A reference tool for initiating youth policy and learning about the diversity of national and international governance and about the infrastructure available for youth policy, its implementation, review and evaluation Today, we know much more about national and European youth policy, the role of research, participation of young people and monitoring and evaluation of youth policy than we did when the first Youth policy manual was published in 2009 by the EU–Council of Europe youth partnership. The concept of youth policy can be very narrowly or very broadly constructed. This volume positions youth policy in the context of public policy and reflects on the complex, cyclical nature of policy making, bringing together the results of knowledge gathering and debates central to the European agenda in the field over the last 15 years. Thematically, the manual focuses very specifically on those areas of youth policy that have been formulated and developed through European consensus-building – participation, information, volunteering, social inclusion, access to rights, youth work, mobility and digitalisation. We hope that the five parts of the manual, from the conceptual to the practical, and through a range of examples and questions for reflection, will help you to explore, understand and engage with the youth policy framework in your context, from your own perspective, and will provide you with a sense of all the stages of youth policy making. Most importantly, the manual includes a wide range of standards, tools and resources developed by and for the benefit of youth policy makers, youth work practitioners, youth researchers and young people across Europe. It is About Time! we strengthen the youth sector further to develop a new generation of positive and purposeful youth policies in Europe!

A reference tool for initiating youth policy and learning about the diversity of national and international governance and about the infrastructure available for youth policy, its implementation, review and evaluation.Today, we know much more about national and European youth policy, the role of research, participation of young people and monitoring and evaluation of youth policy than we did when the first youth policy manual was published in 2009 by the EU-Council of Europe youth partnership. The concept of youth policy can be very narrowly or very broadly constructed. This volume positions youth policy in the context of public policy and reflects on the complex, cyclical nature of policy making, bringing together the results of knowledge gathering and debates central to the European agenda in the field over the last 15 years.Thematically, the manual focuses very specifically on those areas of youth policy that have been formulated and developed through European consensus-building - participation, information, volunteering, social inclusion, access to rights, youth work, mobility and digitalisation. We hope that the five parts of the manual, from the conceptual to the practical, and through a range of examples and questions for reflection, will help you to explore, understand and engage with the youth policy framework in your context, from your own perspective, and will provide you with a sense of all the stages of youth policy making. Most importantly, the manual includes a wide range of standards, tools and resources developed by and for the benefit of youth policy makers, youth work practitioners, youth researchers and young people across Europe.It is About Time! we strengthen the youth sector further to develop a new generation of positive and purposeful youth policies in Europe!

Empower youth, transform policies: From concept to action Participatory youth policy implies that young people are involved in policy making at all stages, from inception to implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The main feature of participatory youth policy is a mobilised effort to promote co-creation of youth policy with young people and to include strengths and talents from the field, making sure that youth olicy is built on democratic principles, support for solidarity, inclusion, equality, openness and outreach. Across Europe, meaningful youth participation in dialogue and mutually respectful work in policy implementation are understood to be prerequisites for effective and efficient policy making. Knowledge, understanding and commitment to knowledgebased participatory youth policy has increased exponentially following the publication by the EU–Council of Europe Youth Partnership of About time! A reference manual for youth policy from a European perspective in 2021. This T-Kit complements the manual and provides educational support for building youth sector capacity for participatory policy making. The knowledge developed in the sector over the past few decades, on which this T-Kit is based, will benefit youth leaders, workers, trainers and organisations advocating participatory structures, especially at local and national levels. Youth policy makers will be able to launch participatory processes by using the activities contained in this T-Kit. Organisations and experts developing training and development strategies on youth policy may find the T-Kit to be a useful resource. It is structured to enable users to find a wide range of resources in one place for successful educational processes on participatory youth policy. The T-Kit provides conceptual, methodological and educational frameworks and offers a set of educational activities and a toolbox to help address the themes of participatory youth policy making, enabling its users to learn, grow and importantly – to engage.

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown into relief some key issues in contemporary youth transitions to adulthood in Europe, presented in this book In early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic struck Europe with a vengeance. All sections of the population were rapidly affected by the efforts made to limit the deadly impact of the coronavirus: lockdowns and other restrictions on personal movement, the closure of public spaces and limits to association. Young people were perhaps the least at risk in terms of illness and mortality. In other respects, they were disproportionately affected, on account of the closure of educational institutions, the collapse of recruitment to the labour market and the range of challenges surrounding the places and spaces where they lived, whether “at home” or elsewhere. Covid-19 regulations lasted for well over two years and their consequences linger on or persist. The experience of the pandemic affected young people in many ways. This book provides a range of accounts of those experiences, among different sectors of the youth population, in different parts of Europe and among those who sought to provide young people with support. It draws perspectives from pre-existing research projects that were sustained through the pandemic, spontaneous research inquiries and reflective case studies from practitioners in the field. This volume of the Youth Knowledge Book series presents a contemporaneous account of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic period on young people. It broadly confirms the resulting exacerbation of the inequalities affecting young people in different and cross-sectional ways, as their lives and aspirations were disrupted and put on hold. But it is by no means completely bad news. Young people also displayed creativity, resilience and sometimes resistance during the pandemic, as did some professionals responsible for supporting them. From this diversity of understanding about responses to one crisis, there are important lessons and ideas for youth policy and how it may respond better to similar crises in the future.

The Advanced Introduction to Youth Studies analyses the historical development of the sociology of youth in the context of changing population demographics. Howard Williamson and James Côté explore competing paradigms underlying current understanding of youth with reference to key philosophical, theoretical and methodological debates. Young people’s transitions to adulthood and youth cultural behaviour are then explored. The authors conclude with a consideration of youth policies and how, in the future, these may be better informed by sociological research.

The EU-CoE youth partnership stems from the close relations that the Council of Europe and the European Commission have developed in the youth field over the years since 1998. The overall goal is to foster synergies between the youth-oriented activities of the two institutions. The specific themes are participation/citizenship, social inclusion, recognition and quality of youth work. What is youth policy, and what major elements should a national youth policy strategy include? How can young people be consulted and otherwise involved in developing youth policy? How do institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations address youth policy, and how can this work be concretely linked to the efforts of a national government to develop a youth policy agenda? How is youth policy organised in specific countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region? These are some of the essential questions addressed in this publication. The Youth policy manual should be considered a source work, a tool and a helpful guide both for policy makers in the youth field and for non-governmental organisations and other stakeholder groups who advocate improved youth policy at the national level. This manual proposes one possible model for how a national youth policy strategy can be developed. It is a revised version of the Youth policy manual (2009) and takes into account relevant specificities of the MENA region.

Exacerbated by the Great Recession, youth transitions to employment and adulthood have become increasingly protracted, precarious, and differentiated by gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Youth Labor in Transition examines young people's integration into employment, alongside the decisions and consequences of migrating to find work and later returning home. The authors identify key policy challenges for the future related to NEETS, overeducation, self-employment, and ethnic differences in outcomes. This illustrates the need to encompass a wider understanding of youth employment and job insecurity by including an analysis of economic production and how it relates to social reproduction of labor if policy intervention is to be effective. The mapping and extensive analysis in this book are the result of a 3«-year, European Union-funded research project (Strategic Transitions for Youth Labour in Europe, or STYLE; http://www.style-research.eu) coordinated by Jacqueline O'Reilly. With an overall budget of just under 5 million euros and involving 25 research partners; an international advisory network and local advisory boards of employers, unions, and policymakers; and non-governmental organizations from more than 20 European countries, STYLE is one of the largest European Commission-funded research projects to exist on this topic. Consequently, this book will appeal to an array of audiences, including academic and policy researchers in sociology, political science, economics, management studies, and more particular labor market and social policy; policy communities; and bachelor's- and master's-level students in courses on European studies or any of the aforementioned subject areas.

This publication is the result of the Edgeryders project, an online dialogue platform run by the Council of Europe with a view to promoting discussion with young people on the challenges of their transition to working life. Given that the imagination and the experiences of young citizens can only be understood in the context of horizontal relations (learning though sharing and joint management) in line with the networking approach, which restores the significance of individual effort and provides innovative solutions, a programme such as Edgeryders can provide a future-oriented alternative. In turn, institutions must show creativity. It is no longer a case of managing inertia, but above all of creating a balance between what the public authorities can do and what they can facilitate. By adopting a spirit of co-operation, the authorities can encourage the sharing of responsibilities, ideas, goods and values, while opening up to mutual learning. Nevertheless, this type of interaction is only possible if two conditions are met. Firstly, institutions must show a clear desire to ensure unprecedented scope for dialogue with young people by ascribing a high value to the proposals that emerge from the contacts among and with young citizens. Secondly, young people’s interest in public affairs must be maintained in the long term by shoring up the online exchange with concrete evidence of legitimacy. This publication is intended to help meet these two conditions.