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 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…

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…

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…

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…

The Global Resilience Oral Workshops (GROW) Free and Strong programs take a strengths-based, positive youth development (PYD) approach to promoting thriving. Through both prevention (GROW Strong) and intervention (GROW Free) exercises, these programs aim to build character and emotional resilience while also lowering unhealthy alcohol use. To…

Community and youth work (CYW) practice has been articulated as striving towards a more socially just and equal society and is theorised as a catalyst for social change that seeks to overcome power differentials. Yet, despite these claims, there is limited empirical evidence to inform knowledge about the extent to which 'equality work' is featured…

How should we define "equity and justice" when it comes to communities and countries with historical, political, and economic trajectories different than ours? In the article "Rethinking equity: standpoints emerging from a community project with victims of violence and abuse in Argentina," Castaño Rodríguez, Barraza, and Martin…

We present a dialogue between two community-based scholars in Tio'tia:ke/Montréal, who are examining the experiences of low-income Black families and youth, and gender-diverse, homeless youth. We argue that success must be understood differently in light of the systemic discrimination many youth navigate in schools and explore how research may…

The satellite city of Elizabeth, located 30 km north of South Australia's capital Adelaide, was established in the 1950s as an experiment in urban sociological planning, populated with new arrivals and hailed as the 'City of Tomorrow'. By the 1970s, it had declined into one of the most disadvantaged communities in South Australia, with…

This personal perspective piece examines the researcher's positionality through the stance of humanizing research in multiethnic youth communities. Drawing on Paris and Paris and Winn's notions on humanizing research, this article reexamines positionality by revisiting two subjectivities in a three-year qualitative case study with African…

This case study of a community youth theatre project interweaves reflective descriptions of practice, data excerpts and analysis to examine young people's exploration of cultural identity through theatre in a regional city in Australia. The process undertaken to create this work is theorised in relation to concepts of cultural difference and…

Based on a three year self- study (S-STEP) into interrupting heteronormativity on youth and community work courses at a higher education institution, this article explores the reaction to the interruption of heteronormativity on youth and community work courses in a range of HEI institutions. Reactions were nuanced and contextual but concurred…

This research addresses the appeal for more empirical-based research on exclusionary practices in local community sport that often go unchallenged within dominant discourses. By examining how organised community sport clubs can uphold systemic segregation of various ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious and socioeconomic groups, this study also…