35
Rethinking Youth Participation For Social Development and Community Strengthening
JOURNAL OF YOUTH RESEARCHES
Introduction
In the last decades, there has been a greater focus on the notion of “youth” and as a
result, new ways have emerged towards conceptualizing of what “youth” means and
how its role can be redefined within the structures of the society. Perceptions towards
young people and their involvement in the society has evolved throughout history. Youth
has been problematized and been identified as both “the cause and victims of various
social problems, ranging from ‘spiraling’ juvenile crime to economic crises, to ‘epidemic
of delinquency’ ” (Bessant, 2003: 88) and in addition youth has also been designated as a
“as a key solution to an array of problems and have thus figured prominently in proposals
for remedial action and reform policies” (Hendrick, 1990, cited in Bessant, 2003:88). In
the recent decades, however, youth has been the centre of a new emerging discourse on
“youth at risk” and such rhetoric focuses on identifying behavioural factors that put young
people in a determined state of risk, as well as proposing preventive interventions. Such
risk situations include drug abuse, HIV exposure, violence, poverty etc. Duhn (2006:28)
argues how the notion of ‘risk’ has become one of the truths of contemporary western
societies and “the regimes of truths that surround ‘risk’ dominate global and national
politics as well as everyday practices.” In this sense, youth has been affected by political
rationalities, but at the same time functions as a technology of government, as Foucault
would argue (see Foucault 1988, 1994a). Recent approaches towards ‘youth at risk’ have
been recognizing the positive outcomes of youth participation, as an intervention strategy
towards reducing risk factors for young people, as well as a way to empower and inte-
grate youth within the nucleus of the society. It should be nevertheless mentioned that
participation of children and young people in the process of decision-making is relatively
new.
Youth is often denominated as the time when an individual is young, as well as the time
between childhood and adulthood. Nevertheless, there is no specific definition of timing
or age when youth is supposed to start or end and its consideration or approach towards
it can vary according to different cultural and contextual perspectives across the globe.
According to the United Nations, one general definition denominates “youth” as individ-
uals between the age of 15 and 24 and this definition is mostly done for statistical pur-
poses. On another level, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989),
every individual under the age of 18 years of age is considered as a child. The UN at the
same time recognises that there exist multiple definitions within the UN bodies and that
youth remains a concept that is followed by several definitions, which are also depending
on culture, gender, etc. The place that young people and the category of youth in general
occupies in the society can be regarded as a sort of mirror of the conceptualizations,
social constructions and social policies that are being implemented towards youth. On
