Partispace

May 2015 marked the starting of PARTISPACE - Spaces and Styles of Participation: Formal, non-formal and informal possibilities for young people’s participation in European cities—a project funded by the European Commission, within the Horizon2020 funding programme. The project brings together ten higher education institutions, from eight European and non-European countries (Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Bulgaria, Turkey and Switzerland). Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Huddersfield are the two UK institutions that participate in the project. Janet Batsleer (Principal Lecturer) and Alexandre Pais (Research Fellow) are the two researchers from MMU involved. The project will be developed within the next three years, with an approximate funding of 2,5 million euros, of which 202,812 € will be allocated to MMU. 

Concerns  about a lack of youth participation are apparently confirmed by evidence of low intentions of young people to participate in European elections, whilst recent protest movements - in France, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Spain, the UK, Sweden and Turkey - reflect conflicts both between young people and society. These are protests in relation to a range of different issues but they also indicate a conflict with regard to recognised forms of participation. Some conflicts relate to tensions between majorities and minorities, others to experiences of alienation in school, lack of jobs and life perspectives, between conservative, authoritarian state and modernised life styles, welfare cuts as reaction to ‘the crisis’ affecting especially young people, while in most cases several factors intersect. These protests are rarely accepted as forms of participation but more often criminalised and delegitimised as ‘riots’. At the same time, policy makers but also representatives of youth and civil society organisations tend to reserve the concept of participation for officially recognised and formalised actions and issues - even if these prove to be not relevant for young people.

Contrary to mainstream discourses according to which young people have to learn to participate, PARTISPACE starts from the assumption that (all) young people do participate, yet in different ways according to their different social positions, interests and needs, biographical experiences and the practices they have acquired. This means that public policies and pedagogical practice can learn from engaging with, listening to, and aiming at understanding young people’s practices: what are the needs, interests, preferences and issues of relevance to young people? What are the challenges emerging from their subjective and collective views? The project will thus not ask if and to what extent young people participate in society.

The central research question of PARTISPACE across eight cities - Bologna (IT), Frankfurt (DE), Gothenburg (SE), Eskisehir (TK), Manchester (UK), Plovdiv (BG), Rennes (FR) and Zurich (CH) - is HOW and WHERE young people do participate differently across social milieus and youth cultural scenes: what STYLES OF PARTICIPATION do they prefer, develop and apply and in what SPACES does participation takes place?

MMU will be leading the work package responsible for the implementation of the local case studies in the eight cities. MMU will work closely with the University of Huddersfield, by actively involving young people in the design and development of the research and of their own action research projects.

The first meeting of the project took place in May, in Frankfurt, and gathered the main actors involved in the development and implementation of the project. The following months will be crucial in setting the local conditions for the development of the action participatory research that characterises the project. The project is an opportunity for MMU to enhance its position as one of the leading UK higher institutions on youth and community research, as well as its relevance in the European scene. Moreover, due to the participatory nature of the project, PARTISPACE will offer the means for a closer relation between universities, local communities, national entities and European structures.

We very much look forward for the next three years. More information about the project can be found at http://partispace.eu/.

Why do I teach?

I enjoy teaching and exploring ideas and practices which enable people to be creators not consumers of learning and development and to support one another in their learning.

How I’ll teach you

I offer a dialogical approach to learning but aim to resource students with the knowledge and skills needed to learn and develop independently.

Why study…

It is an interesting and less control-orientated field of practice than many others which also engage with learning and support. Our work in communities is about motivation and engagement, not compulsion and we always seek to challenge the stigmatising, exclusion, disadvantage and lack of opportunity inflicted on many in urban communities. We work from people’s potential and strengths not from their problems and deficits, whilst acknowledging the systemic nature and impact of inequality. We recognise people’s cultural histories as diverse and potentially empowering in our work.

Postgraduate teaching

I specialise now in supporting students undertaking MA Dissertations in this field.

Recently completed dissertations include:

Cabbie Mdongo A Discourse on Oppression. An Analysis of How it Challenges Successful Empowerment for Women from African Countries Living in the United Kingdom.

Romana Masarova Experiences of adult Czech and Slovak Roma community in North West England in accessing to public services: Housing and Education.

Kate Paxton Measuring the Impact of Youth Work: A Case Study.

Subject areas

Informal Education: Youth and Community Work; Feminist Perspectives

I have supervised many MA dissertations. Current students are working on: Youth Work Methods as Support to Transgender Young People; Inclusion Strategies in work with Young People with Emotional Difficulties; Youth Work as Support to young people with fractured family lives; Informal Learning with post-Prison young people; community development strategies with young Cypriot communities.

I have supervised and examined at PhD level.

Completions

• Diane Watt The Experience of Mothering in Jamaican heritage communities.
• Jane Dalrymple Advocacy and Anti-Oppressive Practice.
• Diane Burns The Single Parent Action Network.
• Ken McLaughlin Social Work and Diminish Subjectivity.
• Alison Healicon Resistance and Identity in a Voluntary Sector Sexual Violence Support Service.

Current Supervision

• Julia Robinson Empowerment Based responses to Therapy in work with women survivors.

My research has focused on the development of critical perspectives in informal learning, particularly in youth work. I have a particular interest in ‘putting theory to work’ in relation to the socio-cultural educative project of community-based learning. I draw on contemporary and historic feminist and anti-racist theory. I am interested in the dialogue between UK based work and European traditions of social pedagogy and socio-cultural animation. I have always supported action research linked to local projects as a way of developing these critical interests. As well as acting as PI for Partispace, a European wide project exploring young people’s experience of participation across 7 European cities, I am currently working with colleagues in Manchester and Trafford on developing evaluation strategies (The Most Significant Change Project), on Co-operative Models of Support to youth work and on Feminist Webs, a project linking oral history, historic and contemporary feminist activism, and girls work.