Youth participation in society

Abstract

Due to economic and social changes in societies of Europe and Asia, youth is hard to capture as a group. While the previous generation had a rather linear life with the different stages following each other: school, university, work, family… it is becoming more confused nowadays for the new generation. Young people can be at the same time, student, parents, workers, unemployed… The transition leading to the stage of being settled in life is lasting longer. How successful this transition is, is matter of the various youth policies implemented in European and Asian countries. Young people relationship towards society is problematic. Both in Asia and Europe young people are trapped in the paradigm of being portrayed either as trouble-makers with an emphasis of youth problems such as drugs, violence… or as a new generation of leaders capable of major changes for the future which assumes that young people are not making any contribution to their community yet. This paper addresses the issue of youth participation and contribution to society in the two regions. It will discuss first the different concept of youth that influence the formulation of youth policies by European and Asian states. Secondly, economic and social changes that directly impact on young people’s life will compliment the discussion on youth policy to draw a comprehensive picture of the state of youth. Thirdly the paper will refer to an alternative approach—the ‘positive youth development’ approach—of viewing youth participation to society. To respond to the problematic relationship of youth towards society, this paper argues that there is a need for reconsidering youth contribution and for viewing it as an on-going process of self development rather than as an outcome. Such an approach implies to view young people experiences and initiatives with an holistic lens and to recognize it as a learning process, part of the broader individual development process of youth.