THE DOUBLE BIND SITUATION: USING CHAT

TO EXPLORE HOW YOUTH WORK PRACTICE

IS EVOLVING IN A DIGITAL AGE

Jane Melvin Dr. Nadia Edmond

University of Brighton

What is Youth Work? Youth work helps young people learn about themselves, others and society

through activities that combine enjoyment, challenge,

learning and achievement.

It is a developmental process that starts in places and at times when

young people themselves are ready to engage, learn and make use of it. The relationship between youth worker and young person is central to this process. The NYA Guide to Youth Services. Undated.

www.nya.org.uk/catalogue/workforce-1/nya-guide-to-youth-work-and-youth-services accessed: 20.6.14.

What is Youth Work?Youth work happens in youth centres, schools and colleges, parks, streets and shopping precincts –

wherever young people gather. Youth work methods include support for individuals,

work with small groups and learning through experience.

Youth work offers young people safe spaces to explore their identity, experience decision-making,

increase their confidence, develop inter-personal skills and think through the consequences of their actions.

This leads to better informed choices, changes in activity and improved outcomes for young people.

The NYA Guide to Youth Services. Undated. www.nya.org.uk/catalogue/workforce-1/nya-guide-to-youth-work-and-

youth-services accessed: 20.6.14.

Youth Workers as Informal Educators

In youth work, young people participate voluntarily: they engage because they want to.

Informal education takes place through conversation, dialogue and reflection. It can be spontaneous or

planned, but primarily involves experiencing, exploring, questioning, and reflecting on things that have

happened or that the young person has taken part in. It can take place in anywhere and it is:

“…characterised by the central place accorded to critical dialogue, the stress laid upon engagement with learners’ culture and the social systems through which

they live their lives, the variety of settings that are utilised, and the voluntary participation of learners.”

(Smith, M.1988: 139)

Experiential & Mediated LearningTwo elements are important:

1. the use of concrete, ‘here-and-now’ experiences to test ideas; 2. The use of feedback to change

practices and theories (Kolb 1984: 21-22).

Both Kolb & Dewey emphasise the developmental nature of the exercise, and

stress the role experience plays in learning.

Mediated experiences using a variety of ‘tools’ are at the centre of youth work

practice.

Methodology• John Dewey’s pragmatism (or

instrumentalism) takes into account the practical consequences or real effects within a given situation as being vital components of both meaning and truth;

• Development and creation of knowledge

begins as a response to the context and environment that we find ourselves in, and how we then engage or intervene in changing, adapting or restructuring that environment.

• In pragmatism, reflection on activity in relation to established practice helps to form knowledge about new ways of acting.

The research…

Subject Objective

Tool(s)

(Vygotsky & Cole, 1978)

Why activity theory?• Vygotsky’s philosophy was that development

and learning in individuals cannot be separated from the wider cultural and social context

• Intervention and experimentation is a means of influencing learning, development and change

• Individuals use ‘mediated acts’ to change the environment or context is changed to achieve specific or improved outcomes

• Educators ‘scaffold’ activity and use tools to mediate, experience and meaning

• An activity system is a group of people who share a common objective and motivation, and use tools or artefacts to realise the objective .

Object: Promotion of events, calendar, links to services or resources,Information- sharing, keeping in touch, participation

Mediating tool:Facebook

Using Facebook with young people

Subject:School-based Youth Worker  

Rules: Safeguarding Youth Work CurriculumJob description Managerial direction

Community:Youth workersYoung peopleLine ManagerYouth ServiceSchoolLocal authorityParents/carers

Division of labour:Youth worker monitors & supports young people.Youth worker as initiator/catalyst.Youth worker as moderatorYoung people as admins.Young people as creators.

3rd Generation

Activity Theory

(Engestrom, 1987)Outcome:Increased communication, information-sharing, conversation & discussion, digital literacy, networking, increased ownership

“The path of least resistance and least

trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires

troublesome work to undertake the alteration of

old beliefs" (Dewey, 1933 :136).

Dewey, J. (1933), How We Think, Boston, D. C. Heath & Co.

Working in digital spaces

“Informal learning strategies always need to ‘start where young people are’ and that

includes particular places and neighbourhoods, but

also to ‘seek to move beyond where they are’.”

(Batsleer, 2013, in Curran et al., 2013:105).

SafeguardingUK safeguarding legislation and government guidance says that safeguarding means:• protecting children from abuse or neglect• preventing impairment of children’s health or

development• ensuring that children are growing up in

circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care, and

• undertaking that role so as to enable those children to have optimum life chances and to enter adulthood successfully.

Conclusion

ReferencesCurran, S., Harrison, R. & Mackinnon, D. (Eds.) (2013) Working with Young People, London, Sage.

Dewey, J. (1933), How We Think, Boston, D. C. Heath & Co.

Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and education, New York, The Macmillan company.

Engestrom, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit.

Jeffs, T. and Smith, M. K. (1997, 2005, 2011). ‘What is informal education?’, the encyclopaedia of informal education. [http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-informal-education/ Accessed: 20.6.14.

Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice Hall.

NYA Guide to Youth Services. Undated. www.nya.org.uk/catalogue/workforce-1/nya-guide-to-youth-work-and-youth-services accessed: 20.6.14.

Smith, M. (1988) Developing Youth Work. Informal education, mutual aid and popular practice, Milton Keynes, Open University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. & Cole, M. (1978) Mind in society : the development of higher psychological processes, Cambridge, Mass. ; London, Harvard University Press.