Civic Youth Work: Co-Creating Democratic Youth Spaces

How can we better organize and support youth in their contribution to public life? Ross VeLure Roholt, Michael Baizerman, and Roudy W. Hildreth have developed this book to help practitioners and educators who work with youth look at young people in a framework that is qualitatively different. This book explores the idea of youth not only as a developmental stage but also as having a purposeful social role within civic life.

This text presents co-creation as a form of direct youth work practice that invites youth to become actively involved in their communities as citizens, collaborating with youth workers to create and sustain safe spaces for civic engagement. The book's contributors show how adults who work with youth can promote a democratic environment where youth can discuss, engage, and act on issues that matter to them. This book provides concrete case studies of civic youth workers and participating youth creating spaces for the civic and political development of young people in places that lack a social expectation of young people contributing to public life. From developing strategies for conflict reduction in Africa to mending the religious divide in Northern Ireland, the examples describe how to coordinate, support, and manage programs and initiatives with young people that can effect positive change on a global scale.

Ross VeLure Roholt (MSW, PhD, University of Minnesota) is associate professor of youth studies in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches courses on civic youth work. He is an active community-based participatory researcher and has completed several studies on youth work, civic youth work, and youth involvement in democratic and social development. He is active internationally, with long-term work in Northern Ireland, Laos, and Japan and shorter-term work in Morocco, Korea, the Netherlands, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, and Ireland.

Michael Baizerman (MSW, Columbia University; PhD, University of Pittsburgh) is professor of social work director of youth studies in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. He currently conducts research with students on behalf of municipal agencies and their youth services and is active internationally, with long-term work in Northern Ireland and Laos and shorter-term work in Korea and the Middle East.

R. W. Hildreth (PhD, University of Minnesota) is associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. His research interests include democratic theory, the pragmatist philosophy of John Dewey, youth civic engagement, and transnational activism. He is currently working on a book about John Dewey, civic engagement, and the renewal of democratic life.