Main description:

Provides empirical insights based on research on youth and vulnerability and frontline practices showing theoretical, political as well as practical implications. Uses case-studies from Portugal, Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Provides a distinct social work perspective on youth and welfare encounters.

Contents:

1.Introduction. 2.Theorising local variations on social assistance and its constraints: A time geographical perspective. 3.Action strategies among young people on the margins of Danish society. 4.The emergence of productive understandings of sustainable community development in youth responses to a neo-liberal discourse. 5."You get a feeling that they are taking well care of you" - Young people's perception of Ohjaamo in Helsinki. 6.Activation policies and activation in a working-class town over two decades. 7.Using participation to understand and address the anxieties of European youth about unemployment, future work and community. 8.Hearing the voices of the young - dilemmas in research on activation. 9.The voice of young people in shaping future youth policies - towards a paradigm shift.