Giving disadvantaged youth a voice
The 'Social innovation - Empowering the young (Society) for the common good' (SOCIETY) project is aiming to improve the quality of life and foster social innovation for young people aged 15 to 24. The approach involves this group in the research process, bringing to the fore their concerns and voices about their self-perception and social participation in society. In essence, the ultimate policy goal is a 'good life for all'. To foster socially innovative policymaking, researchers are exploring what can be done to create social and institutional opportunities better enabling young people to live lives of value. SOCIETY has adopted the capability approach (relevant to welfare economics) as its conceptual basis and in terms of its central topic: inequality, participation and social innovation. It will advance an empirical foundation helping to broaden the informational basis of local policies. Additionally, it will reformulate a capability perspective for analysing and enhancing the conceptual bases of current policies so as to foster social innovation in a practical and feasible manner. To date, the team has provided a theoretical framework for understanding and assessing the inequalities currently faced by disadvantaged young people in 11 EU Member States. The framework can help develop innovative policies during a period of social change and crisis. Results of this work, available on the website, are presented in a final conceptual report and in working papers related to the seminar 'Inequality, innovation and the informational basis of judgements of justice'. Researchers have assessed existing policies and identified innovative strategies in the field of youth policy. They did this for all 11 participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Team members are carrying out various analyses. These are relevant to the policy fields of education and employment, and to social support networks and policies and strategies of local actors in deprived city districts. Focusing on the young people themselves, SOCIETY is exploring their life worlds to gain insight into relevant policy fields, analysing their interrelations and ramifications for everyday life. Ongoing work will contribute to enhanced social inclusion of vulnerable groups, empowering disadvantaged young people through social innovation.
Keywords
Disadvantaged youth, inequalities, young people, social innovation, empowering the young
