Youth work:A 2020 vision editorial introduction

Future commentators looking back on the first decade of the 21st century will undoubtedly be drawn to accounts of the unprecedented political, economic and social changes that have come to define this epoch.  Across the UK, the effect of economic austerity has been felt no more acutely than in local youth work services.  Youth work has been placed on the back foot. More and more, the sector must effectively respond to the primacies of government policy whilst also meeting the often-contrasting needs of young people in local communities. Such a task is made more challenging by diminishing resources. This is a tall order, with the added requirement demanded of practitioners to increasingly demonstrate outcomes and impact of their practice intervention in this context. Seemingly against the odds, youth work endures

Young People, Social Inclusion & Social Action

The lives of young people are constantly under scrutiny. The social construction of their roles and responsibilities within civil society appears to be increasingly controlled by a dominant discourse promoted by the state.  They are consistently presented within a contradictory framework that describes them as a perceived threat to social order and the moral fabric of society as well as a pillar of the nation’s future.  Their relationship to an adult dominated society has become an arena for constant attention from the state and reactive intervention by youth workers and other service providers. The various pathways through the transition from adolescence to adulthood have become indicators of social exclusion and to a greater extent deviancy. Young people’s lifestyles and their progression through the pathways of transition are measured against a framework of milestones and objectives constructed by the central and local state to measure their success and failure (Scottish Executive 1999). The potential role of young people as citizens within civil society is pre-determined by their position within the transition towards adulthood.  The pathways from adolescence present young people with increasingly extended routes within which decisions have to be made and numerous obstacles overcome.  The transition from youth to adult has subsequently become prolonged and often fracture

The effect of temperature and strain rate on the tensile properties of some new textile yarns

The tensile properties of some new textile yarns have been studied with particular reference to the effect of temperature and rate of strain application on the stress-strain behaviour. The work has been split into two parts covering different types of material. In part 1, an Instron tensile tester was used to investigate the effect of strain rate and temperature on the stress-strain properties of two samples of polypropylene yarn. Differences in behaviour occurring between the samples were explained by measurements 6f structural properties such as isotactic index and average .molecular weight. Results were compared with data from the literature on an isotactic polypropylene yam. The method of reduced variables has been used to apply time- temperature superposition and obtain composite curves reduced to a standard reference temperature. This was done for the ultimate stress and strain values and values of stress at lower strains expressed as the tensile modulus. A similar superposition was obtained from stress relaxation data. In part 2, five samples of synthetic poly-urethane elastomeric yarns and one sample of natural rubber yarn have been studied under different conditions. The stress-strain curve, toughness, Schwartz value, elastic recovery and stress relaxation properties have been measured and compared. The stress-strain curve of one of the synthetic yams was studied at different temperatures and initial strain rates. Unlike polypropylene, the same superposition could not be applied to all the data in this case. The equivalence of changes in time and temperature alters with increasing strain as the molecular orientation alters. Yarns of completely different structure have been studied and it has been shown that time-temperature superposition can be applied, in a restricted form, to a non-linear semi-crystalline material. It is therefore possible to obtain data necessary to characterise the behaviour of a material over several decades of logarithmic time using a single instrument of a type used in normal tensile testing procedure

Introduction

For over 20 years Concept has been engaging critically with theoretical ideas and policy discourses that shape youth work practice. Over that time, the journal has published a diverse range of articles and reviews focussed on aspects of youth work from the perspective of practitioners and academic commentators alike. In 1998 Concept published an edited collection of articles relating to youth work theory and practice entitled Conceptualising Youth Work: Back to the future

Notes on Contributors

Notes on contributor

Standing at the Crossroads – What future for Youth Work?

The collection of papers in this reader straddle a period of significant political change. The first decade of the twentieth century will inevitably be synonymous with the ongoing global economic crisis.  In this opening paper we map out the journey ahead for youth work with a glance back over some key markers of the past decade that have shaped the priorities for contemporary practice. Symbolically, youth work appears to be a crossroads - looking to the past for inspiration in order to make better sense of the current context and ultimately gauge the best way forward. There are choices, albeit limited, about which direction to take. The available routes ahead are significantly shaped by the political and policy imperatives of government. Metaphorically, reliance on a ‘GPS’ to inform the future journey for youth work is likely to be locked into the priorities of the state; subsequently the directions for practice are predetermined. We conclude that the future challenges for youth work practitioners include a need to critically take stock of the ever-changing context in order to assist in taking the best steps forward.