The end of concepts of youth

Hans van Ewijk

Introduction

I am not sure if my speech is about young people or society. I am not sure if it is about youth policy or social policy. But I know for certain that to treat young people as a category in need for youth policy is highly debatable. Therefore, I'm going to discuss with you the interrelated concepts of youth, identity and society. I will conclude by arguing in favour of a social policy which includes youth policy.

The category of youth

It used to be popular to speak about youth by labelling different generations. The youth of the twenties was called the generation of the youth movement. Young people fighting for peace, a social world, or fighting against smoking and drinking. The next generation was called political youth. They marched in hundreds of thousands behind the banners of fascism, communism and socialism. It ended in a world war and a sceptical generation who didn't believe in the ideologies of the past. And after a silent generation of hardworking young people setting up a welfare state, we had the protest generation. In Berkeley, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam young people had fierce protested against the war in Vietnam, against the political culture of those days, against a one dimensional society. In the eighties unemployment and recession made young people a problem area and the media talked about a lost generation.

There has always been an alternative way of speaking about youth by dividing them into specific groups. There are the marginal or underprivileged youth, the ethnic youth, the hooligans, the first offenders, the unemployed, the drug addicts, the undereducated, the lower class girls, the lads on the work-floor. This kind of categorising suggests rather homogenous groups but in reality we see so much differentiation within these categories that they are hardly useful if you want to determine effective interventions. Even more unhelpful than that, all those categorised groups have a negative connotation which makes things worse.

As a matter of fact society is projecting its social problems onto youth categories. In the name of protection it is all about projection. If needed, we recruit young people as soldiers, as labour force, as change agents, as sex objects, as addicts, as sportsmen. If needed we develop theories that keep young people from the labour market, from minimum incomes, from universities, from the streets. The often well meant intentions and terms in youth policy documents mask that society needs selection between young people, needs classifications, wants young people to keep quiet, to integrate smoothly, to answer the current demands, to use youth as a kind of buffer in solving social and economic problems. Those dark sides are not found in the official youth policy documents. They emphasise only the bright side, keeping up appearances.

Youth is competing with other categorised groups as the elderly, disabled, women, minorities, marginal groups and particularly with the dominating groups in society. The groups in power never define themselves as a category or target group. They see themselves as the hard core of society and label categories by speaking in terms as not-yet, not-full, dependent on, in transition. Therefore, let us try to prevent as much as possible to speak about people as a classification of categories.

The shift in dutch youth policy In the seventies the Dutch youth policy aimed at the emancipation of young people. The age of majority had been reduced from 21 to 18. The idea was that 18 year olds should be fully entitled to minimum wages, to social assistance, to independent living and a fully financed education. There was no reason to treat young adults differently from older adults was the idea. In the eighties and nineties a considerable shift took place in the socio-economic position of young people. Their incomes were lowered, including the minimum youth wages and social security benefits. At the same time, the age at which young people became entitled to the same rights as other employees was raised to 27! Moreover, young people were required to work. No work, no income. This policy was specific for young people and didn't include people from 23 years and older. Because there was a high unemployment rate in those days, there was a creation of a new training and education market for young people to keep them outside the labour market. The policymakers needed arguments for their policy. Most arguments referred implicitly or explicitly to a certain image of young people (negative categorising). Young people were defined as a supply category in the labour market, the price, the quantity and the quality of which could be manipulated. Lowering their incomes could create more demand for young people, doubting their qualities could effect a lower price. Young people were given the status of adults-to-be. To do this required a tour-de-force however. After all, in the 80s the age of majority had been reduced from 21 to 18. As majority is associated with maturity, it became necessary to distinguish between formal maturity (18 years) and actual maturity . The reasoning was that a young person can only be considered mature if he can take care of himself. There was a tendency to place young people in a context of upbringing. From this point of view, an obligation to work could be presented as an educational (= cheaper) instrument. The approach to young people as an immature group in need of guidance was justified by attributing to them a number of characteristics: they are learning, have fewer needs or are at least supposed to have fewer needs, a vital need to work, and can pose a threat to society if unemployed. It can be concluded that during this period young people were categorised to a great extent. They were put into a clearly defined category with its own set of regulations. The effect was a worsening of their position.

A sense of identity

Identity is a popular word in the media, at the bar or the dinner table. We are speaking of identity of peoples, identity of states or communities. Businesses are defining their own identity and every person has a sense of identity. Identity related to a specific age category is less common, except for youth. This relation between youth and identity has been dominant in the last fifty years in the youth debate and has had a great influence on youth policies. This concept of identity became popular through the experiences of both world wars in modern Europe. Young people had to a high extent identified themselves with fascist ideology. They had no autonomy and were determined by powers outside them. Erikson, the big name in identity philosophy, had been convinced that modern societies needed people with a sense of their own, true identity to prevent false identifications with all kinds of ideological systems. But he had difficulties in defining identity. He spoke of a feeling of sameness, a kind of self idea, a corner in the consciousness of an individual and of mankind as such. It is a connection between personality and society. True identity has to do with morality, autonomy, solidarity.

Maybe even more important than the concept of identity was the theory of Erikson about the phases in which identity should have developed. The most important period is the time of adolescence. Somewhere between 14 and let us say 23 young people have to find their true identity. The risk was a false identity, mostly defined as a premature identification with a fixed role or ideology. Therefore, young people needed a period of being young, a kind of an experimental phase and own domain to try out their identity, the so called psychosocial moratorium. Being young meant trying out, a period of transition. Apparently, adulthood was the real thing.

Erikson's identity concept under discussion Erikson’s concept of identity is not sustainable. To start with, Erikson and other identity psychologists, failed to develop an operational concept of identity. It was more of a philosophical concept than an operational one. Secondly, the idea of youth as a specific transition phase is really debatable. Modern people live permanently in transition. In Erikson’s theory young people were leaving their families, finding their partner, looking for their first job and house in a rather short and confusing period. Nowadays leaving the family, finding a partner, finding a job may happen all through your life. Coleman introduced his focal theory, stating that young people did not have to cope with a lot of changes all at once. He pointed out that first experiences with sex and partners, with work, with living independently were gradually and sequentially mastered during a period of about 15 years. A very serious problem with the identity concept is that it wasn't related to the situation people in which people find themselves. It was, as it were, a free floating kind of identity to find in yourself and to develop apart from the position you are in. Later theories about identity talk about a number of identities related to different roles and positions in society. The fact that the idea of a true identity suggests a kind of an universal middle class standard is often debated. Erikson’s ideal identity was an androgynous and rather intellectual one. In many situations such an identity is not really functional. We need in society people with a drive, ruthless ambitions, rather one sided oriented specialism as well.

The identity concept strengthens categorising young people as very special and immature, needing a specific treatment and specific domain. I don’t recognise the picture. All people in society are on the move, looking for partners, jobs, houses, new experiences. Even young people take at least a period of 15 years between their first sex, their first job and a full time workweek and parenthood. I fail to see young people as the age group desperately in need for an identity. Extremely rich young people in the big cities as owners of highly successful virtual companies, very rich minor youth in the field of sport and media, poor young minor single parents, poor young minor refugees, show us two things very clearly: they are all young people with an outspoken and often strong identity and they really are highly different from each other.

It is good to remember the words of Macchiavelli 'The good isn't always and everywhere alike'. In other words, people have and need different identities in different periods of history, in different situations, in different roles.

In our days identity is not the problem. We are no longer worrying about false identifications but about exclusion, lack of responsibility, social cohesion. It has to do with keeping people together. The main strategy comes down to providing everyone in society with a position that suits him or her. With respect to young people, the policy must aim at enabling and supporting them in finding a place in society in accordance with their competences. After a period of characterbuilding, we changed to identity finding and the new millennium starts with development of competences and finding your specific position and role in society as paradigm. 

Concepts of society

When we debate youth and youth policy we can't turn a blind eye to the development of concepts of state and society. The self concept of the state is of great importance for defining policies. The ideas of re-inventing government and the entrepreneurial state have dominated the debate in the last decade. Osborne and Gaebler described the state as an enterprise which needed to be mission driven, to be competitive, to aim at outcome and which put customers first. At the same time the discussion about the nation station emerged, stating that states were disappearing by globalism and virtual society. So we are confused nowadays about the concept of state and society. Generally spoken society has been associated with the state. But when the state is at stake what about society?

Maybe it is wise to go back to Durkheim, one of the founders of social theories. Durkheim believed in an organic society. At the ICSW conference in Jerusalem, two years ago, mr. Eli Yishai spoke in Durkheims spirit about the principle of 'one complete another', and maybe it should be the motto of the ICSW. Durkheim wrote 'every individual needs to be in a position he deserves. We don't think any longer that it is a human destiny to realise in himself the universal qualities of mankind'. According to Durkheim, we have the right to be a specific person with our own qualities and ambitions, differing, we may hope, from other persons. In this respect the entrepreneurial state is in the line of Durkheim. The re-inventing government aims at an achievement oriented state which needs the right person in the right place. So far so good.

But Durkheim had a second line of reasoning. He stressed the importance of solidarity, not a mechanical universalistic categorising one, but an organic one, related to communities. For him the important communities were the family, the neighbourhood but most of all the working community: the office, the industry, the company. For that reason, an organic society is based on the idea of an entrepreneurial state and on solidarity based on communities that keep people together. The third line in the organic society are the social rights such as a guaranteed access to basic education, basic health, basic housing, basic protection and basic standard of living. The definition of ‘basic’ differs, dependent on which country people live in.

Therefore, we need strong states with a clear concept, based on an entrepreneurial attitude, strong communities and well defined social rights.

Three lines, three domains In some countries we see a tendency to develop a social policy as a transaction system between state and private sector. Companies are considered to tender for assignments from the public sector. In this system the third sector is almost absent. In my view this system lacks a more balanced and strategic approach. Social policy asks for commitment, endurance and a specific kind of professionalism. Social policy is rooted in the communities, related to networks and doesn't fit in a simple output based financing system. Moreover the drive of private companies is different from the drive of third sector organisations. Private companies are profit driven. The drive of social companies is their social mission. If I were a managing director of a private company I would do everything to create demand, to rise the turnover, to avoid activities which don't pay enough. As a managing director of a third sector organisation, subsidised by the public sector, I would not create demand but set priorities. My intention wouldn't be to improve the turnover but to improve the communities I worked for, to do the things most needed, which is quite often not the same as most lucrative. In the modern approach of social policies we often learn about a customer driven approach. There are experiments to link social budgets to individuals or groups of individuals. I am doubtful. Social problems have to do with conflicting interests between individuals, or between groups. People want the youngsters out of their neighbourhood. People in the street are negative about a shelter for homeless people. People don't want be confronted with seriously disabled people. Social work has to do with problems between people, which can't be organised in an output system, in a simple demand and supply system. It neglects the very character of social work. Policymakers need to recognise the specific character of social policies and the role of the third sector in this field. Apart from being aware of the importance of volunteers and social workers in the social field, the importance of civic society has to be recognised as well. In the state with 'the three lines' we definitely need 'the three domains' as well.

Youth including social policy

It is time to come to conclusions. Let us see how an inclusive social policy can be the most effective youth policy at the same time. I would like to do this by presenting to you some basic assumptions for a youth including social policy.

1. Inclusive social policy is an integrating one. Mostly we associate integration with integration of services and fields of activities. We often forget to integrate categories. People don't see themselves as a category, nor do they like to be treated as a categorised person. People want their situation to be taken seriously. In stead of an age criterion in allocating housing, health or work, we need assessments based on urgency.
   
   
2. Inclusive social policy is situation oriented. By definition it has to do with social relations. In social problems there are always a number of people and different interests involved. Social problems of young people are mostly related to people of other ages and to the systems they belong to, such as school or work. In coping with the problems of young people, we are dealing at the same time with problems of parents, teachers, neighbours, volunteers and with problems in the field of education, housing, labour. We are not talking about exclusive youth problems but about inclusive social problems.
   
   
3. Inclusive social policy aims at empowerment of individuals as well as communities. The empowerment of individuals is widely recognised; empowerment of communities is more complex. People live in different communities: family, school, office, neighbourhood, church, club, ethnic culture, youth culture, internet community. Social policy recognises the importance of being a member of different communities and looks for methods to empower communities and the individuals who are part of those communities. I'd like to stress the importance of school and work as communities. We often underestimate the social and cultural meaning of work and school.
   
   
4. Inclusive social policy is based on the principle of basic access. Participation and social inclusion both postulate this principle. Social youth including policy is often helping people to realise this entitlement to access by providing information, giving advice, by guiding people if necessary.
   
   
5. Inclusive social policy is local policy. If we start with the situations people are in, we start in the local community. At neighbourhood level we can in a way supervise people and empower them. By embracing the local level we have to realise the complex character of local social policies. Besides that, local social policy has to connect with school and work communities and to refer people to the regional or national care and health provisions. National programs to support communities in this field are vital.
   
   
6. Inclusive social policy is far from a standardised way of working. It respects differences between people regarding competences and ambitions. It respects differences between situations, between communities, between states. If you respect people you don't categorise them.