Political Actions of Youth Workers

Abstract

AbstractThe ability to act politically is supposedly one of the core competencies of youth workers in Germany. Surprisingly, there is little knowledge about political activities of youth workers in Germany and elsewhere. In this article, I address this research gap by questioning how youth workers act politically. I present findings from the qualitative research project “civic education in youth work” and provide insights into the narrated practices of the interviewed youth workers in their contact with local politics and authorities. Based on a reconstructive interpretation using the documentary method (Bohnsack in Documentary Method. In U. Flick (Ed.), The sage handbook of qualitative analysis (pp. 217–233). Sage, 2014; Nohl in Narrative interview and documentary interpretation. In R. Bohnsack, N. Pfaff, & W. Weller (Eds.), Qualitative Analysis and Documentary Method in International Education Research (pp. 195–217). Barbara Budrich, 2010), I am able to identify three different types of political practices of youth workers and their underlying implicit orientations. There are youth workers who are reluctant to engage politically, who engage only in the face of an immediate threat, or who engage politically as part of their professional role as youth workers.