Youth work and youth workers as key elements for youth pedagogy development and realisation

Abstract

In recent decades, youth work, being the tool supporting young people to develop and reach their full potential, is gaining more and more attention and support from various actors on different levels. As youth work is mainly focused on learning and personal development, it would highly benefit from a specification of the terminologies and refining the youth workers' professional profile, both putting a solid, scientific-based foundation for its development. Here, the youth pedagogy comes to the scene.

This paper is an attempt to identify and characterise “youth pedagogy” in terms of its specific approaches, contexts and ways of fostering the learners’ development, differing from the classical (child-oriented) pedagogy and the (adult-oriented) andragogy. Additionally, the connection between youth work and youth pedagogy will be observed and analysed, exploring the out-of-school environment offering a number of learning opportunities in the context of both - non-formal and informal learning. Finally, outlines of a professional profile of practitioners delivering youth pedagogy activities will be suggested and explained.