Abstract

The Concept Reader launch was delivered in what we may one day view as a time of great social upheaval. Many widely held values and rights are being challenged by the Conservative-led neoliberal agenda of austerity. In our communities of place, interest and practice we now need to come together, debate and organise. With the launch, Ian Fyfe and Stuart Moir provided us with a platform to think critically and creatively about the current direction of youth work and our ability to influence it. During the seminar a real and troubling sense of discord emerged between the current state of practice and our aspirations for the field. The attendees shared deep concerns about the long term future of democratic Youth Work under an austerity regime that punishes the most vulnerable groups within society and ideologically re-imagines education as an instrumental process towards low wage, insecure employability. ‘If you want to serve the age, betray it ’ Brendan Kennelly (1991, p17). We face a struggle to preserve the democratic traditions and radical origins of Youth Work from marketisation and instrumentalisation which parallel the wider struggle to maintain socially democratic institutions in the country at large. Youth Workers traditionally aim to expose received ideas, media stereotypes and ruling paradigms, and we encourage young people to critically reflect on dominant political narratives. ‘The great enemy of clear language is insincerity ’ George Orwell (1945).