Young People as an Indicator Species: Rethinking the Social Contract Through Youth Work

#Youthwork #informaleducation #indicatorspecies #weareeducators #socialcontract #YWCR #creatingconnections

I recently had a discussion with a group of youth workers from across the UK about the importance of anti-discriminatory practice in youth work.  We shared various experiences of how young people can be excluded in a cultural and structural way, applying an academic lens to develop critical enquiry on the reason for words and actions that could lead to discrimination.  We explored the social condition of youth in society and there were some insightful contributions towards an understanding of the roots (rhizome) and fabric (context) of community and how each of the social actors interact, accept and create awareness of the ‘ground’ in which young people are grown and how the interplay between the cultural sphere and structural sphere are heavily influential. Evident in the connection between young people’s experience, and how the values and principles towards an atypical understanding and knowledge along with a skills sets are aspects of the experiential learning process. It is this process, that creates the determinates of the social contract between young people and their cultural/community and society and which can lead to social inclusion or exclusion.

If we draw on ideas from ecology, considering an ‘indicator species’, this is an organism whose presence, absence, or overall health and wellbeing reveals the well-being of a holistic ecosystem. If we extend this idea to society, young people serve as an indicator species for our communities. The direct experiences of young people lead to an indication of the  opportunities, and well-being reflect the health of our social, economic, and political (SEP) systems. If evidence through young people sharing their experiences are blossoming, it signals a community with a desire for strong social cohesion, evidence may be the opportunities for growth and development that are available, and a focus upon equality, diversity and inclusion. On the flip side, if young people’s experiences indicate challenge and struggle, features such as high rates of unemployment, measures of mental health challenges, or clear social exclusion— we can evidence that the broader structures in society are not functioning to support young people in a community.

Youth workers and informal educators are indeed acting in of response to these signals, motivating extended awareness well beyond support to young people; a manifest example is a shift in the provision of youth workers both educating and providing meals for young people as part of the provision base.  In here somewhere is the issue and professional debate of enabling escalation of young people’s voice to be active in the way that their lives are shaped; hence the connection to the exclusionary social contract we hold with young people as a society.  Knowing their place as such appears to be a feature of compliance and subjugation where the dip in inequity resides.  As youth workers and informal educators our role is extensive and the dynamics of power are present.  I advocate that we as educators and practitioners within the spaces that encourage the expression of young people’s voice that we understand the importance of the indicators through young people’s measurement and voice to reshape the social contract and establish new agreements that lead to duality of expectations between individuals and society.

There is the legacy of an historical perspective that the social contract assumes that citizens participate in and benefit from society in exchange for certain responsibilities. This forms the basis of the contract; the principles of compliance with the law, contributing economically, and engaging or participation in civic life. However, there is evidence that due to the ‘criteria’, that young people are often excluded from forming aspects of this contract and importantly how the measurement functions. Young people who are often most affected by the determinates of the social contract have the least access and control over the content and how this will be delivered; often the consultation comes after the decision in most cases (fitting the voice inside the existing model or product as an afterthought so to speak).  It is prevalent therefore that young people’s voices are sidelined in policy based decision, educational reform and developing employment structures leading to a paradigm in which young people are expected to integrate into a system in which they had no role in shaping.

It is based upon this, that when young people ‘disengage’ the social contract claims ‘problem’ when in principle the level of disillusionment with politics, education and challenges around mental health is not an isolated issue to be resolved or fix, but part of a wider societal inadequacy of social inclusion; this is how the measure of young people as an indicator species in communities and societies can be the avenue for the youth worker to encourage dialogue towards change.

The role of the youth worker requires us to consider the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of our approach and actions and the potential of our powerful educational arena to establish the relationships of power in a community and from wider society and creating cohesion through a variety of methods.  Whilst much of the beneficial youth work will create opportunities for young people’s voice, responding to needs,  looking for experiences that increase the skills and confidence of young people to influence change; once we pause to reflect and evaluate, we should consider the next developmental steps with young people to continue to find the access routes within the dynamics of power to influence change and propose renegotiation of the social contract.

1.     Youth workers should practice deep listening, investing in creating spaces where young people feel heard, valued, able to discuss their needs.  The art of listening is a radical act, not a passive way of support and we should be seeking opportunities to amplify voices that are often ignored.

2. We should continue to observe and identify barriers young people face and understand the personal, cultural and structural limitations that limit young people’s ability to act as active citizens and not passive consumers of services.  In this way we begin to truly challenge exclusion and inequality.

   
   

3. The use of true dialogue and opportunities to create connections improves a potential intergenerational misunderstanding and mistrust.  The fostering of dialogue in communities is an informal education skill.  Creating dialogue between young people and decision makers and those with access to dominant cultural capital encourages the opportunity to build bridges between generations and develop cultures and policies that reflect the lived experience of young people within a wider community and not a series of pre-determined assumptions.

   
   

4. Young people’s values and beliefs are considerate often on social movements and wide scale social challenges, we should defy the myth of an idea that young people have limited understanding and recognise that there are many adults that have strong views with equally limited information. This idea of knowing better in some way due to age can be positively changed through creating platforms for young people to lead on agendas that are important with informal education support for young people to navigate activism, advocacy and active participation. The support to civic engagement and activism and journeying alongside young people in their critical enquiry, research, development as together managing the successes and learning from the challenges, enable the life long active critical thinker with voice and agency.

   
   

5. Within the youth work and informal education space, we can review and reframe the nature of success and well-being, analysis of how society defines success in relation to economic stability and success gives the youth worker opportunity to illustrate alternative measures of how young people in a community are thriving, positive mental well-being, beneficial social connections, active participation and sense of personal and collective agency.

   
   

The signals that can be determined within a communities health and wellbeing can be indicators of the need for assets based modelling rather than consumer and deficit based models of thinking, quick fixes are indeed superficial and operate in the short term.  As youth workers and communities, we should listen to these signals and act upon them.

Advocating for policies that provide young people with a place at the table and focuses on needs is attainable through an investment in youth services, the space in which young people can represent a re-imagined society where citizens are more than mere beneficiaries of interventions, but creators of responsive institutions and services that lead to positive change and amendment of the social contract.

#Youthwork #informaleducation #indicatorspecies #weareeducators #socialcontract #YWCR #creatingconnections

Steve Walker (2025) The Youth Work Common Room