projects in a self-determined way and ones that are
not always formally prepared. This corresponds to learning by doing among peers with
open outcomes and such an approach contradicts a pre-defined system of norms, values,
desirable goals and respective skills and knowledge codified according to a standardised
curricula. This requires a concept of project workers as mediators and facilitators rather
than as teachers or problem solvers; reducing pedagogical intervention to the provision
of a framework rather than giving directions or taking decisions on behalf of learners.
While in youth work it is an accepted principle to leave space for self-determined leisure
activities, other projects embedded targeted offers like counselling in attractive spaces
like Internet cafés. Allowing individual education plans, as well as collective work projects
to extend to the wider community and the local labour market, was another means of
providing space for individual agency. Participatory training projects such as Lifting the
Limits (UK) and La Silhouette (West Germany) stand for an ideal combination of
providing safe spaces and empowering young women to act in the public sphere.

The above reflections mainly centre on providing young people with the freedom in their
biographical orientation and learning processes in order to allow for the maximum
identification with their personal goals. Not only through our material but other studies
have also highlighted how uncertainty and openness tend to overburden young people’s
orientation capacities (Kieselbach et al., 2001). The relation between ‘openness’ and
‘hold’ is one of the basics in youth work (Böhnisch, 1999; Banks 1998). Project workers
therefore need to be prepared to provide trust and confidence in advance – in terms of a
professional ‘leap of faith’ rather than waiting for evidence of trustworthiness to arise
from the young people; especially, in terms of those who have experienced pressure and

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cooling out from institutional actors. Experiencing themselves as ‘related’ is also a key
prerequisite for biographical and social skills; as much as the perception of being ‘of
interest’ to a significant other allows one to generate interest in ones own biography. The
offer and development of trust in transitions to work requires intergenerational
relationships that differ from the traditional hierarchy between adults and young people
and it requires adults who live their adult lives differently – emphasising the aspect of
responsibility rather than conventional status symbols (see Leccardi & Rusmini, 2004).
Changed intergenerational relationships are also reflected in the increased importance of
peers in so far as shared experiences and life styles increase credibility (Mørch, 1999;
Stauber, 2004). Practice in this respect requires both a realistic assessment of the
authority one can expect as an adult and the space for peer-structured activities and
peer learning (see above). Trust and belonging however only grow in the absence of
pressure, for example from funding institutions expectations of a certain rate of
participants placed within training or employment; or where project workers effectively
manage to resist such pressure and thereby signal advocacy and trustworthiness. This
however is more and more difficult under the premises of activation policies and
economic efficiency. Especially participatory projects as La Silhouette (Germany) and
Lifting the Limits (UK) are examples for the productivity of trustful relationships.

A final cluster of factors of participation that facilitates motivational change can be

subsumed under the notion of intersubjective recognition, a key prerequisite of self-
identity (Fraser & Honneth, 2003). In the context of a meritocratic education system and
a labour market that reduces individuals to their employability the motto ‘come as you
are’ implies that no adaptation is expected and there will be recognition as an individual
person and subject. Choice and open outcomes of individual transitions (see above) are
therefore logical consequences. A first way to operationalise recognition is to apply a
holistic perspective that encompasses all systemic and subjective aspects relevant for
social integration (Walther, Stauber et al., 2002). This means to aim for success and
satisfaction at the same time and to address not only the transition to work but also
issues related to family or partnership, health or housing, parenthood or status of
residence which may subjectively be more pressing for the individual concerned. In terms
of learning it has been clear throughout this report that ‘contextual competence’ (Mørch,
2003; Mørch & Stalder, 2003) is conceptualised as being much broader than merely skills
for work but one that includes biographicity and basic life skills. In projects for
disadvantaged youth it is an acknowledged standard that existential and psychosocial
stabilisation need to precede labour market integration (Kieselbach et al., 2002). In a
recognition perspective this may be extended to every individual and every biographical
situation whereby different ‘transitional strands’ have to be reconciled (Thomson et al.,

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2002). Another pedagogical consequence of recognition is the apriori decision to focus on
strengths rather than on deficits, however, in recent years this notion has experienced
inflationary use. For example, pre-vocational measures interpret it by reducing the level
of demands – in order to provide successful experiences – to such a low level that young
people’s aspirations are ‘cooled out’ and become orientated towards low status careers.
In contrast to such an approach, focussing on strengths involves changing the point of
reference towards those activities and issues where individual strengths actually lie; to
turn from a scale related to qualification or employability towards other dimensions like
personal development, social utility or cultural practice.

One of the central political prerequisites is to accept that preparing young people for
lifelong learning in post-Fordist knowledge-based societies implies detours of experience.
From the perspective of standardised Fordist education – still present in many institutions
– travelling, performing arts, enterprise creation as a way of self-experimentation etc.
appear as a luxury that is difficult to legitimise in a meritocratic context although there is
empirical evidence that these activities could be the clue for new learning (Miles et al.,
2002).

In principle two ways of recognition can be distinguished: the first is more procedural and
pragmatic by addressing young people as autonomous and self-responsible users (like
youth information centres, e.g. SZINFO, Romania) or reducing young people to their
qualifications and labour as in the case of the projects where priority is on training and
employment. The second approach is more emphatic, targeted and offensive and applies
strategies to ensure that all the young people concerned get to know about the project
and to adapt it to their potential needs – by making projects accessible in deprived
neighbourhoods (ArciRagazzi, Italy); by diversifying offers according to different needs.
Recognition is especially important with regard to gender and ethnicity; here both
perspectives in recent debates have been addressed in terms of the relation between
difference and inequality, and the necessity of policies that do not play off re-distribution
against recognition (Fraser & Honneth, 2003). The YOYO sample includes striking
examples of the motivating effects of participatory approaches that provide status,
material rewards, personal trust, responsibility and – very important – visibility.

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 1.3. Inclusion through participation – or: reconciling soft skills and hard
resources

In the previous section we have tried to identify and analyse the factors through which
projects effectively facilitate motivational change and the development of reflexive
learning biographies using participatory approaches. With very different extents of focus
this relationship has been found in most case study projects. In this section we will ask
and try to respond to the key question under what conditions does this leads to
sustainable social inclusion. This is clearly dependent on the labour market opportunities
both in terms of the economic situation and the regulation of access; the extent to which
low formal attainment can be compensated by soft skills. However, institutional factors
are not only more relevant but also more likely to be changed: projects need to be
allowed, expected and enabled to combine soft and hard approaches. This requires the
recognition of in-formal and non-formal skills and knowledge – or a concept of
competence that embraces soft and hard aspects – and the absence of pressure in terms
of success rates (in terms of labour market integration). We have argued above that
participatory support in most cases means that projects actively have to extend their
objectives from their original function and field of practice either towards the ‘hard’ or the
‘soft’ of policies for young people. While an approach exclusively oriented towards ‘hard’
outcomes may facilitate access to recognised career opportunities it risks the neglect of
subjective dimensions and the need of biographicity to cope with flexibilised trajectories.
On the other hand, a merely ‘soft’ approach entails the risk that self-esteem and
reflexivity deflagrate if they are not sustained by recognised qualifications or jobs.

On the soft end of our continuum youth work projects primarily aim at skills such as
cooperation and responsibility in groups, creativity and personal expression or taking
initiative in the community. While this is often justified with the transversality of the skills
acquired by participatory approaches in most cases this is not sustained by explicit action
in everyday practice. Exceptions are those cases in which youth workers personally
engage in this respect and create a climate whereby young people accept the
thematisation of transition problems in their leisure time; where relations are built on
trust; where youth work means youth information while allowing also for targeted
counselling; or where both a low standardisation of professional skills and the support
from youth workers allow for careers from simple usership over voluntary engagement to
semi-professional careers as freelance project leaders like in the example of ArciRagazzi
(Italy). In all these cases however links to the labour market are not developed in a
systematic way due to the different priorities of the projects, due to a lack of recognition
within the transition system and a lack of resources.

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This is similar in the case of integration projects although the vulnerability of the target
groups in almost all cases implies a more comprehensive and holistic approach
integrating different transitional strands. Self-esteem is a key issue in many of these
approaches thereby individualising the objective of integration in a segmented society
(e.g. Batoto Yetu, Portugal). This however does not include sustained support with
regard to the transition to work; except for support in relation to school and activities
towards professional orientation. Where target groups are characterised by multiple
disadvantage soft skills mean basic life skills (Simon Youth Project, Ireland and “We want
to be independent”, Romania), these are indispensable in so far as they refer to young
people’s ability to act in an existential sense.

Preparatory measures are much more explicitly oriented towards labour market
integration however without necessarily providing hard outcomes such as education or
training certificates or direct labour market integration. In principle, they also
concentrate on soft skills although these are interpreted in a much narrower way than in
the case of youth work; key competencies in particular in the case of disadvantaged
youth are interpreted in the ‘old’ way: adaptation, punctuality, obedience, holding
through, and ‘learning what work means’. While some of the case study projects also
offer the possibility to improve or retake missed school qualifications, most of them
struggle with the narrow concept of competence inbuilt into the project design that
follows from their function of adapting young people – also by cooling their aspiration
out. Cityteam (Netherlands) is an example for this struggle, which has become more and
more difficult with the mainstreaming of coercive activation approaches.

This dilemma is even more visible with regard to projects laying priority on training and
employment. In most cases the only space and flexibility is to apply non-formal methods
to reach formal qualifications while employment schemes do not stand under the
pressure of full competitiveness on the market. The development of soft skills in these
contexts is clearly subordinate and restricted to their function of achieving the primary
goals.

This of course is different with participatory training and employment projects. Here, the
combination of qualifications, income, status and access to jobs is not only an explicit
aim but it is also achieved in most cases. For project workers there is no hierarchy
between the two perspectives and outcomes, they see soft skills and hard resources in a
reciprocal functional relationship: no achievement of hard qualifications and jobs without
motivation and biographical reflexivity, no development of soft skills without a clear
career perspective (in fact most young people initially enter the projects not for the soft
skills but for the potential career opportunities they offer). This is not the case for the

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funders for whom the concentration on soft skills is simply a necessity due to the
disadvantage of the target groups (or the ambitious aims of enterprise creation in the
case of SSCA, Self Starters). The fact that these projects start from the practice fields of
employment and training suggests that it is easier for hard sector projects to extend
towards the soft sector than vice versa from the soft sector to get access to hard
resources. The most obvious exceptions to this are the cases of ArciRagazzi and
Ecological Starters, a Danish grassroot voluntary project to increase ecological awareness
that has developed structures of both training and employment.

Figure 2. Clusters of case study projects

In figure 2. we have illustrated the relation between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ in its potential to
support young people in coping with their transitions to work and social inclusion in a
heuristic way.

The horizontal axis stands for the level of participation and the types of soft skills
provided, while the vertical axis stands for extent of labour market orientation and hard
resources. The achievement of projects on either axis depends not only on the level of
qualifications or motivation but also from the degree of disadvantage and disengagement
of the target group (vocational certificates to social inclusion being valued higher in the
case of early school leavers compared to young people with average school
qualifications). The diagonal between the axis stands for the ideal type that integrates
hard and soft resources, and the systemic and subjective aspects of social integration.

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 1.4. Key factors: money and persons

Apart from their different objectives and possibilities to address competence in a

comprehensive and holistic way, we have to ask in a more basic way under what
conditions can participatory projects effectively work in such a direction. Arguably,
funding is an issue in which several of the factors mentioned in the previous section
culminate: for example funding for space, funding for sufficient staff to provide holistic
support on various levels, funding despite of open outcomes. Most of the case study
projects were part of the so-called third sector between market and state, i.e. they
operate with largely public funding according to public guidelines but have to (re-
)organise their funding themselves on an ongoing basis. This means that either they
have to adapt their strategies according to any fluctuation in policy priorities or to invest
a large part of their time and energies into gaining funding from different sources,
thereby achieving a certain degree of autonomy. We have also shown that youth work
projects often typically depend on local funding which can be invested more flexibly
according to local needs while being more vulnerable for political change; education and
training or employment schemes are more often funded through national programmes
with more centralised and standardised guidelines (for cross-national differences see
below).

However, when we look at the funding situation we see a majority of the case study
projects across all types – but especially those successfully combining hard and soft
resources – during the period of our research encountered major structural problems. In
some cases, projects have been closed due to changed policy priorities (e.g. Open Youth
Education, Denmark; La Silhouette, West Germany; Cityteam, Netherlands); in some
cases, they had been developed as pilot projects and – although widely acknowledged for
their work – had to restructure after the end of the pilot funding period (e.g. Lifting the
Limits, UK; “We want to be independent”, Romania); some have been refocused or
closed as part of general cuts in public spending; while others have been affected by
funding structures which always have been fragile. We find our initial hypothesis
confirmed: that participation is not a prime objective in transitions to work policies and
there is little indication of an improved situation in sight (see table 6.).

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Table 6. Funding status of YOYO case study projects at the end of the project

Name of project Country Funding situation (compared Operating

to start of research status

Youth work

SZINFO Romania Stable Ongoing

Centro Giovani –
Italy Stable Expanded
Campagnola

Arciragazzi - Palermo Italy --- Stopped

Giovani/Periferie Italy Stable Ongoing

Glen Foroige Ireland Stable Ongoing

Integration projects

We Want to Become
Romania --- Stopped
Independent*

Boys/Girls House Denmark Worse Restricted

Germany
Mobile Youth Work Worse Ongoing
(West)

Batoto Yetu Portugal Worse Restricted

Príncipes do Nada Portugal Stable Ongoing

Preparation for education and training

Open youth education Denmark --- Stopped

Opportunity Youth UK Stable Expanded

Germany
Kompass-Job in Club --- Stopped
(East)

Youthreach Ireland Stable Ongoing

Cityteam Netherlands Worse Restricted

Training and employment

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SOLARIS Romania Stable Ongoing

Helicon / Centerparcs Netherlands Worse Restricted

Asociación Laura
Spain Stable Ongoing
Vicuña

Youth Cooperative
Spain Stable Ongoing
(Mallorca)

Germany
“Shalom” Freiberg --- Stopped
(East)

Participatory training and employment

Ecological starters Denmark Worse Restricted

SSCA Starters Service

Netherlands Stable Ongoing
Almere

Cooperativa “Parque
Spain Stable Ongoing
Alcosa”, Alfafar

Aldeia de Santa Isabel Portugal Stable Ongoing

Lifting the Limits UK --- Stopped

Germany
LaSilhouette Worse Restricted
(West)

In this situation, one key structural characteristic becomes even more visible: the
dependency of participatory projects on the persons working within the project.
Professional profiles include a variety of experiences with regard to counselling, non-
formal education and training, of work arrangements and planning projects that can be
characterised as subject-oriented, practice-based and participatory. Based on these
insights a training module for practitioners – youth workers, social workers, trainers,
teachers, and policy makers – has been developed in order to spread participatory
professionalism (see annex 1). Apart from professional background, the individual
characteristics of key persons played a major role: first, personal investment in terms of
unpaid voluntary work or overtime in order to provide additional support – either the
more soft aspects in the case of training projects or bridging from soft to hard by making
contacts with employers etc.; second, personal charisma and inventiveness both to
secure funding on the level of local policy and to inspire project staff with regard to a
holistic approach; third, the willingness and capacity to live the relationships with the
young people as a “mother figure” (Simon Youth Project, Ireland) or a “real friend”
(Mobile Youth Work, Stuttgart). Often it was the persons who had initiated or founded a

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project who played such a key role and one that was hard to replace by external staff,
especially under the conditions of restricted funding. One may argue that the relevance
of individual persons represents a limitation of the validity of participatory approaches in
supporting young people in their transitions to work, however we want to argue that
personal effort in most cases resulted from a considerable lack of funding and continuity
which without personal compensation would have resulted in the collapse of many
projects (or in fact has done so). Finally, participation and motivation can be sustained
by including them into the criteria of success and assessed through qualitative evaluation
methods.

1.5. Scope for participation across different European transition regimes

In so far as the YOYO project is an international study the question arises whether the
factors for participation, motivational change, learning biographies and competence
combining hard and soft aspects – as well as the necessary funding – are more likely to
be found in some European contexts compared to others. This brings us back to the
framework of transition regimes that allows us to relate the specific – and often
exceptional – case study projects to the wider context of socio-economic, institutional
and cultural factors. Even the more difficult question to answer in terms of the
transferability of such models of ‘good practice’, involves the different socio-economic,
institutional and cultural structures of transition regimes. From the analysis of the
relationship between the case study projects and the structures of the respective
transition regimes we feel it is possible to draw some conclusions in terms of the
perspectives on participatory support or the reconciliation between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’
policies in different transition regimes.

In the universalistic transition regime (Denmark in the YOYO project) young people have
choice even within the ‘hard’ policy sectors like education or active labour market
policies. Combined with entitlements to allowances, wages or benefits as long as they
remain active this reflects the centrality of motivation for personal development in
citizenship. However, evidenced not only by the closure of one of the case study projects
(example Open Youth Education), but also by the fact that a so-called ‘residual’ group of
migrant youth are not reached, suggests that young people need to buy into a specific
cultural model before being able to profit from a transition system which in principle
allows for participation and choice biographies.

In the liberal transition regime (UK and Ireland) policies are much more clearly geared
towards the early labour market integration and economic independence of young people
(also if single parents; for example Lifting the Limits). On the one hand, priority of

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individual responsibility is reflected in a flexible system of education and training while in
measures for the most vulnerable participation plays a certain a role. On the other hand,
workfare policies exert pressure to ensure young people do not remain unemployed and
dependent on social benefits. In sum, flexible spaces are counteracted by individualised
risks and pressure.

In the employment-centred regime (Germany and Netherlands) where transitions are

structured by a selective school system and standardised vocational training youth is
mainly interpreted as allocation to occupational positions. Those in regular trajectories
are secure while others face high risks of exclusion; in Germany even without
automatically being entitled to social benefits. Disadvantage means that individual
deficits need to be compensated before making ‘real’ choices. Hard and soft policy
sectors are strictly separated so that participation in transitions to work is basically a
question of high school qualifications. While Germany is a rigid example (example Atelier
La Silhouette as an exception), the Netherlands represent a more flexible version of this
regime type.

The main feature of the sub-protective transition regime in Southern Europe (Italy,
Portugal, Spain) is a structural deficit with regard to both soft and hard policies for young
people. The lack of links between education and employment results in long waiting
periods, high unemployment and increasing precariousness while the lack of welfare
rights makes young people dependent on their families. Youth organisations of the third
sector increasingly are the only bridges towards an active social life – often without
systematic links with the labour market. The structural deficit however implies that social
space is less institutionalised so that some voluntary initiative can eventually turn into
careers; yet precarious ones (examples ArciRagazzi and Batoto Yetu).

In the post-socialist transition regime (Romania) de-standardisation is especially

dramatic. While in the communist period education and employment were tightly linked –
with little individual choice but considerable security – toady education, training and the
labour market fail to keep pace with transformation and the increasing risks of social
exclusion. State institutions have lost credibility, in contrast to the few NGOs who
manage to secure funding to close the gaps of training, youth work or social policies.
Rather than finding spaces for experimentation and initiative young people have to
accumulate any possible training and qualifications for potential opportunities. A minority
of them succeed by opening up their own businesses. For the others participation mainly
takes place in dreams of emigration.

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If considering the transfer of selected good practice the complexity of contexts needs to
be taken into account. However, knowledge about factors of success allows for de-
contextualisation and re-contextualisation by assessing whether functional equivalents
exist in other contexts. However, in terms of transferability it is also important to
highlight that many of the case study projects experienced major problems during the
period of the project due to discontinuous funding (across all regimes). It is very clear
that this undermines any notion of participation, sustainable inclusion and citizenship. In
particular, the two participatory training projects addressing disadvantaged young
women are at risk of closure. In terms of transferability and mainstreaming of
participatory transition policies the contribution of EU-policies can be considered,
especially where it influences national policies either directly or indirectly through the
Open Method of Coordination. In the introduction to this report we mentioned four policy
streams that were related to young people’s transitions to work: the European
Employment Strategy, the Social Inclusion Process, the European Area of Lifelong
Learning, and the process and follow-up regarding the White Paper on Youth. In certain
respects, the respective programmes and discourses mirror the divided picture of
participation in the transition to work reflected within the case study projects.

• We find, first, the European Employment Strategy with its main goal of full
employment and employability. With the formalisation of quantitative benchmarks
in terms of activation measures provided to all young people following six months
of unemployment where the scope for a balance between hard and soft aspects of
inclusion appears to be narrow. While unemployment is increasingly dealt with by
workfare policies, the aim of reducing early school leaving is likely to be addressed
in a preventative way due to the younger age of the target group. In the 2004
guidelines one of the objectives was to increase the coverage and attractiveness of
active labour market policies for young people, which may be an implicit
acceptance that up until now these policies have not been attractive and that
therefore improvements in this respect need to be made (EC, 2004a).

• Second, the discourse around a European Area of Lifelong Learning explicitly

acknowledges the recognition and validation of informal and non-formal learning
and to provide support, evaluation and validation of youth organisations and their
contribution to non-formal learning (EC, 2001a). In the indicators for education and
training (EC, 2004b) ‘learning to learn’ is the main key competence; this largely
overlaps with ‘biographicity’ and a reflexive learning biography. The problem with
the lifelong learning strategy is its strong instrumental perspective on learning and
competence prioritising the validation of informal work experience (CEDEFOP,
2004). Models where hard and soft, professional and biographical, formal and

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 in/non-formal learning are fully integrated and which contribute to both subjective
and systemic dimensions of social integration seem distant.

• A third strand is the Social Inclusion Process, launched in the aftermath of the
Lisbon Summit to coordinate policies for social cohesion. The aims complement the
Employment Strategy in the creation of the necessary prerequisites for inclusion of
the most disadvantaged into the labour market. Social inclusion is explicitly
addressed by a multi-dimensional strategy aimed at creating access not only to
employment but also to all aspects of social life and services relevant for social
integration. At the same time however reference to social protection schemes
mainly focuses on the objective of ‘making work pay’ in terms of either reducing
benefit levels or making benefits conditional which contradicts the participatory
rethoric of the programme (EC, 2000).

• Finally, the White Paper on Youth appears to be a key reference for the findings of
the YOYO project in so far as participation is the one of the key concepts – it also
underlines the challenge to make those disadvantaged youth who are not organised
in youth associations etc participate. It highlights that a participatory youth policy
approach needs to be mainstreamed through all policy sectors that affect young
people’s lives. The weakness of the White paper is that the secondary status of
youth policy is reproduced by a concept of participation that remains largely
procedural. Substantial objectives such as young people’s economic and social
autonomy are not raised – except by quoting the results of the consultation of
young people without however validating them as policy objectives (EC, 2001b).
Aside from the EU the Council of Europe also needs to be considered as a European
actor committed to a holistic and participatory understanding of youth policy that is
highlighted in a document of youth policy indicators (Council, 2003) and applied in
a process of reviewing national youth polciies (cf. Williamson, 2002).

In sum, European policies offer the potential to reinforce participatory approaches in

respect of their discourses however these often remain vague, open for contradictory
interpretation and – most importantly – are not binding on national policies. This makes
them on the one hand indispensable, but on the other somewhat unreliable for the
project of empowering young people’s citizenship.

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2. Ambivalences and recommendations

One of the main questions of this research has been whether the active participation of
young people in their transition to work is a promising approach that permits intrinsic
motivation and therefore re-vitalises young people’s status and feeling of citizenship. This
is within a context of de-standardised, increased risks and restricted opportunities –
particularly for those with low qualifications – which can undermine motivation; and
increase the pressure towards adaptation. While our findings may be seen as giving a
positive answer to this question, we find the opposite if we look at current discourses and
policies – and the funding situation of most participatory projects. It is noteworthy that
participation is promoted as the key principle of civil society at times when workers’
participation in the economy is curtailed and individual autonomy undermined by
activation policies. Or: the civil society is proclaimed and at the same time disconnected
from the welfare state. Therefore, it seems necessary to sharpen the understanding of
participation that has emerged from the analysis in an explicit way. At the start we had
already stressed an active concept of participation and one that is related to the
structural aspects of resources and opportunities. Looking back from an empirically
informed and sensitised perspective we can now confirm this and make further
distinctions. If participation is applied as a way of enhancing the motivation of young
people to engage in actively shaping their lives – and that of their communities – and if
this motivation is expected to be invested into inclusive careers then it is more than a
procedural principle in artificial and restricted social arenas. On the one hand it means a
pedagogical principle focused around the notions of space, responsibility and trust. On
the other, it refers to policy in terms of re-opening the space for choice for those with
limited opportunities and under pressure to adapt; choices which need to be secured by
resources that permit an autonomous life. While this clearly does not imply to be able to
freely choose any career with the assistance of unlimited support, it means to allow for
processes whereby young people have the time and space to understand the
prerequisites of different careers while being informed about the potential ways and
support to achieve them. Empowerment – a term which comes close to the meaning of
participation (and sharing the fate of inflationary use) – means that one should not force
individuals to give up their goals and cool out their aspirations but to increase their
power – in terms of rights, resources and competence – in order to achieve them
(Rappaport, 1981).

At the same time however, our findings also support the view that there is no way back
to the Fordist welfare state in which social justice (or social integration) was equated with
and reduced to re-distribution. The reservations of young people towards welfare state

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institutions do not only relate to the pressure from activation policies but also to
bureaucratically applied re-distributive ‘training for all’ programmes. These are often
characterised by strong normative assumptions and run the risk of neglecting young
people’s individuality and dignity (Margalit, 1998). As Fraser argues, welfare institutions
fail to provide social justice if they address social needs exclusively from an expertocratic
or bureaucratic perspective without involving the participants in the interpretation of
their own needs (Fraser, 1989). In this respect, participation is not a harmonious concept
but one that allows for communication and negotiation of divergent interests and conflict
(Stevens et al., 1999). This position is best described by the notion of lived citizenship
(Hall & Williamson, 1999) as both a status and practice (cf. Lister, 2003). Marshall
conceptualised citizenship as the combination of civil, political, and social rights
(Marshall, 1950), however at present, the risk is that this trinity is being separated with a
downsized welfare state addressing social rights while participation programmes address
civil and political rights – rather than being interrelated.

The key lesson to be learnt from the YOYO project is that social integration and the
citizenship of young people requires both a welfare state approach aimed at
redistributing resources and opportunities and a civil society approach of participation.
Welfare without participation can turn into alienating normalisation; whilst participation
without welfare carries the risk of individualised exclusion.

Transition policies in most cases are at least implicitly about learning – be it in terms of
soft skills or hard qualifications, be it practically or theoretically. Our analysis allows us to
make a first conclusive reflection in terms of the concept of competence. Like the whole
discourse of lifelong learning the term has been introduced as a way to meet changed
demands of social integration in the context of post-Fordist labour market flexibilisation
and the de-coupling of education and employment (cf. Walther & Stauber, 1998; 1999;
Coffield, 1999; Field, 2000). Rather than preparing young people in a selective way for
different careers and positions, a more general approach is required which allows young
people not only to adapt proactively to different contexts but to actively shape them:
‘learning for change’ (cf. Manninen, 1998). We would therefore suggest to speak not
about competencies thereby reproducing the separation of and hierarchy between
different types of skills, knowledge and abilities but about competence – or to be more
precise: ‘contextual competence’ (Mørch, 2003). Competence in this comprehensive
sense means an individuals’ capacity to act, to cope with constantly new challenges in
private, social and work life, and to shape one’s live in a self-determined way (Böhnisch
& Schröer, 2005). Such a notion of competence is structured by two axis: the first
integrates personal, social and methodical skills and knowledge, i.e. cultural techniques
as well as more targeted professional knowledge (cf. Rychen & Salganik, 2003;

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Erpenbeck, 2003); the second one relates biographical reflexivity with the aspect of
social recognition. It is only if learning processes – and especially those provided by
institutions with the aim of social integration – are reflected as subjectively relevant and
also recognised by institutions and employers as societally relevant, that they can
contribute to social inclusion. For example gender and intercultural learning will not lead
to an individual nor societal extension of gender roles and identities if they not reflected
within the de-segmentation of social structures and institutions. While the competence
perspective contributes in overcoming the distinction between learning process and
learning outcomes it also bridges the gap between learning and education. The necessity
of self-directed learning does not liberate institutions from their responsibility to reflect
upon what skills and knowledge are required in society, but also to provide opportunities
in which these can be attained. Otherwise there is a risk that learning for competence
turns into a fierce competition among individuals to accumulate skills and knowledge in
order to maximise the chance of recognition under conditions of uncertainty. Needless to
say that this does not only apply for learning in the transition to work but for the whole
education system within knowledge-based societies as motivational careers and learning
biographies tend to be founded early in life.

This perspective confronts policies with two key challenges. First: competence in a
holistic sense requires learning to be accessible, supported by social policies while
opening subjectively relevant career and life perspectives. The concept of Integrated
Transition Policies (Walther, Stauber et al., 2002) has been developed to allow for the
coordination of policies that are relevant for a biographical perspective on the transitions
of young men and women. In this perspective, the boundaries between education and
training, welfare, labour market and youth policies (but also housing, health etc.)
become permeable with individual meaningful life perspectives and sustainable social
inclusion is the subordinate objective. Second, the demand for policies to be open
towards participation and a comprehensive concept of competence can be explained by
the ‘reflexive modernisation’ of ‘risk societies’ (Beck, 1992) whereby the predictability of
the effects of institutional agency and planning decreases. However, as soon as
institutions fail in fulfilling their function of reducing insecurity in social life, they lose
their legitimisation (Evers & Nowotny, 1987). As a consequence social spaces need to be
open for the active engagement of individuals to explore strategies of coping with
insecurity and uncertainty rather than being the subject of increasing control and
standardisation. As Kelly (1999) suggests: experiments in surviving in the ‘wild zones’ of
society should be encouraged rather than trying to ‘tame’ such zones at any cost because
the protective aspects of the latter are increasingly restricted to institutional structures
themselves and fail to protect the individuals concerned. This is the main implication of a

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perspective of ‘youth as a resource’ which does not restrict young people’s future as one
of future workers and tax payers but as citizens of the present; a perspective which we
find most developed in the Scandinvian universalistic transition regime.

The emerging structural gap between policies and young people makes a perspective
which is oriented towards ‘the informal’ in terms of social integration – or even better:
the relevance of informal resources of social integration – more and more useful;
contexts in which ‘active trust’ can be developed and relationships can be actively shaped
and lived (Giddens, 1990). For institutions, that are intended to stabilise social
integration and reduce uncertainty, the demand to recognise the informal and to reject
plans for specific and controllable outcomes represents a paradoxical challenge but to
leave space in which goals and means are negotiated and experimented. As our analysis
proves current policies tend to attempt to re-standardise the informal. This accounts as
well for approaches that aim to validate informal and non-formal learning – at least when
reduced to attempts to translate them into and measure them according to formal
standards. The challenge in fact is much bigger, it involves being mindful of the
universally valid principle that “learning cannot be designed but only designed for – it is
facilitated or frustrated” (Wenger, 1998, p 229) this becomes even more true under the
conditions of late modernity in terms of “modelling without the model to be arrived at in
the end being known or clearly visualised; … in short, an open-ended process, concerned
more with remaining open-ended than with any specific product.” (Bauman, 2001, p
139).

Referring to the interpretation of the relationship between participation and motivation in

the sense of self-determination we can describe our approach towards participation and
citizenship as a sociopolitical one, which asks for the structural prerequisites of
participation and autonomy. In contrast, we criticise discourses that relate participation
exclusively to civil society and to procedural aspects of involvement for giving way for a
strategy of governance that predominantly aims to make individuals self-responsible for
coping with the risks of social exclusion. We see the danger of participation becoming a
“strategy of immunisation” (Masschelein & Quaghebeur, 2003) such as in the cases of
the discourses of activation and lifelong learning (van Berkel & Hornemann Møller, 2002;
Pascual Serrano, 2003).

This corresponds with a final aspect of young men’s and women’s motivation with regard
to participation and citizenship: the aspect of legitimacy in late modern democracy.
Public institutions are legitimised as the executive of democratic decisions, however the
growing complexity of social structures makes institutions contradictory and likely to fail,
and their credibility and legitimacy decreases. This means that citizenship loses its real

123
value and relevance and can only be compensated for by re-delegating power to the
individual where they are concerned in their lives by public issues – power in terms of
rights to negotiate with institutions about appropriate solutions, the appropriate definition
of ‘rights and responsibilities’ in the individual case.

Key recommendations of the YOYO project

Recommendations for the assessment of young people’s transition

problems:

• The assessment of young people’s transitions should distinguish between the

structural aspect of achieved transition progress and subjective motivational
careers.

• De-motivation has to be understood as arising from experiences of denied

choice, neglected needs and interests, and damaged confidence in self-efficacy
rather than as individual deficits.

Recommendations for the design and implementation of policies:

• Transition policies should allow for choice in terms of voluntary access and
alternative options.

• Learning outcomes as well as counselling should not be channelled towards

specific transition directions.

• Programmes should be flexible for individualised use.

• They should be oriented to provide spaces for experimentation and learning by

doing.

• The scope of transition policies should be extended to recognise the whole

person with his/her needs and interests, not only those related to transitions
from education to work.

• Policies should connect any activity that is useful for personal development or
the wider community, or both, with social rights and entitlements to the
existential minimum.

• Funding structures must allow for project continuity and not only depend on
crude success rates.

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 • Evaluation procedures should measure both hard and soft outcomes.

• Young people should be consulted in the policy-making processes in the areas

of education, training and employment. This includes evaluating their
subjective progress.

Recommendations for the delivery of practice:

• Transition policy schemes should be designed to provide a framework rather

than pre-structured learning opportunities while providing support if it is
required.

• Projects should not restrict themselves to their original field of practice, official
function and formal professionality but extend to all areas relevant for the
needs and interests of young people.

• Projects need to focus on strengths by selecting activities in which young

people are competent rather than concentrating on the compensation of
deficits.

• Project delivery needs to be able to invest an advance of trust in young people

and prove worthy of being trusted by young people by offering unconditional
support.

• Local partnerships of different schemes need to be tailored to increase young

people’s choices and allow for individualised networks.

Recommendations for further research:

• A longitudinal perspective in the evaluation of transition systems could assess

the sustainability of the impact of participatory policies on young people’s
transitions.

• Interdisciplinarity in terms of relating to separate policy fields and research

perspectives which intersect young people’s transitions.

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V. DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION OF RESULTS

1. Strategies for dissemination during the life time of the project

A key structure of dissemination throughout the project has been the incorporation of an
advisory board; as a result the YOYO-findings have been extended to other countries and
institutions (Swedish Youth Board, Stockholm; New Europe Center for Regional Studies,
Plovidv, Bulgaria; European Youth Forum; National School for Public Health, Rennes,
France; International Sociological Association, Research Committee 34 Youth).

In addition to this ongoing dissemination the consortium itself has widely disseminated
the research findings.

• A Training Module for the Further Training of practitioners and policy makers in the
field of youth transitions has been developed (see annex 1), whereby the findings
can be transferred into practice. The first attempt to realise the training on a
European level by submitting a proposal to the YOUTH programme was
unsuccessful (but the proposal is planned to be re-submitted).

• YOYO findings have been presented and discussed at a Conference at Cork

University (June 2004), together with representatives from the EU Commission, the
Council of Europe und Irish national policy makers (see annex 2).

• There have been publications by individual consortium members and the

consortium as a whole concerning the dissemination of research findings – articles
in scientific journals, book chapters, papers presented at conferences; as the list of
dissemination activities shows (see annex 4), a broad use has been made of this
option.

• Through the production of video films an additional option for dissemination exists
whereby the young people have the possibility to raise their voices directly.

Findings have also been disseminated through education and training activities. The
specificity of the YOYO-project in this respect is, that these activities did not only address
students (on university courses), but also policy makers and practitioners (see annex 4),
and even influenced national processes of policy making in some contexts (see chapter
V., section 3.).

The project website www.iris-egris.de/yoyo has been a big success. It was established in
summer 2001, and the number of visitors soon rose to an average of 3000 page
impressions per month. The online availability of National reports and Working Papers

126
attracted particular attention. For example, the state of the art report on youth
transitions, participation and informal learning (YOYO Working Paper 1) has been
downloaded 9,000 times. The innovative nature of the project and the online
dissemination strategy has also lead to a high ranking in web inventories and search
engines. Google for example ranks two YOYO product links among their Top Ten under
the search for “youth transitions” and “participation”.

127
Table 7. Dissemination activities and results

Partners
Title of result Exploitation intention
involved

Achieved planned

United Kingdom,
Available as a
Italy, Germany
didactical instrument;
West, Denmark, Plan to re-submit
Training module Proposal has been
Ireland, YOUTH proposal
submitted to the
Netherlands,
YOUTH programme
Romania

Impact on national
All partners
Cork conference and European youth
involved
and transition policies

Scientific
dissemination All partners to Book publication
(articles, book- different extent See annex 4 with all partners
chapters, papers on (see annex 4) involved
conferences)

Netherlands,
Courses for
Ireland, Spain, Pedagogical use is
Training courses for students planned
Italy, Romania, made of the Yoyo
students for summer
Germany East and findings
2005
West

Dissemination Conference in Madrid

addressing policy All partners to 2002; YOYO seminar
Seminars in
makers (papers on different extent in Cork 2004; Council
Sweden (2005)
conferences, policy (see annex 4) of Europe; URBACT
consultancy) network

Ongoing
deepening and
Doctorates based on UK, Italy, Germany West and East,
further
YOYO research Netherlands
exploitation of
yoyo-findings

Transfer of Yoyo-
Video Tapes All partners involved results to
practitioners

Thematic study on
Further European
All partners to policies for Planned FP 6
research based on
different extent disadvantaged youth proposals
YOYO project
(DG employment)

Addressing
Executive summary Coordinator policy makers
and practitioners

128
2. Follow-up of results after the completion of the project

On a scientific level, the project’s findings are followed up.

First, by the “Thematic study of policiy for disadvantaged youth” (DG Employment
and Social Affairs), for which the coordinator of YOYO has successfully applied. Other
members of the YOYO-Consortium or advisory board from Spain, Bulgaria, Romania,
United Kingdom, and Denmark are involved.

Second, by different proposals to the 6th Framework programme.

• A proposal for an Integrated Project for the 1st call has been submitted
addressing de-standardisation of transition over the whole life course (to be
revised for the 2nd call).

• A Marie Curie Research training network is planned regarding this topic.

• A follow-up of the YOYO –project is planned in terms of re-interviewing

respondents under the perspective of social inequality and biographical
development.

• A proposal is planned on youth and intergenerational relationships between

formal and informal contexts of growing up.

Third, the research findings are further explored and deepened by five doctorates
which are being developed in relation to the YOYO-research, carried out in the United
Kingdom, Italy, Germany West and East, and the Netherlands (see annex 4).

3. Political impact of research findings

It has to be highlighted that YOYO, although being a research project, managed to

have some impact on national transition policies already within its lifetime:

Sweden: The National youth board, which was represented on the scientific advisory
board of YOYO, has contributed to the consultations on the new Swedish Youth Policy
Bill by using - among others - YOYO-findings. In fact, the new law corresponds in
some important respects with the YOYO recommendations, above all regarding the
strengthening of social rights und power of young people towards institutions.

129
Ireland: YOYO has been referred to in the re-structuring of the National Youthreach
programme by a Ministry advisor (see annex 2).

On the level of the European Council, YOYO discussions have given their input by the
report of Lynne Chisholm and Siyka Kovacheva, both members of the scientific
advisory board of the project (see Chisholm/Kovacheva 2002).

Apart from this the coordinator has been invited to the Council’s expert group on
youth policy indicators (Council, 2003) and to the international team reviewing the
youth policy of the Slovac Republic.

Another member of the coordination team has been invited as a scientific evaluator
of network within the URBACT programme on participatory youth policies on the local
level.

The commitment of YOYO-researchers to their topic is underlined by the fact they

have been asked for and actually provided support to some of the case study
projects either in terms of reference for funding or with regard to project counselling.

130
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European Commission

EUR 23189 — EU RESEARCH ON SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES — Youth Policy and
Participation. Potentials of participation and informal learning for young people’s
transitions to the labour market. A comparative analysis in ten European regions. -
YOYO

Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities

2007 — 140 pp. — 21,0 x 29,7 cm

ISBN 978-92-79-08019-7
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