Youth Work in Turkey: A Sector Newly Emerging and Marked by Political Competition
1
Sociology Department, Yeditepe University, Istanbul 34755, Turkey
2
CRESPPA-LabToP, University Paris 8, Paris CEDEX 17, France
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Soc. Sci. 2018, 7(2), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7020031
Received: 23 January 2018 / Revised: 13 February 2018 / Accepted: 21 February 2018 / Published: 24 February 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from the Conference “The Future of Education and Youth Work: Approaches and Practices around the World”)
Youth work is a very recent field in Turkey and the evolution of the field has been very much influenced by the European institutions, especially with the European Union candidacy process of Turkey. Youth work in Turkey can be analyzed in three different layers since the central government, local government (municipalities) and civil society organization all have youth work activities. During our Horizon 2020 PARTISPACE research project, we conducted ethnographic research to shed light on the local characteristics of youth work in a central Anatolian city in Turkey. The cases we discuss in the scope of this paper based on our ethnographic research includes two youth centers, one run by a central government agency, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the other by a local municipality run by the party of opposition. The study reveals the influence of local dynamics and political competition in the development of youth policy and youth work. Our research demonstrates that, even if youth work is not a priority in the public policy agenda, it has become an object of political competition in Turkey.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
youth work; political competition; youth center; Turkey
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Lüküslü, D.; Osmanoğlu, B. Youth Work in Turkey: A Sector Newly Emerging and Marked by Political Competition. Soc. Sci. 2018, 7, 31.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.