Youth, youth leisure, and youth policy

1
Youth, youth leisure, and youth policy
Andries van den Broek,Koen Breedveld,Jos de
Haan,Frank Huysmans, Elke ZeijlSocial and
Cultural Planning Office
2
Youth, youth leisure,and youth policy

• policy theory
• facts and figures
• tenability of policy claims

3
Sources

• policy documents
• Youths deserve the future (1993)
• Youth policy in equilibrium (1999)
• Research among pupils

4
Policy theory

• inter-sector youth policy presupposes a
  relation between leisure participation and
  development without certain types of
  participation, chances for development are
  supposed to be missed
• yet cultural policy aims at culture as such,
  not at culture as an instrument
• not at stake here prevention policy

5
Policy practice

• youth policy is a rather weak player,
  influencing its network is its main armory
• youth policy is highly de-centralized, both to
  sectors and to local government
• policy targets suffer lack specification (due
  to weak theoretical and practical basis?)

6
Towards measurement 1

• social participation
• sport
• culture
• media
• political participation and volunteering
• implicit assumption that participation in own
  youth culture is devoid of positive effects

7
Towards measurement 2

• state of development
• cognitive (school)
• emotional (emotional problems)
• social (parents peers)
• physical (subjective well-being)

8
Effects of sport
cognitive school n.s. emotional
problems -.07 social parents
.05 social peers .05 physical .12
9
Effects of (canonized) culture
cognitive school .04 emotional
problems .06 social parents
.06 social peers n.s. physical n.s.
10
Effects of media (reading)
cognitive school .04 emotional
problems n.s. social parents
.08 social peers -.04 physical n.s.
11
Effects of volunteering
cognitive school - emotional problems
.03 social parents .04 social
peers -.08 physical .12
12
Counter-testEffects of youth culture (hanging
out)
cognitive school -.06 emotional
problems .04 social parents -.09 social
peers n.s. physical n.s.
13
Activities fostered
sport amateur cultural activities canonized
cultural visits reading membership
associations volunteering
14
Activities not fostered
movies, rock concerts bars,
discotheques watching telly computer,
internet telephoning
15
Overall effects of fostered and non-fostered
activities
f. n.f. cognitive school .05
n.s. emotional problems n.s. -.04 social
parents .10 n.s. social peers .03
.15 physical .08 n.s.
16
And so ???

• no support for youth policy !!!
• is policy theory inadequate ???
• are our measurements inadequate ???