Social justice or social control? An ethnographic study of detached youth work in Scotland

Abstract

This article examines the experiences of a newly formed detached youth work project in Scotland and its relationship to neo-liberal ideology. The growth of neo-liberalism has, as with other social professions, made detached youth work vulnerable to a deficit-based approach. This has come hand-in-hand with managerial practices focused on efficient, targeted interventions delivered through short term budgets. The article, drawing on ethnographic data, describe a team of youth workers challenged with reconciling their deep commitment to delivering a programme of relational youth work with the targeted focus of the project on ‘risky’ youth and associated local apparatus of community safety. Throughout youth work's history the dividing line between youth work and mechanisms of social control has been slippery to navigate. The article argues that emergent neo-liberal ideology presents a further professional challenge to youth work. In the context of austerity and a widening neo-liberal policy agenda from Westminster, Scottish youth workers are being required to work harder to demonstrate that the service is not simply there to target ‘risky’ social groups or ‘plug the gaps’ that the state can no longer provide. Youth workers, in this context, must continue to make the case in defence of well-resourced, universal youth work and its potential to contribute to tackling social injustice and inequality.