Session Information
15 SES 04, Theoretical Underpinnings of an Education and Skills Model for Participation and Cooperation in the Youth Field; Empowering Europe's Young Innovators
Symposium
Contribution
The ECER symposium consists of presenters from different nation states presenting the theoretical underpinnings of an Education and Skills Model for Participation and Cooperation in the Youth Field with a focus on empowering Europe’s young innovators with the skills they need from early on in life. The model has emerged from findings from our pilot study with 18 different nation states taking part at different stages of the pilot study.
The context of the research is that Europeans are living longer, and having families later, resulting in fewer young people which impacts upon European intergenerational solidarity and economic growth. In some parts of Europe the youth unemployment reaches 50% (Manos et al, 2014) with the more recent influx of refugees in Europe potentially increasing these statistics. The transition from education to work has become more difficult with young people only gaining temporary contracts for which they are over-qualified (European monitoring centre on change, 2014). The situation impacts young people starting independent lives who are unable to save to buy a home, resulting in low motivation to start a family or become civically engaged (Horizon 2020, 2013). The consequences include lower future earnings, insufficient social security protection, reluctance to join new pensions with lower returns than current members receive, higher risk of poverty, a loss of human capital in an unequal society, and a greater risk of young people turning to risky behaviour (Horizon 2020, 2014) which impacts on social cohesion and may be linked to radicalisation. The cost to society is substantial through penitentiary services, social services, rehabilitation agencies (Horizon 2020, 2014), and public services responsible for safeguarding the public.
The European Union Framework For European Cooperation in the Youth Field (ECYF) (2009) addresses these issues by focusing on the following priorities: Education and training; Employment and entrepreneurship; Health and well being; Participation; Voluntary activities; Social inclusion; Young and the world; Creativity and culture (p.2).
Our model to emerge from our research reveals that EU nation states are not drawing on the EU Framework (ECYF) (2009) or the supporting resources. This helps to explain why our research findings in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 identified the same priorities that still need addressing as the EU Framework (ECYF) (2009) identified in 2009.
The next steps in our research is to present robust theories that underpin our model for Participation and Cooperation in the Youth Field with a focus on empowering Europe’s young innovators with the skills they need from early on in life.
To address this aim we present the theoretical underpinnings of the five principles that emerged from the findings of our pilot study that align with the European Framework (ECYF) (2009) identified above:
- Inclusion (Marshal & Gerstl-Pepin, 2005) and respect (Barnett, 2000)
- trust in the search for truth (Möllering, 2001; Barnett, 2000; Wagner, 2008)
- constructive cross-cultural critique of alternative world views to arrive at a shared multicultural world view (Ishii et al, 2007; Darling-Hammond & Rothman, 2011; Gerstl-Pepin & Aiken, 2012);
- the generation of new knowledge to enable the re-imagining of new futures where young people are drivers of social change (Taysum, 2012)
From these principles ten standards for Participation and Cooperation in the Youth Field have emerged and in our papers presented in this symposium we will refer to the standards where appropriate.
References
Barnett, R. (2000) Higher Education a Critical Business. Buckingham: SRHE. Darling-Hammond, L., & Rothman, R (Eds.) (2011).Teacher and leader effectiveness in high-performing education systems. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education and Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. European Union (2009) Council Resolution of 27 November 2009 on a renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018) 2009/C 311/01. Available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32009G1219(01) downloaded 30062015. European Monitoring Centre on Change (2014) Youth Entrepreneurship in the EU – values, attitudes, policies. Available at: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/emcc downloaded 03042015. Gerstl-Pepin, C., & Aiken, J. (2012). Social justice leadership for a global world. New-York: InformationAge Publication. Horizon 2020 Work Programme (2014) Europe in a Changing World – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies. Available at: http://www.europegateway.ox.ac.uk/taxonomy/term/34 . Accessed 03032015. Ishii, S., Klopf, D. and Cooke, P. (2007) 'Worldview in Intercultural Communication: A Religio-Cosmological Approach' in L. Samovar, R. Porter and Marshall, C., and Gerst-Peppin, C. Reframing Educational Policies for Social Justice. London: Pearson. Manos, M, Rabemiafara, N and Ward, T. (2014) Young people and Temporary Employment in Europe. European Monitoring Centre of Change available at: eurofound.europa.eu. accessed 16th August 2014. Möllering, G. (2001) 'The Nature of Trust. From Georg Simmel to a Theory of Expectations, Interpretation and Suspense'. Sociology 35, (2) pp. 403-420. Wagner. T. (2010) The global Achievement Gap. New York: Basic Books.
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