Seek and act for emancipatory policies with young people Erasmus Project

Project Title

Seek and act for emancipatory policies with young people

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Research and innovation

Project Summary

As education professionals supporting vulnerable youths, we observe many emerging behaviours among these youths (for instance, the use of social networks, multi-substance use, etc.) as well as new issues (religious radicalization, the absence of demands, school dropouts) that challenge the educational practices we have been able to build so far.

At the same time, various studies and surveys on the importance given to youths and their opinions in the development of public policies and educative practices directed towards them show that it is difficult for the institutions and various actors working with these youths to take their points of view in account, particularly with those who struggle the most. Beyond the intentions or in some cases the injunctions to have youths participate and empower them, it seems that actors working with them will need to be accompanied in a cultural change and a shift in their positions and decision-making.

Finally, it appears that actors working with youths suffer from a lack the method and tools necessary to enable youths to observe, analyze and evaluate the educative structures developed on their behalf. Collective studies and project building are often too focused on individual processes and encountered obstacles, they are often implemented without referencing the specific issues of a given territory and rarely take into account the opinions of youths, their resources and their skills.

We consider that the tools and processes of ACTION-RESEARCH make it possible to offer actors a participatory and reflective framework allowing them to improve and adjust public policies and practices. They are however not always adapted to the specific audience of youths, especially those who are limited in their ability to express themselves. These methods are not accessible to youth policy actors, as they are too complex to appropriate, too complex to implement, and ultimately, only very rarely evaluated and capitalized.

It therefore seems essential to us to make an effort in the sense of a pedagogical translation and the development of adapted tools. We aim to attain our main objective which is to REINFORCE THE EMANCIPATION OF YOUTHS AND ACTORS WORKING WITH YOUTHS BY GIVING THEM ACCESS TO CERTAIN SKILLS allowing them to take action in order to conceive new educative practices.
In order to achieve this, we offer to model certain methods and tools from the action-research process, in order to make it more comprehensible to youths, including those who struggle the most and whom it is difficult to mobilize and easier to be appropriated by actors working with youths in order for them to develop action-researches in their field of work independantly.
Our project is supported by a special education institution (SEAS) and two Belgian and French research institutes (the OEJAJ in Brussels and the LERIS in Montpellier) specialized in the deployment and management of action-research. We aim to develop intellectual productions in order to make action-research tools and methods more comprehensible and easier to mobilize. Our intention is therefore to bring together scientists, actors working with youths, youths and public decision makers by offering the following contributions:
– to CAPITALIZE (O1) European action-research development tools, to model them and offer an alternative form that would be more synthetic,comprehensible, visual and adaptable to struggling youths.
– to build a PEDAGOGICAL TOOLBOX (O2) to equip actors working with youths and reinforce their skills in helping the development, theconstruction and the management of action-research processes on subjects and issues relative to the youths they work with.
– to make this content (O1 and O2) available to actors working with youths, decision-makers and researchers on a DIGITAL PLATFOM to encouragethe spreading of these methods and to highlight, capitalize and develop action-researches built with youths in Europe.

This 27 month-long project will allow us to experiment and validate this content through learning mobility and times of mobility (C1 and C2) to encourage its appropriation by its final beneficiaries, which are youths and actors working with youths. It will first be experimented by 30 youths and 15 youth workers who will become its first experts.
We will rely on our networks of associated partners to support the project and its various stages through dissemination events (E1 to E5) in order to promote the approach, collect the opinions and suggestions of our local and national partners, and encourage the spread of the change of posture implied by our logic of building with and for youths who struggle the most, as they are the main subjects affected by these answers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 220973 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sauvegarde de l’Enfance et de l’Adolescence des Savoie & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Observatoire de l’Enfance, de la Jeunesse et de l’Aide à la Jeunesse
• LERIS