Youth Participation in Europe : The interplay between Discourses and Policies

At European level, there is no one accepted definition of youth participation neither in the political arena nor in the academic debates. Despite the differences, the common trend regards youth involvement in decision making in the public sphere (government and organisational policy) and self-determination in the private sphere (e.g. personal decision making in education, labor market and families topics). This chapter analyses whether the current discourses consider the re-shaping of youth involvement both in the public and individual spheres. Attempting to answer this question, it presents some empirical finding on youth participation’s discourses as they emerge in exemplary interviews with experts contrasting them with the assumption of young people collected through focus group conducted in different youth social spaces in eight European cities. The goal is to analyze whether the claim for youth inclusion and engagement is inspired by the socio-pedagogical principle of participation as an empowering tool for young people, groups and community or by an adult driven agenda, focused on young people’s future as adults rather than their actual way of living, their needs e desires.