Returning to our social justice roots is imperative
As a young man I attended a youth centre in the suburbs of Melbourne that changed my life. The staff there had a mission to see me become the best I could be. They invested in my life through camps, day trips, courses and counsel. They supported me in my down times and rejoiced in my highs. At the time I thought I was the only person they worked with like that. In hindsight I know that is how they worked with us all.
What made these staff so amazing was a belief in what they were doing and a values base which was the foundation of all their work. The motto of the organisation was ‘somewhere to belong’. The staff had a realisation that many people in society are excluded and as such they have a feeling that they do not belong to community. The staff provided a listening ear, a cup of coffee and support amongst much much more for those considered the least in society. This comes from a clear focus on social justice.
As youth workers we need to come back to our roots, social justice. Having a recognition that a hurting generation are being oppressed by systems that are designed to hold them back. A generation being harmed by individuals who claim to be looking out for their best interests. A generation with more potential than we can imagine being told to wait their turn by those who are lost in their own miseries.
It is our social justice roots which allow us to recognise the hurting. It is our social justice roots which call us to step into the gap between those who are hurting and the world. It is our social justice roots which cause us to rally against the systems and individuals who by their actions or inaction cause our young people isolation and harm.
If you call yourself a youth worker then your roots are firmly planted in the values of social justice. Remember this and draw near to it. Your work will grow from strength to strength as you draw near to the values of the profession. We need values oriented practice more than ever before. As governments world wide are pushing to destroy a social just society it is people like us who will remind them of the needs of our young people. It will be those of us with a social justice mindset that change the world.
Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.
Let me just state that from the beginning. I am in awe of so many women in my life. Women I love, Women I work with, Women I studied with… Women who are changing the world.
I have the privilege of working with some of the most amazing and talented women in Australia. When I first started Ultimate Youth Worker a colleague “S” provided me with encouragement and a renewed passion to see youth workers succeed. “S” was in an extremely high paced environment and was going through a difficult time as her contract was coming to an end. She faced it with amazing resolve applied to do a Masters degree and became a full time student. She works in resi care and even though the system is so incredibly broken she supports her clients with care, love and compassion.
About the same time another colleague “A” took me under her wing and took it upon herself to shower me with praise and encouragement. A Human Resources wizz who saw the potential of Ultimate Youth Worker as a business and me as the Director. This woman helped me deliver training, supported me at conferences and let me ramble on about the vision I had for a well supported youth sector. Over endless coffees “A” provided a sounding board and links to networks which helped solidify those early days of Ultimate Youth Worker.
At Eastern College Australia I work with so many amazing, dedicated and qualified women. Teachers, community developers, artists, counsellors and theologians. Women who support me to do my job with admin skills I could only dream of. Women who encourage my work, professional and personal development. Women with vision to see higher education done differently in Australia. Women who are academically excellent and personally filled with faith. Women who breathe life into the lives of students and colleagues every day.
I have studied with so many amazing women. Youth workers and social workers. Women of conviction and vision. Women that study hard and get the grades so that they can provide the best service to their clients. Women who are professional and practice their skills with wisdom and compassion. Women beginning to change the world.
There are also the women I love. My daughters. Young women who give me a run for my money every day. Young women who debate me, teach me and love me back. Young women who see a future of opportunities, who strive to be better every day, who are sporty and academic and compassionate and great cooks and outdoorsy and amazing. Young women who would take on any man and win again and again. Young women who do not suffer fools and who expect the best from those around them. My Wife. A woman who is by my side through thick and think. Who stands against those who attempt to tear me down and who leads my cheerleaders when I succeed. A woman who is highly qualified and exceptional at her job. Who loves her family above all. A woman of noble character who opens her arms to the poorand extends her hands to the needy. A woman of strength, wisdom and blessing.
Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.
As youth workers we draw on many different frameworks to help us make sense of the world our young people live in. One of the most used frameworks in our kit bag is sociology. Through the sociological lens we can analyse social phenomena at different levels and from different perspectives. From concrete interpretations to sweeping generalisations of society and social behaviour, youth workers can study everything from specific events (the micro level of analysis of small social patterns) to the way groups work together (The meso level of analysis of groups and organisations) to the “big picture” (the macro level of analysis of large social patterns).
Below is a bite sized view of the top three perspectives in sociology which all youth workers should have an understanding of:
Symbolic interaction perspective
The symbolic interaction perspective, also called symbolic interactionism, is a major framework of sociological theory. This perspective relies on the symbolic meaning that people develop and rely upon in the process of social interaction. Although symbolic interactionism traces its origins to Max Weber’s assertion that individuals act according to their interpretation of the meaning of their world, the American philosopher George Herbert Mead introduced this perspective to American sociology in the 1920s.
Symbolic interaction theory analyses society by addressing the subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviours. Subjective meanings are given primacy because it is believed that people behave based on what they believe and not just on what is objectively true. Thus, society is thought to be socially constructed through human interpretation. People interpret one another’s behaviour and it is these interpretations that form the social bond.
Critics of this theory claim that symbolic interactionism neglects the macro level of social interpretation—the “big picture.” In other words, symbolic interactionalists may miss the larger issues of society by focusing too closely on the “trees” rather than the “forest”.
The functionalist perspective can be traced back to Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons and has its roots in anthropology. This perspective focuses on social systems as a whole, how they operate, how they change, and the social consequences they produce.
Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the whole society. Society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each part of society is functional for the stability of the whole society. The different parts are primarily the institutions of society, each of which is organized to fill different needs and each of which has particular consequences for the form and shape of society. The parts all depend on each other.
In trying to explain an aspect of a social system, functionalism asks several basic questions:
How is this aspect related to other aspects of the system?
What is its place in the overall operation of the social system?
What kinds of consequences result from this?
How do these consequences contribute or interfere with the operation of the cultural values and the realization of the cultural values on which the system is based?
Functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order that exist in society, focusing on social stability and shared public values. From this perspective, disorganisation in the system, such as deviant behaviour, leads to change because societal components must adjust to achieve stability. When one part of the system is not working or is dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, which leads to social change.
The functionalist perspective achieved its greatest popularity among American sociologists in the 1940s and 1950s. While European functionalists originally focused on explaining the inner workings of social order, American functionalists focused on discovering the functions of human behavior. Among these American functionalist sociologists is Robert K. Merton, who divided human functions into two types: manifest functions, which are intentional and obvious, and latent functions, which are unintentional and not obvious.
Functionalism has been critiqued by many sociologists for its neglect of the often negative implications of social order. Some critics, like Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, claim that the perspective justifies the status quo, and the process of cultural hegemony which maintains it.
Functionalism does not encourage people to take an active role in changing their social environment, even when such change may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees active social change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate in a seemingly natural way for any problems that may arise.
Conflict perspective is one of the major theoretical approaches to sociological thought. It originated with one of the fathers of sociology Karl Marx and his critique of capitalism and has since developed along a number of lines. In general, the conflict perspective assumes that social life is shaped by groups and individuals who struggle or compete with one another over various resources and rewards, resulting in particular distributions of power, wealth, and prestige in societies and social systems. These shape the patterns of everyday life as well as things such as racial, ethnic, and class inequality and relations among nations and regions of the world.
Conflict theory originated in the work of Karl Marx, who focused on the causes and consequences of class conflict between the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production and the capitalists) and the proletariat (the working class and the poor). Focusing on the economic, social, and political implications of the rise of capitalism in Europe, Marx theorized that this system, premised on the existence of a powerful minority class (the bourgeoisie) and an oppressed majority class (the proletariat), created class conflict because the interests of the two were at odds, and resources were unjustly distributed among them.
Within this system an unequal social order was maintained through ideological coercion which created consensus–and acceptance of the values, expectations, and conditions as determined by the bourgeoisie. Marx theorized that the work of producing consensus was done in the “superstructure” of society, which is composed of social institutions, political structures, and culture, and what it produced consensus for was the “base,” the economic relations of production.
Many social theorists have built on Marx’s conflict theory to bolster it, grow it, and refine it over the years. Explaining why Marx’s theory of revolution did not manifest in his lifetime, Italian scholar and activist Antonio Gramsci argued that the power of ideology was stronger than Marx had realized, and that more work needed to be done to overcome cultural hegemony, or rule through common sense.
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, critical theorists who were part of The Frankfurt School, focused their work on how the rise of mass culture (mass produced art, music, and media) contributed to the maintenance of cultural hegemony. More recently, C. Wright Mills drew on conflict theory to describe the rise of a tiny “power elite” composed of military, economic, and political figures who have ruled America from the mid-twentieth century.
Aaron Garth is the Executive Director of Ultimate Youth Worker. Aaron has worked as a youth worker in a number of settings including local church, street drug and alcohol outreach, family services, residential care, local government and youth homelessness since 2003. Aaron is a regular speaker at camps, retreats, & youth work training events and is a dedicated to seeing a more professional youth sector in Australia. Aaron is a graduate of RMIT University and an alumnus of their youth work program. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Jennifer & their daughters Hope, Zoe, Esther, Niamh and son Ezra.
Returning to our social justice roots is imperative
As youth workers we need to come back to our roots, social justice. Having a recognition that a hurting generation are being oppressed by systems that are designed to hold them back. A generation being harmed by individuals who claim to be looking out for their best interests. A generation with more potential than we can imagine being told to wait their turn by those who are lost in their own miseries.
Women are amazing!
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