Peers, Pupils or Partners? Models of Youth Engagement

A lecture by Michael Shiner of the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science

Lecture

Peer education and mentoring rose to prominence during the 1990s and 2000s respectively. Both approaches seek to formalise naturally occurring processes, but do so in different ways and rest on different conceptions of ‘youth’

Abstract

In this presentation the speaker draws on his research and practice to discuss three different models of youth engagement.
Peer education and mentoring rose to prominence during the 1990s and 2000s respectively. Both approaches seek to formalise naturally occurring processes, but do so in different ways and rest on different conceptions of ‘youth’.

• Rhetorically, at least, peer education views young people as active agents who are uniquely placed to access otherwise ‘hard to reach’ groups and deliver credible messages to them. 
• Mentoring, on the other hand, tends to view young people as the beneficiaries or recipients in a dyadic relationship with a more experienced and, by implication, wiser partner. 
• In the third model young people are included as key constituent in a broader coalition with a range of other stakeholders. This approach is less well developed in the literature on youth engagement and will be explored on the basis of the speaker’s involvement in StopWatch, which campaigns around the police use of stop and search in England and Wales. 

The presentation will consider a range of themes including strategies of engagement; the legitimacy and credibility of an intervention; power relations between young people and adults; impact, and theories of change. 

About the lecturer

Michael Shiner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He specialises in the study of drugs, drug policy, youth offending and policing (particularly the use of stop and search). 

Michael has written several books, including Drug Use and Social Change: the Distortion of History, as well as numerous articles and reports. He recently co-authored The Numbers in Black and White: Ethnic Disparities in the Policing and Prosecution of Drug Offences in England and Wales with Niamh Eastwood and Daniel Bear (published by Release).  

Published by  AISSR