Abstract

This thesis describes research that was undertaken as the second phase of study towards a Professional Doctorate at The University of Sunderland.
Issues associated with children and young people’s rights and participation have fascinated me across my professional career. Initially as a community and youth worker and more recently as an academic who educates community and youth workers to degree level at the University of Sunderland.
One question in particular had intrigued me throughout: How do adults who work with children and young people in professional contexts think about them and how does this impact the ways they work with them, especially in relation to children and young people's right to a voice?
My role as an academic provided me with access to graduate community and youth workers. This profession, more than any other, places responding to the voices and agendas of children and young people at the forefront of its claims to professional identity. Yet my experience within the profession across more than thirty years had raised a second question: Why is there so often a gap between what adults in the profession claim to be achieving in relation to children and young people's voice and what children and young people themselves say is actually happening?
These two questions were combined to provide a focus for the research. Reviews of a range of research and professional literature helped to confirm that there was a gap in the literature covering the issues I was seeking to address. The review also helped to confirm action research as the methodology most congruent with my own philosophical stance and to shape a research question that was designed to capture qualitative data about how graduate community and youth workers constructed knowledge around key concepts associated with voice and rights. Secondly to capture how these constructions impacted their participation practice.
A series of interviews took place with graduates of the Community and Youth Work Degree programme at the University of Sunderland with a small sample being interviewed twice. Several key themes emerged from analysis of the data captured in the interviews. In some aspects the data generated themes that were encouraging. This was particularly the case in relation to the effectiveness of the degree in supporting graduates through complex transitions to a point where their potential to deliver meaningful participation with children and young people in practice was high. In other aspects the data generated themes that were concerning. Most significantly in relation to the capacity of graduates to work through the constraints of practice to ensure that the rights of the children and young people they were working with were met on a consistent basis. This theme confirmed concerns around tokenism and performativity that had emerged from the review of literature.
Following further consideration of the findings a series of conclusions were reached and recommendations made that aim to close the gap between the potential of community and youth work graduates to deliver meaningful participation and the realisation of this potential in practice with children and young people. These recommendations cover the higher education institutions responsible for the education of community and youth workers to degree level; the community and youth work sector as a whole and those involved in research related to the sector.