The Department of Youth and Community Studies within the Faculty for Social Wellbeing will be organising two events:
Relationship between youth work and young people involved in violence: Using subculture/street social capital to engage young people
A public lecture on Friday 13 April at 17:30 at Lecture Centre Room 119 (LC119).
A public lecture on Friday 13 April at 17:30 at Lecture Centre Room 119 (LC119).
Building on research carried out in 3 European Countries (see project Touch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcJ6iWL3SA ) and his own doctoral study, this public lecture will introduce students to key theoretical approaches to subculture, masculinity and violence. These will include Elijah Anderson’s notion of ‘subcultural capital’, Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘field’ theory, Raewyn Connell’s hierarchical model of masculinities and psychosocial criminological approaches to male violence (Jefferson and Gadd). The tutor input will encourage students to reflect on how these ‘thinking tools’ can help youth workers understand the subcultural contexts in which they are engaging young people, and young men in particular. One distinctive focus will be on viewing male violence as, in part, a product of denied vulnerability. Mr. Harris will discuss how these ideas might form the basis of a critical approach to gender education with young people embroiled in violent subcultures.
Engaging with young people in violent subcultures
A seminar in Gozo, that will be held at the 'Grand Hotel' Mgarr Gozo on Saturday 14 April at 08:30
The seminar will present a conceptual and practical model for responding to youth violence through the medium of youth work. After introducing some thinking tools to enable a full understanding of youth violence in all its forms, Peter Harris, the main speaker, will briefly introduce some policy responses tried in the UK, with varying degrees of success. He will argue that youth work can offer an alternative and comprehensive response to youth violence if it is delivered at 4 levels – the personal, cultural, structural and existential. A key theme will be that in order to engage meaningfully with youth violence youth workers need to challenge not collude with it at all of these levels. The talk will include some practical suggestions for relevant youth work responses, and include some examples taken from a documentary film (see project Touch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcJ6iWL3SA). Finally Mr Harris will conclude by making some suggestions for policy making in this area and inviting discussion as to the relevance of this model in the Maltese context.
Peter Harris, spent 18 years as a youth worker and then a senior manager for a children’s charity before joining Newman University in 2010. In 2012 he co-led a multinational research project examining youth work responses to youth violence, the findings of which became a book entitled "Responding to Youth Violence through Youth Work" in September 2016. He has presented at the British and European Societies for Criminology and Outreach Youth Work conferences in the UK and Scandinavia on the issue of youth violence and has produced several published works in the area of youth work and youth crime.
