Youth Work and Schools in ‘Full-day’ education systems: International Comparison of Links between Formal and Non-formal Education

In this article I will outline the methodological approach of a non-empirical comparative research project which I began in 2003. The project is situated in the context of the research training group “Youth Welfare in Transition” at the universities of Bielefeld and Dortmund, funded by the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). In that context I have organised an international conference about the modes of cooperation between school and youth work agencies with colleagues from Canada, France, Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, and Germany. Meeting in Bielefeld from the 9th to the 11th of October 2003, we compared the respective national arrangements of formal and non-formal education (www.uni-bielefeld.de/paedagogik/agn/ag8/Ganztagsbildung.html). This note is based on the scheme of comparison which was given to the contributors in order to help them preparing their presentations. At the moment the scheme is nearing completed with significant data prepared by the contributors/authors (see Otto/Coelen 2004), supplemented with data from research works published in German and English. The next step will be to set up an empirical project about the relationships between schools and youth work agencies in three European countries (probably France, Finland and the Netherlands).

Social Work as Laboratory for Normative Professionalisation

In most Western countries, the professional status of social workers is instable and insecure. Of course, most Western countries are themselves instable, ridden with feelings of insecurity and in search of reassurance and promises of control. But social work hardly lends itself as a projection screen for visions of professional control and efficiency in the face of insecurity. On the contrary: within the present cultural and political climate, social work connotes primarily with unpopular social problems, with people unable to cope adequately with the competitiveness and the rate of change of post-industrial societies, that is to say: it connotes more with dependency and helplessness then with autonomy and control. Moreover, whereas public discourse in most Western country is dominated by a neo-liberal perspective and the intricate network of economic, managerial, consumerist and military metaphors connected with it, social work still carries with it a legacy of 'progressive politics' increasingly labeled as outdated and inadequate. Although the values of solidarity and social justice connected with this 'progressive heritage' certainly have not faded away completely, the loudest and most popular voices on the level of public discourse keep underscoring the necessity to adapt to the 'realities' of present-day postindustrial societies and their dependence on economic growth, technological innovation and the dynamics of an ever more competitive world-market. This 'unavoidable' adaptation involves both the 'modernization' and progressive diminishment of 'costly' welfare-state arrangements and a radical reorientation of social work as a profession. Instead of furthering the dependency of clients in the name of solidarity, social workers should stimulate them to face their own responsibilities and help them to function more adequately in a world where individual autonomy and economic progress are dominant values. This shift has far-reaching consequences for the organization of the work itself. Efficiency and transparency are the new code words, professional autonomy is dramatically limited and interventions of social workers are increasingly bound to 'objective' standards of success and cost-effectiveness.