Professionalism in the context of public sector professions is a changing concept, which is subject to different interpretations. The sociologist Julia Evetts has developed two models, occupational and organisational professionalism, which are useful conceptual tools which help us to understand from a wider theoretical perspective the changing…

In its diverse forms, authentic writing carries the potential to connect literacy practice to an author's 'real world'. While contemporary approaches to authentic writing instruction--advocating writer-centred, intertextual and culturally relevant productions--are most often explored in formal learning contexts like classrooms, this paper seeks to…

Purpose: Service-learning (SL) is a widely accepted pedagogy that can enrich the learning experience for students in higher education while they apply their skills in a meaningful community service. This research is part of a larger project that aimed to motivate educational achievement among youths living in a priority neighborhood through SL.…

Perceptions of program safety for youth might include such features as physical safety, psychological safety, and social-relational safety. A holistic sense of safety, or one that inclusively encompasses and integrates features of, and relations with, the ecology in which youth develop, could be engendered through programmatic designs that attend…

This study examined the moderating effect of youth-adult partnerships (YAPs) on the relationship between youth empowerment in the community and youth's creative self-efficacy (CSE). A survey was administered to 2,653 youth recruited from youth service centers in Hong Kong, which measured youth empowerment in the community, perceived YAPs in youth…

This paper explores young people's aspirations and the influence of community drama in shaping these arts-focussed aspirations. Research was undertaken using creative drama methods with young people who attend a youth drama group. The young people identified career and personal aspirations, recognising the hard work and support that it can take to…

Within the Canadian university sports context, athletics departments are increasingly partnering with community sports organizations to promote youth sports participation, while simultaneously providing student-athletes with volunteer opportunities aimed at developing civically engaged young adults. The purpose of this study was to examine the…

The project review as outlined in this article explores the questions: What is transformative research and what is transformation as far as the community stakeholders are concerned? To what extent has the transformative research achieved its intended outcomes? The Bokamoso project (founded by Lesego Serolong as facilitator and investor) is an…

This article draws on research undertaken by the Professional Association of Lecturers in Youth and Community Work (PALYCW) in collaboration with the Open University, University of Glasgow and the University of Hull. The authors are all part of a community of practice of lecturers teaching in higher education on Community and Youth Work (CYW)…

Innovation that benefits children does not always come from formal institutions. Communities around the world are finding creative ways to fill in the gaps in services and enrichment when the schools or other government-backed programs fall short.

Community engagement is considered a cornerstone of health promotion practice. Yet engagement is a fuzzy term signifying a range of practices. Health scholarship has focused primarily on individual effects of engagement. To understand the complexities of engagement, organizations must also consider relational, structural, and/or organizational…

This article draws on research undertaken as part of a Collective Biography project generated by a group of activists and lecturers teaching and researching in youth and community work (YCW). Collective Biography (CB) is an approach to research in which participants work productively with memory and writing to generate collective action orientated…

This paper explores the external developmental assets and how they manifest in specific youth programs from Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras. An evaluation process was created through a qualitative phenomenological with the youth programs' leadership. To triangulate the data, a survey was developed and piloted with a small sample from three youth…

Community-based partnerships are integral to mental health programming and research. However, there are limited published guidelines that apply the principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), especially within the context of supporting vulnerable youth populations. This article demonstrates the application of the CBPR principles…

This article explores the meaning of community-driven and owned science in the context of an Inuit-led land-based program, the Young Hunters Program. It is the foundational program of the Arviat Aqqiumavvik Society, situated in Nunavut, Canada, a community-led group dedicated to researching challenges to community wellness and designing and…